Xarge#aper tuition 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 
 By JOHN FISKE 
 
 VOLUME I 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/discoveryofameri11fisk 
 

 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF 
 AMERICA 
 
 WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF ANCIENT AMERICA 
 AND THE SPANISH CONQUEST 
 
 By JOHN FISKE 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOLUME FIRST 
 PART ONE 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 prmteu at tl )t fttbersfae 
 
 M DCCC XCII 
 
Copyright, 1892 
 By JOHN FISKE 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Ctoo $unbreb anb Jfiftg Copied ^rinteb 
 
TO 
 
 EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN, 
 
 A SCHOLAR WHO INHERITS THE GIFT OF MIDAS, AND 
 TURNS INTO GOLD WHATEVER SUBJECT HE 
 TOUCHES, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK, WITH 
 GRATITUDE FOR ALL THAT HE 
 HAS TAUGHT ME 
 

PREFACE. 
 
 The present work is the outcome of two lines of 
 study pursued, with more or less interruption from 
 other studies, for about thirty years. It will be 
 observed that the book has two themes, as different 
 in character as the themes for voice and piano in 
 Schubert’s “ Friihlingsglaube,” and yet so closely 
 related that the one is needful for an adequate 
 comprehension of the other. In order to view in 
 their true perspective the series of events com- 
 prised in the Discovery of America, one needs to 
 form a mental picture of that strange world of 
 savagery and barbarism to which civilized Euro- 
 peans were for the first time introduced in the 
 course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in 
 their voyages along the African coast, into the 
 Indian and Pacific oceans, and across the Atlantic. 
 Nothing that Europeans discovered during that 
 stirring period was so remarkable as these antique 
 phases of human society, the mere existence of 
 which had scarcely been suspected, and the real 
 character of which it has been left for the present 
 generation to begin to understand. Nowhere was 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 this ancient society so full of instructive lessons as 
 in aboriginal America, which had pursued its own 
 course of development, cut off and isolated from 
 the Old World, for probably more than fifty thou- 
 sand years. The imperishable interest of those 
 episodes in the Discovery of America known as 
 the conquests of Mexico and Peru consists chiefly 
 in the glimpses they afford us of this primitive 
 world. It was not an uninhabited continent that 
 the Spaniards found, and in order to comprehend 
 the course of events it is necessary to know some- 
 thing about those social features that formed a large 
 part of the burden of the letters of Columbus and 
 Yespucius, and excited even more intense and gen- 
 eral interest in Europe than the purely geograph- 
 ical questions suggested by the voyages of those 
 great sailors. The descriptions of ancient America, 
 therefore, which form a kind of background to the 
 present work, need no apology. 
 
 It was the study of prehistoric Europe and of 
 early Aryan institutions that led me by a natural 
 sequence to the study of aboriginal America. In 
 1869, after sketching the plan of a book on our 
 Aryan forefathers, I was turned aside for five years 
 by writing “ Cosmic Philosophy.” During that in- 
 terval I also wrote “ Myths and Myth-Makers ” as 
 a side-work to the projected book on the Aryans, 
 and as soon as the excursion into the field of gen- 
 eral philosophy was ended, in 1874, the work on 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 vi i 
 
 that book was resumed. Fortunately it was not 
 then carried to completion, for it would have been 
 sadly antiquated by this time. The revolution in 
 theory concerning the Aryans has been as remark- 
 able as the revolution in chemical theory which 
 some years ago introduced the New Chemistry. It 
 is becoming eminently probable that the centre of 
 diffusion of Aryan speech was much nearer to 
 Lithuania than to any part of Central Asia, and 
 it has for some time been quite clear that the state 
 of society revealed in Homer and the Yedas is not 
 at all like primitive society, but very far from it. 
 By 1876 I had become convinced that there was 
 no use in going on without widening the field of 
 study. The conclusions of the Aryan school needed 
 to be supplemented, and often seriously modified, by 
 the study of the barbaric world, and it soon became 
 manifest that for the study of barbarism there is 
 no other field that for fruitfulness can be compared 
 with aboriginal America. 
 
 This is because the progress of society was much 
 slower in the western hemisphere than in the east- 
 ern, and in the days of Columbus and Cortes it 
 had nowhere “ caught up ” to the points reached 
 by the Egyptians of the Old Empire or by the 
 builders of Mycenae and Tiryns. In aboriginal 
 America we therefore find states of society pre- 
 served in stages of development similar to those of 
 our ancestral societies in the Old World long ages 
 
Vlll 
 
 PREFACE . 
 
 before Homer and the Vedas. Many of the social 
 phenomena of ancient Europe are also found in 
 aboriginal America, but always in a more primitive 
 condition. The clan, phratry, and tribe among 
 the Iroquois help us in many respects to get back 
 to the original conceptions of the gens, curia, and 
 tribe among the Romans. We can better under- 
 stand the growth of kingship of the Agamemnon 
 type when we have studied the less developed type 
 in Montezuma. The house-communities of the 
 southern Slavs are full of interest for the student 
 of the early phases of social evolution, but the 
 Mandan round-house and the Zuni pueblo carry us 
 much deeper into the past. Aboriginal American 
 institutions thus afford one of the richest fields in 
 the world for the application of the comparative 
 method, and the red Indian, viewed in this light, 
 becomes one of the most interesting of men ; for 
 in studying him intelligently, one gets down into 
 the stone age of human thought. No time should 
 be lost in gathering whatever can be learned of 
 his ideas and institutions, before their character 
 has been wholly lost under the influence of white 
 men. Under that influence many Indians have 
 been quite transformed, while others have been as 
 yet but little affected. Some extremely ancient 
 types of society, still preserved on this continent 
 in something like purity, are among the most in- 
 structive monuments of the past that can now be 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 found in the world. Such a type is that of the 
 Moquis of northeastern Arizona. I have heard a 
 rumour, which it is to be hoped is ill-founded, that 
 there are persons who wish the United States 
 government to interfere with this peaceful and 
 self-respecting people, break up their pueblo life, 
 scatter them in farmsteads, and otherwise compel 
 them, against their own wishes, to change their 
 habits and customs. If such a cruel and stupid 
 thing were ever to be done, we might justly be 
 said to have equalled or surpassed the folly of 
 those Spaniards who used to make bonfires of 
 Mexican hieroglyphics. It is hoped that the pres- 
 ent book, in which of course it is impossible to 
 do more than sketch the outlines and indicate the 
 bearings of so vast a subject, will serve to awaken 
 readers to the interest and importance of American 
 archaeology for the general study of the evolution 
 of human society. 
 
 So much for the first and subsidiary theme. As 
 for my principal theme, the Discovery of America, 
 I was first drawn to it through its close relations 
 with a subject which for some time chiefly occu- 
 pied my mind, the history of the contact between 
 the Aryan and Semitic worlds, and more particu- 
 larly between Christians and Mussulmans about 
 the shores of the Mediterranean. It is also in- 
 teresting as part of the history of science, and 
 furthermore as connected with the beginnings of 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 one of the most momentous events in the career of 
 mankind, the colonization of the barbaric world by 
 Europeans. Moreover, the discovery of America 
 has its full share of the romantic fascination that 
 belongs to most of the work of the Kenaissance 
 period. I have sought to exhibit these different 
 aspects of the subject. 
 
 The present book is in all its parts written from 
 the original sources of information. The work of 
 modern scholars has of course been freely used, 
 but never without full acknowledgment in text or 
 notes, and seldom without independent verification 
 from the original sources. Acknowledgments are 
 chiefly due to Humboldt, Morgan, Bandelier, Major, 
 Yarnhagen, Markham, Helps, and Harrisse. To 
 the last-named scholar I owe an especial debt of 
 gratitude, in common with all who have studied 
 this subject since his arduous researches were 
 begun. Some of the most valuable parts of his 
 work have consisted in the discovery, reproduction, 
 and collation of documents ; and to some extent 
 his pages are practically equivalent to the original 
 sources inspected by him in the course of years of 
 search through European archives, public and pri- 
 vate. In the present book I must have expressed 
 dissent from his conclusions at least as often as 
 agreement with them, but whether one agrees 
 with him or not, one always finds him helpful and 
 stimulating. Though he has in some sort made 
 
PREFACE . 
 
 xi 
 
 himself a Frenchman in the course of his labours, 
 it is pleasant to recall the fact that M. Harrisse 
 is by birth our fellow-countryman ; and there are 
 surely few Americans of our time whom stu- 
 dents of history have more reason for holding in 
 honour. 
 
 I have not seen Mr. Winsor’s “Christopher 
 Columbus ” in time to make any use of it. Within 
 the last few days, while my final chapter is going 
 to press, I have received the sheets of it, a few 
 days in advance of publication. I do not find in 
 it any references to sources of information which 
 I have not already fully considered, so that our 
 differences of opinion on sundry points may serve 
 to show what diverse conclusions may be drawn 
 from the same data. The most conspicuous differ- 
 ence is that which concerns the personal character 
 of Columbus. Mr. Winsor writes in a spirit of 
 energetic (not to say violent) reaction against the 
 absurdities of Roselly de Lorgues and others who 
 have tried to make a saint of Columbus ; and 
 under the influence of this reaction he offers us a 
 picture of the great navigator that serves to raise 
 a pertinent question. No one can deny that Las 
 Casas was a keen judge of men, or that his stan- 
 dard of right and wrong was quite as lofty as any 
 one has reached in our own time. He had a much 
 more intimate knowledge of Columbus than any 
 modern historian can ever hope to acquire, and he 
 
Xll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 always speaks of him with warm admiration and 
 respect. But how could Las Casas ever have re- 
 spected the feeble, mean-spirited driveller whose 
 portrait Mr. Winsor asks us to accept as that of 
 the Discoverer of America ? 
 
 If, however, instead of his biographical estimate 
 of Columbus, we consider Mr. Winsor’ s contribu- 
 tions toward a correct statement of the difficult 
 geographical questions connected with the subject, 
 we recognize at once the work of an acknowledged 
 master in his chosen field. It is work, too, of the 
 first order of importance. It would be hard to 
 mention a subject on which so many reams of dire- 
 ful nonsense have been written as on the discovery 
 of America ; and the prolific source of so much 
 folly has generally been what Mr. Freeman fitly 
 calls “ bondage to the modern map.” In order to 
 understand what the great mariners of the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries were trying to do, and 
 what people supposed them to have done, one must 
 begin by resolutely banishing the modern map from 
 one’s mind. The ancient map must take its place, 
 but this must not be the ridiculous “ Orbis Vete- 
 ribus Notus,” to be found in the ordinary classical 
 atlas, which simply copies the outlines of coun- 
 tries with modern accuracy from the modern map , 
 and then scatters ancient names over them ! Such 
 maps are worse than useless. In dealing with the 
 discovery of America one must steadily keep before 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 one’s mind the quaint notions of ancient geogra- 
 phers, especially Ptolemy and Mela, as portrayed 
 upon such maps as are reproduced in the present 
 volume. It was just these distorted and hazy notions 
 that swayed the minds and guided the movements 
 of the great discoverers, and went on reproducing 
 themselves upon newly-made maps for a century 
 or more after the time of Columbus. Without 
 constant reference to these old maps one cannot 
 begin to understand the circumstances of the dis- 
 covery of America. 
 
 In no way can one get at the heart of the matter 
 more completely than by threading the labyrinth 
 of causes and effects through which the western 
 hemisphere came slowly and gradually to be known 
 by the name America. The reader will not fail to 
 observe the pains which I have taken to elucidate 
 this subject, not from any peculiar regard for Amer- 
 icus Yespucius, but because the quintessence of the 
 whole geographical problem of the discovery of 
 the New World is in one way or another involved 
 in the discussion. I can think of no finer instance 
 of the queer complications that can come to sur- 
 round and mystify an increase of knowledge too 
 great and rapid to be comprehended by a single 
 generation of men. 
 
 In the solution of the problem as to the first 
 Yespucius voyage I follow the lead of Yarnhagen, 
 but always independently and with the documen- 
 
XIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 tary evidence fully in sight. For some years I 
 vainly tried to pursue Humboldt’s clues to some 
 intelligible conclusion, and felt inhospitably in- 
 clined toward Yarnhagen’ s views as altogether 
 too plausible ; he seemed to settle too many diffi- 
 culties at once. But after becoming convinced 
 of the spuriousness of the Bandini letter (see 
 below, vol. ii. p. 94) ; and observing how the air 
 at once was cleared in some directions, it seemed 
 that further work in textual criticism would be 
 well bestowed. I made a careful study of the dic- 
 tion of the letter from Vespucius to Soderini in its 
 two principal texts : — 1. the Latin version of 
 1507, the original of which is in the library of 
 Harvard University, appended to Waldseemiiller’s 
 44 Cosmographiae Introductio ” ; 2. the Italian text 
 reproduced severally by Bandini, Canovai, and 
 Yarnhagen, from the excessively rare original, of 
 which only five copies are now known to be in 
 existence. It is this text that Yarnhagen regards 
 as the original from which the Latin version of 
 1507 was made, through an intermediate French 
 version now lost. In this opinion Yarnhagen does 
 not stand alone, as Mr. Winsor seems to think 
 ( 44 Christopher Columbus,” p. 540, line 5 from 
 bottom), for Harrisse and Avezac have expressed 
 themselves plainly to the same effect (see below, 
 vol. ii. p. 42). A minute study of this text, 
 with all its quaint interpolations of Spanish and 
 
PREFACE . 
 
 XV 
 
 Portuguese idioms and seafaring phrases into the 
 Italian ground-work of its diction, long ago con- 
 vinced me that it never was a translation from any- 
 thing in heaven or earth or the waters under the 
 earth. Nobody would ever have translated a docu- 
 ment into such an extremely peculiar and individ- 
 ual jargon. It is most assuredly an original text, 
 and its author was either Yespucius or the Old 
 Nick. It was by starting from this text as prim- 
 itive that Yarnhagen started correctly in his inter- 
 pretation of the statements in the letter, and it 
 was for that reason that he was able to dispose of 
 so many difficulties at one blow. When he showed 
 that the landfall of Yespucius on his first voyage 
 was near Cape Honduras and had nothing what- 
 ever to do with the Pearl Coast, he began to follow 
 the right trail, and so the facts which had puzzled 
 everybody began at once to fall into the right 
 places. This is all made clear in the seventh 
 chapter of the present work, where the general 
 argument of Yarnhagen is in many points strongly 
 reinforced. The evidence here set forth in con- 
 nection with the Cantino map is especially signif- 
 icant. 
 
 It is interesting on many accounts to see the 
 first voyage of Yespucius thus elucidated, though 
 it had no connection with the application of his 
 name by Waldseemiiller to an entirely different 
 region from any that was visited upon that voyage. 
 
XVI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The real significance of the third voyage of Ves- 
 pucius, in connection with the naming of America, 
 is now set forth, I believe, for the first time in the 
 light thrown upon the subject by the opinions of 
 Ptolemy and Mela. Neither Humboldt nor Major 
 nor Harrisse nor Yarnhagen seems to have had a 
 firm grasp of what was in W aldseemiiller’s mind 
 when he wrote the passage photographed below in 
 vol. ii. p. 136 of this work. It is only when we 
 keep the Greek and Roman theories in the fore- 
 ground and unflinchingly bar out that intrusive 
 modern atlas, that we realize what the Freiburg 
 geographer meant and whv Ferdinand Columbus 
 was not in the least shocked or surprised. 
 
 I have at various times given lectures on the 
 discovery of America and questions connected 
 therewith, more especially at University College, 
 London, in 1879, at the Philosophical Institution 
 in Edinburgh, in 1880, at the Lowell Institute 
 in Boston, in 1890, and in the course of my work 
 as professor in the Washington University at St. 
 Louis ; but the present work is in no sense what- 
 ever a reproduction of such lectures. 
 
 Acknowledgments are due to Mr. Winsor for 
 his cordial permission to make use of a number of 
 reproductions of old maps and facsimiles already 
 used by him in the “ Narrative and Critical His- 
 tory of America ; ” they are mentioned in the lists 
 
PREFACE . 
 
 XVII 
 
 of illustrations. I have also to thank Dr. Brinton 
 for allowing me to reproduce a page of old Mexican 
 music, and the Hakluyt Society for permission to 
 use the Zeno and Catalan maps and the view of 
 Kakortok church. Dr. Fewkes has very kindly 
 favoured me with a sight of proof-sheets of some 
 recent monographs by Bandelier. And for cour- 
 teous assistance at various libraries I have most 
 particularly to thank Mr. Kieraan of Harvard 
 University, Mr. Appleton Griffin of the Boston 
 Public Library, and Mr. Uhler of the Peabody 
 Institute in Baltimore. 
 
 There is one thing which I feel obliged, though 
 with extreme hesitation and reluctance, to say to 
 my readers in this place, because the time has 
 come when something ought to be said, and there 
 seems to be no other place available for saying it. 
 For many years letters — often in a high degree 
 interesting and pleasant to receive — have been 
 coming to me from persons with whom I am not 
 acquainted, and I have always done my best to 
 answer them. It is a long time since such letters 
 came to form the larger part of a voluminous mass 
 of correspondence. The physical fact has assumed 
 dimensions with which it is no longer possible to 
 cope. If I were to answer all the letters which 
 arrive by every mail, I should never be able to do 
 another day’s work. It is becoming impossible 
 
XV111 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 even to read them all ; and there is scarcely time 
 for giving due attention to one in ten. Kind 
 friends and readers will thus understand that if 
 their queries seem to be neglected, it is by no 
 means from any want of good will, but simply from 
 the lamentable fact that the day contains only 
 four-and-twenty hours. 
 
 Cambridge, October 25 , 1891 . 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 PA 
 
 The American aborigines 1 
 
 Question as to their origin 2, 3 
 
 Antiquity of man in America 4 
 
 Shell-mounds, or middens 4, 5 
 
 The Glacial Period . 6, 7 
 
 Discoveries in the Trenton gravel .... 8 
 
 Discoveries in Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota . . 9 
 
 Mr. Cresson’s discovery at Claymont, Delaware . . 10 
 
 The Calaveras skull 11 
 
 Pleistocene nien and mammals . . . . 12, 13 
 
 Elevation and subsidence 13, 14 
 
 Waves of migration 15 
 
 The Cave men of Europe in the Glacial Period . . 16 
 
 The Eskimos are probably a remnant of the Cave men 17-19 
 There was probably no connection or intercourse by 
 water between ancient America and the Old World . 20 
 
 There is one great American red race .... 21 
 
 Different senses iu which the word “ race ” is used 21-23 
 No necessary connection between differences in culture 
 
 and differences in race 23 
 
 Mr. Lewis Morgan’s classification of grades of cul- 
 ture 24-32 
 
 Distinction between Savagery and Barbarism . . 25 
 
 Origin of pottery ....... 25 
 
 Lower, middle, and upper status of savagery . . 26 
 
 Lower status of barbarism ; it ended differently in the 
 two hemispheres ; in ancient America there was no 
 pastoral stage of development . .... 27 
 
XX 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Importance of Indian corn 28 
 
 Tillage with irrigation 29 
 
 Use of adobe-brick and stone in building . . . 29 
 
 Middle status of barbarism 29, 30 
 
 Stone and copper tools 30 
 
 Working of metals ; smelting of iron .... 30 
 
 Upper status of barbarism 31 
 
 The alphabet and the beginnings of civilization . . 32 
 
 So-called “ civilizations ” of Mexico and Peru . 33, 34 
 
 Loose use of the words “ savagery ” and “ civilization ” 35 
 
 Value and importance of the term “ barbarism ” . 35, 36 
 
 The status of barbarism is most completely exemplified 
 
 in ancient America 36, 37 
 
 Survival of bygone epochs of culture ; work of the 
 
 Bureau of Ethnology 37, 38 
 
 Tribal society and multiplicity of languages in aborigi- 
 nal America . . . . . . . 38, 39 
 
 Tribes in the upper status of savagery ; Athabaskans, 
 
 Apaches, Shoshones, etc 39 
 
 Tribes in the lower status of barbarism ; the Dakota 
 
 group or family 40 
 
 The Minnitarees and Mandans 41 
 
 The Pawnee and Arickaree group .... 42 
 
 The Maskoki group 42 
 
 The Algonquin group 43 
 
 The Huron-Iroquois group 44 
 
 The Five Nations ...... 45-47 
 
 Distinction between horticulture and field agriculture . 48 
 
 Perpetual intertribal warfare, with torture and canni- 
 balism ........ 49-51 
 
 Myths and folk-lore 51 
 
 Ancient law ....... 52, 53 
 
 The patriarchal family not primitive .... 53 
 
 “ Mother-right ” . . . . . . . .54 
 
 Primitive marriage . 55 
 
 The system of reckoning kinship through females only 56 
 
 Original reason for the system 57 
 
 The primeval human horde 58, 69 
 
 Earliest family-group ; the clan ..... 60 
 
 “ Exogamy ” 60 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 xxi 
 
 Phratry and tribe 61 
 
 Effect of pastoral life upon property and upon the 
 
 family 61-63 
 
 The exogamous clan in ancient America ... 64 
 
 Intimate connection of aboriginal architecture with 
 
 social life 65 
 
 The long houses of the Iroquois . . . . 66, 67 
 
 Summary divorce 68 
 
 Hospitality 68 
 
 Structure of the clan 69, 70 
 
 Origin and structure of the phratry . . . 70, 71 
 
 Structure of the tribe 72 
 
 Cross-relationships between clans and tribes ; the Iro- 
 quois Confederacy 72-74 
 
 Structure of the confederacy . . . . 75, 76 
 
 The “ Long House ” 76 
 
 Symmetrical development of institutions in ancient 
 
 America 77, 78 
 
 Circular houses of the Mandans .... 79-81 
 
 The Indians of the pueblos, in the middle status of 
 
 barbarism 82, 83 
 
 Horticulture with irrigation, and architecture with 
 
 adobe 
 
 ... 
 
 83,84 
 
 Possible origin of adobe architecture 
 
 . 
 
 84,85 
 
 Mr. Cushing’s sojourn at Zuni 
 
 . 
 
 . 86 
 
 Typical structure of the pueblo . 
 
 . 
 
 86-88 
 
 Pueblo society .... 
 
 . 
 
 . 89 
 
 Wonderful ancient pueblos in the Chaco valley . 
 
 90-92 
 
 The Moqui pueblos 
 
 . 
 
 . 93 
 
 The cliff-dwellings 
 
 . 
 
 . 93 
 
 Pueblo of Zuni .... 
 
 ... 
 
 93,94 
 
 Pueblo of Tlascala 
 
 . . . 
 
 94-96 
 
 The ancient city of Mexico was a 
 
 great composite 
 
 pueblo 97 
 
 The Spanish discoverers could not be expected to un- 
 derstand the state of society which they found 
 
 there 97, 98 
 
 Contrast between feudalism and gentilism ... 98 
 
 Change from gentile society to political society in 
 Greece and Rome 99, 100 
 
XXII 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 First suspicions as to the erroneousness of the Spanish 
 
 accounts 101 
 
 Detection and explanation of the errors, by Lewis 
 
 Morgan 102 
 
 Adolf Bandelier’s researches 103 
 
 The Aztec Confederacy 104, 105 
 
 Aztec clans 106 
 
 Clan officers 107 
 
 Rights and duties of the clan ..... 108 
 
 Aztec phratries 108 
 
 The tlatocan, or tribal council 109 
 
 The cihuacoatl, or “ snake-woman ” 110 
 
 The tlacatecuhtli, or “ chief-of-men ” . . . . Ill 
 
 Evolution of kingship in Greece and Rome . . . 112 
 
 Mediaeval kingship 113 
 
 Montezuma was a “priest-commander ” . . . 114 
 
 Mode of succession to the office .... 114, 115 
 
 Manner of collecting tribute 116 
 
 Mexican roads 117 
 
 Aztec and Iroquois confederacies contrasted . .118 
 
 Aztec priesthood ; human sacrifices . . . 119, 120 
 
 Aztec slaves . 121, 122 
 
 The Aztec family 122, 123 
 
 Aztec property 124 
 
 Mr. Morgan’s rules of criticism 125 
 
 He sometimes disregarded his own rules . . . 126 
 
 Amusing illustrations from his remarks on “ Monte- 
 zuma’s Dinner ” 126-128 
 
 The reaction against uncritical and exaggerated state- 
 ments was often carried too far by Mr. Morgan 128, 129 
 Great importance of the middle period of barbarism . 130 
 
 The Mexicans compared with the Mayas . . 131-133 
 
 Maya hieroglyphic writing 132 
 
 Ruined cities of Central America . . . 134-138 
 
 They are probably not older than the twelfth century 136 
 Recent discovery of the Chronicle of Chicxulub . . 138 
 
 Maya culture very closely related to Mexican . . 139 
 
 The “ Mound-Builders ”..... 140-146 
 
 The notion that they were like the Aztecs . . . 142 
 
 Or, perhaps, like the Zunis ..... 143 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXlll 
 
 These notions are not well sustained .... 144 
 
 The mounds were probably built by different peoples 
 in the lower status of barbarism, by Cherokees, 
 Shawnees, and other tribes .... 144, 145 
 
 It is not likely that there was a “ race of Mound Build- 
 ers ” 146 
 
 Society in America at the time of the Discovery had 
 reached stages similar to stages reached by east- 
 ern Mediterranean peoples fifty or sixty centuries 
 earlier 146, 147 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 Stories of voyages to America before Columbus ; the 
 
 Chinese . . 148 
 
 The Irish 149 
 
 Blowing and drifting ; Cousin, of Dieppe . . . 150 
 
 These stories are of small value 150 
 
 But the case of the Northmen is quite different . . 151 
 
 The Viking exodus from Norway . . . 151, 152 
 
 Founding of a colony in Iceland, A. D. 874 . . . 153 
 
 Icelandic literature ....... 154 
 
 Discovery of Greenland, A. d. 876 . . . 155, 156 
 
 Eric the Red, and his colony in Greenland, a. d. 
 
 986 157-161 
 
 Voyage of Bjarni Herjulfsson 162 
 
 Conversion of the Northmen to Christianity . . 163 
 
 Leif Ericsson’s voyage, A. d. 1000 ; Helluland and 
 
 Markland 164 
 
 Leif’s winter in Vinland 165, 166 
 
 Voyages of Thorvald and Thorstein .... 167 
 Thorfinn Karlsefni, and his unsuccessful attempt to 
 found a colony in Vinland, A. d. 1007-10 . 167-169 
 
 Freydis, and her evil deeds in Vinland, 1011-12 170, 171 
 
 Voyage into Baffin’s Bay, 1135 172 
 
 Description of a Viking ship discovered at Sandefiord, 
 in Norway 173-175 
 
XXIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 To what extent the climate of Greenland may have 
 changed within the last thousand years . . 176, 177 
 
 With the Northmen once in Greenland, the discovery 
 
 of the American continent was inevitable 
 
 . 178 
 
 Ear-marks of truth in the Icelandic narratives 
 
 . 179, 180 
 
 Northern limit of the vine .... 
 
 . 181 
 
 Length of the winter day .... 
 
 . 182 
 
 Indian corn ...... 
 
 . 182, 183 
 
 Winter weather in Vinland .... 
 
 . 184 
 
 Vinland was probably situated somewhere between 
 
 Cape Breton and Point Judith . 
 
 . 185 
 
 Further ear-marks of truth ; savages and barbarians 
 of the lower status were unknown to mediaeval Eu- 
 ropeans 185, 186 
 
 The natives of Vinland as described in the Icelandic 
 
 narratives . 187-193 
 
 Meaning of the epithet “ Skraelings ” . . . 188, 189 
 
 Personal appearance of the Skraelings .... 189 
 
 The Skraelings of Vinland were Indians, — very likely 
 Algonquins ........ 190 
 
 The “balista” or “ demon’s head” . . . 191,192 
 
 The story of the “ uniped ” 193 
 
 Character of the Icelandic records ; misleading asso- 
 ciations with the word “ saga ” .... 194 
 
 The comparison between Leif Ericsson and Agamem- 
 non, made by a committee of the Massachusetts His- 
 torical Society, was peculiarly unfortunate and in- 
 appropriate . 194, 197 
 
 The story of the Trojan War, in the shape in which we 
 
 find it in Greek poetry, is pure folk-lore . . . 195 
 
 The Saga of Eric the Red is not folk-lore . . . 196 
 
 Mythical and historical sagas ..... 197 
 
 The western or Hauks-b<5k version of Eric the Red’s 
 
 Saga 198 
 
 The northern or Flateyar-b6k version .... 199 
 
 Presumption against sources not contemporary . . 200 
 
 Hauk Erlendsson and his manuscripts . . . 201 
 
 The story is not likely to have been preserved to 
 Hauk’s time by oral tradition only .... 202 
 
 Allusions to Vinland in other Icelandic documents 202-207 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 xxv 
 
 Eyrbyggja Saga .203 
 
 The abbot Nikulas, etc 204 
 
 Ari Frbdhi and his works 204 
 
 His significant allusion to Vinland .... 205 
 
 Other references 206 
 
 Differences between Hauks-b6k and Flateyar-bbk ver- 
 sions . 207 
 
 Adam of Bremen 208 
 
 Importance of his testimony 209 
 
 His misconception of the situation of Vinland . . 210 
 
 Summary of the argument 211-213 
 
 Absurd speculations of zealous antiquarians . 213-215 
 
 The Dighton inscription was made by Algonquins, and 
 has nothing to do with the Northmen . . 213, 214 
 
 Governor Arnold’s stone windmill .... 215 
 
 There is no reason for supposing that the Northmen 
 
 founded a colony in Vinland 216 
 
 No archaeological remains of them have been found 
 
 south of Davis strait 217 
 
 If the Northmen had founded a successful colony, they 
 would have introduced domestic cattle into the North 
 
 American fauna 218 
 
 And such animals could not have vanished and left no 
 
 trace of their existence 219, 220 
 
 Further fortunes of the Greenland colony . . . 221 
 
 Bishop Eric’s voyage in search of Vinland, 1121 . . 222 
 
 The ship from Markland, 1347 223 
 
 The Greenland colony attacked by Eskimos, 1349 . 224 
 
 Queen Margaret’s monopoly, and its baneful effects . 225 
 
 Story of the Venetian brothers, Nicolb and Antonio 
 
 Zeno 226 
 
 Nicolb Zeno wrecked upon one of the Faeroe islands . 227 
 
 He enters the service of Henry Sinclair, Earl of the 
 
 Orkneys and Caithness 228 
 
 Nicolb’s voyage to Greenland, cir. 1394 . . . 229 
 
 Voyage of Earl Sinclair and Antonio Zeno . . 229, 230 
 
 Publication of the remains of the documents by the 
 
 younger Nicolb Zeno, 1558 231 
 
 The Zeno map 232, 233 
 
 Queer transformations of names .... 234-236 
 
XXVI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The name Fceroislander became Frislanda . 
 
 The narrative nowhere makes a claim to the “ dis- 
 covery of America ” ...... 
 
 The “ Zichmni ” of the narrative means Henry Sin- 
 clair ......... 
 
 Bardsen’s “ Description of Greenland ”... 
 The monastery of St. Olaus and its hot spring 
 Volcanoes of the north Atlantic ridge .... 
 
 Fate of Gunnbjorn’s Skerries, 1456 .... 
 
 Volcanic phenomena in Greenland . . . 242, 
 
 Estotiland 
 
 Drogio 
 
 Inhabitants of Drogio and the countries beyond . 
 
 The Fisherman’s return to Frislanda .... 
 Was the account of Drogio woven into the narrative 
 
 by the younger Nicolb ? 
 
 Or does it represent actual experiences in North 
 
 America ? 
 
 The case of David Ingram, 1568 
 
 The case of Cabeza de Vaca, 1528-36 .... 
 There may have been unrecorded instances of visits to 
 
 North America 
 
 The pre-Columbian voyages made no real contributions 
 
 to geographical knowledge 
 
 And were in no true sense a discovery of America 
 Real contact between the eastern and western hemi- 
 sphere was first established by Columbus 
 
 236 
 
 237 
 
 238 
 
 239 
 
 240 
 
 241 
 
 242 
 
 243 
 
 244 
 
 245 
 
 246 
 
 247 
 
 248 
 
 249 
 
 250 
 
 251 
 
 252 
 
 253 
 
 254 
 
 255 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Portrait of the author . . . Frontispiece 
 
 View and ground-plan of Seneca-Iroquois long house 
 reduced from Morgan’s Houses and House-Life of the 
 
 American Aborigines 
 
 View, cross-section, and ground-plan of Mandan round 
 
 house, ditto 
 
 Ground-plan of Pueblo Hungo Pavie, ditto . 
 
 Restoration of Pueblo Hungo Pavie, ditto . 
 
 Restoration of Pueblo Bonito, ditto .... 
 Ground-plan of Pueblo Penasca Blanca, ditto 
 Ground-plan of so-called " House of the Nuns ” at 
 
 Uxmal, ditto 
 
 Map of the East Bygd, or eastern settlement of the 
 Northmen in Greenland, reduced from Rafn’s Anti- 
 
 quitates Americance 160, 
 
 Ruins of the church at Kakortok, from Major’s Voyages 
 of the Zeni , published by the Hakluyt Society 
 Zeno Map, cir. 1400, ditto 232, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 66 
 
 80 
 
 86 
 
 88 
 
 90 
 
 92 
 
 133 
 
 161 
 
 222 
 
 233 
 

 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 When the civilized people of Europe first be- 
 came acquainted with the continents of North and 
 South America, they found them inhabited by a 
 race of men quite unlike any of the races with 
 which they were familiar in the Old World. Be- 
 tween the various tribes of this aboriginal Ameri- 
 can race, except in the sub-arctic region, The American 
 there is now seen to be a general phys- aborigilie8 - 
 ical likeness, such as to constitute an American 
 type of mankind as clearly recognizable as those 
 types which we call Mongolian and Malay, though 
 far less pronounced than such types as the Aus- 
 tralian or the negro. The most obvious charac- 
 teristics possessed in common by the American 
 aborigines are the copper-coloured or rather the 
 cinnamon-coloured complexion, along with the high 
 cheek-bones and small deepset eyes, the straight 
 black hair and absence or scantiness of beard. 
 With regard to stature, length of limbs, massive- 
 ness of frame, and shape of skull, considerable 
 
2 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 divergencies may be noticed among the various 
 American tribes, as indeed is also the case among 
 the members of the white race in Europe, and of 
 other races. With regard to culture the differ- 
 ences have been considerable, although, with two 
 or three apparent but not real exceptions, there 
 was nothing in pre-Columbian America that could 
 properly be called civilization ; the general condi- 
 tion of the people ranged all the way from sav- 
 agery to barbarism of a high type. 
 
 Soon after America was proved not to be part 
 of Asia, a puzzling question arose. Whence came 
 these “ Indians,” and in what manner did they find 
 their way to the western hemisphere. Since the 
 beginning of the present century discoveries in 
 geology have entirely altered our mental attitude 
 toward this question. It was formerly argued 
 upon the two assumptions that the geographical 
 relations of land and water had been always pretty 
 much the same as we now find them, and that all 
 the racial differences among men have arisen since 
 the date of the “ Noachian Deluge,” which was 
 Question as to generally placed somewhere between 
 their origin, two and three thousand years before 
 
 the Christian era. Hence inasmuch as Euro- 
 pean tradition knows nothing of any such race as 
 the Indians, it was supposed that at some time 
 within the historic period they must have moved 
 eastward from Asia into America ; and thus 
 “ there was felt to be a sort of speculative neces- 
 sity for discovering points of resemblance between 
 American languages, myths, and social observances 
 and those of the Oriental world. Now the abori- 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 3 
 
 gines of this Continent were made out to be Kam- 
 tchatkans, and now Chinamen, and again they were 
 shown, with quaint erudition, to be remnants of 
 the ten tribes of Israel. Perhaps none of these 
 theories have been exactly disproved, but they 
 have all been superseded and laid on the shelf.” 1 
 
 1 See my Excursions of an Evolutionist , p. 148. A good suc- 
 cinct account of these various theories, monuments of wasted in- 
 genuity, is given in Short’s North Americans of Antiquity , chap, 
 iii. The most elaborate statement of the theory of an Israelite 
 colonization of America is to he found in the ponderous tomes of 
 Lord Kingsborough, Mexican Antiquities , London, 1831-48, 9 vols. 
 elephant-folio. Such a theory was entertained by the author of 
 that curious piece of literary imposture, The Book of Mormon. In 
 this hook we are told that, when the tongues were confounded 
 at Babel, the Lord selected a certain Jared, with his family and 
 friends, and instructed them to build eight ships, in which, after 
 a voyage of 344 days, they were brought to America, where they 
 “did build many mighty cities,” and “prosper exceedingly.” 
 But after some centuries they perished because of their iniquities. 
 In the reign of Zedekiab, when calamity was impending over 
 Judah, two brothers, Nephi and Laman, under divine guidance 
 led a colony to America. There, says the veracious chronicler, 
 their descendants became great nations, and worked in iron, and 
 had stuffs of silk, besides keeping plenty of oxen and sheep. 
 {Ether, ix. 18, 19; x. 23, 24.) Christ appeared and wrought 
 many wonderful works; people spake with tongues, and the 
 dead were raised. (3 Nephi, xxvi. 14, 15.) But about the close 
 of the fourth century of our era, a terrible war between Laman- 
 ites and Nephites ended in the destruction of the latter. Some 
 two million warriors, with their wives and children, having been 
 slaughtered, the prophet Mormon escaped, with his son Moroni, 
 to the “hill Cumorah,” hard by the “ waters of Ripliancum,” or 
 Lake Ontario. {Ether, xv. 2, 8, 11.) There they hid the sacred 
 tablets, which remained concealed until they were miraculously 
 discovered and translated by Joseph Smith in 1827. There is, of 
 course, no element of tradition in this story. It is all pure fiction, 
 and of a very clumsy sort, such as might easily be devised by an 
 ignorant man accustomed to the language of the Bible ; and of 
 course it was suggested by the old notion of the Israelitish origin 
 of the red men. The references are to The Book of Mormon, Salt 
 Lake City : Deseret News Co., 1885. 
 
4 
 
 THE DISCOVEBY OF AMEBIC A. 
 
 The tendency of modern discovery is indeed to- 
 ward agreement with the time-honoured tradition 
 which makes the Old World, and perhaps Asia, 
 the earliest dwelling-place of mankind. Competi- 
 tion has been far more active in the fauna of the 
 eastern hemisphere than in that of the western, 
 natural selection has accordingly resulted in the 
 evolution of higher forms, and it is there that we 
 find both extinct and surviving species of man's 
 nearest collateral relatives, those tailless half- 
 human apes, the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, and 
 gibbon. It is altogether probable that the people 
 whom the Spaniards found in America came by 
 migration from the Old World. But it is by no 
 means probable that their migration occurred 
 within so short a period as five or six thousand 
 Antiquity of years. A series of observations and 
 America. discoveries kept up for the last half- 
 
 century seem to show that North America has been 
 continuously inhabited by human beings since the 
 earliest Pleistocene times, if not earlier. 
 
 The first group of these observations and dis- 
 coveries relate to “ middens ” or shell-heaps. On 
 the banks of the Damariscotta river in Maine are 
 some of the most remarkable shell-heaps in the 
 world. With an average thickness of six or seven 
 feet, they rise in places to a height of twenty-five 
 feet. They consist almost entirely of 
 huge oyster-shells often ten inches in 
 length and sometimes much longer. The shells 
 belong to a salt-water species. In some places 
 “ there is an appearance of stratification covered 
 by an alternation of shells and earth, as if the 
 
 Shell-mounds. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 5 
 
 deposition of shells had been from time to time in- 
 terrupted, and a vegetable mould had covered the 
 surface.” In these heaps have been found frag- 
 ments of pottery and of the bones of such edible 
 animals as the moose and deer. “ At the very 
 foundation of one of the highest heaps,” in a sit- 
 uation which must for long ages have been undis- 
 turbed, Mr. Edward Morse “ found the remains of 
 an ancient fire-place, where he exhumed charcoal, 
 bones, and pottery.” 1 The significant circum- 
 stance is that “at the present time oysters are 
 only found in very small numbers, too small to 
 make it an object to gather them,” and so far as 
 memory and tradition can reach, such seems to 
 have been the case. The great size of the heap, 
 coupled with the notable change in the distribution 
 of this mollusk since the heap was abandoned, im- 
 plies a very considerable lapse of time since the 
 vestiges of human occupation were first left here. 
 Similar conclusions have been drawn from the 
 banks or mounds of shells on the St. John’s river 
 in Florida, 2 on the Alabama river, at Grand Lake 
 on the lower Mississippi, and at San Pablo in the 
 bay of San Francisco. Thus at various points 
 from Maine to California, and in connection with 
 one particular kind of memorial, we find records 
 of the presence of man at a period undoubtedly 
 prehistoric, but not necessarily many thousands of 
 years old. 
 
 1 Second Annual Report of the Peabody Museum of American 
 Archaeology, etc., p. 18. 
 
 2 Visited in 1866-74 by Professor Jeffries Wyman, and described 
 in his Fresh-Water Shell Mounds of the St. John's River, Cam- 
 bridge, 1875. 
 
6 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 The second group of discoveries carries us back 
 much farther, even into the earlier stages of that 
 widespread glaciation which was the most remark- 
 able feature of the Pleistocene period. At the 
 periods of greatest cold “ the continent of North 
 The oiaciai America was deeply swathed in ice as 
 Period. far south as the latitude of Philadel- 
 phia, while glaciers descended into North Caro- 
 lina.” 1 The valleys of the Rocky Mountains also 
 supported enormous glaciers, and a similar state of 
 things existed at the same time in Europe. These 
 periods of intense cold were alternated with long 
 interglacial periods during which the climate was 
 warmer than it is to-day. Concerning the anti- 
 quity of the Pleistocene age, which was character- 
 ized by such extraordinary vicissitudes of heat and 
 cold, there has been, as in all questions relating to 
 geological time, much conflict of opinion. Twenty 
 years ago geologists often argued as if there were 
 an unlimited fund of past time upon which to 
 draw ; but since Sir William Thomson and other 
 physicists emphasized the point that in an anti- 
 quity very far from infinite this earth must have 
 been a molten mass, there has been a reaction. 
 In many instances further study has shown that 
 less time was needed in order to effect a given 
 change than had formerly been supposed ; and so 
 there has grown up a tendency to shorten the time 
 assigned to geological periods. Here, as in so 
 many other cases, the truth is doubtless to be 
 sought within the extremes. If we adopt the 
 magnificent argument of Dr. Croll, which seems 
 
 1 Excursions of an Evolutionist , p. 39. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 7 
 
 to me still to hold its ground against all adverse 
 criticism, 1 and regard the Glacial epoch as coin- 
 cident with the last period of high eccentricity of 
 the earth’s orbit, we obtain a result that is moder- 
 ate and probable. That astronomical period be- 
 gan about 240,000 years ago and came to an end 
 about 80,000 years ago. During this period the 
 eccentricity was seldom less than .04, and at one 
 time rose to .0569. At the present time the eccen- 
 tricity is .0168, and nearly 800,000 years will pass 
 before it attains such a point as it reached during 
 the Glacial epoch. For the last 50,000 years the 
 departure of the earth’s orbit from a circular form 
 has been exceptionally small. 
 
 Now the traces of the existence of men in North 
 America during the Glacial epoch have in recent 
 years been discovered in abundance, as for exam- 
 ple, the palaeolithic quartzite implements found 
 in the drift near the city of St. Paul, which date 
 from toward the close of the Glacial epoch ; 2 the 
 fragment of a human jaw found in the red clay 
 deposited in Minnesota during an earlier part of 
 
 1 Croll, Climate and Time in their Geological Relations , New 
 York, 1875 ; Discussions on Climate and Cosmology , New York, 
 1886 ; Archibald Geikie, Text Booh of Geology , pp. 23-29, 883- 
 909, London, 1882 ; James Geikie, The Great Ice Age , pp. 94-136, 
 New York, 1874 ; Prehistoric Europe , pp. 558-562, London, 1881 ; 
 Wallace, Island Life , pp. 101-225, New York, 1881. Some objec- 
 tions to Croll’ s theory may be found in Wright’s Ice Age in North 
 America , pp. 405-505, 585-595, New York, 1889. I have given 
 a brief account of the theory in my Excursions of an Evolutionist , 
 pp. 57-76. 
 
 2 See Miss F. E. Babbitt, “Vestiges of Glacial Man in Minne- 
 sota,” in Proceedings of the American Association , vol. xxxii-, 
 1883. 
 
8 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 that epoch; 1 the noble collection of palseoliths 
 found by Dr. C. C. Abbott in the Trenton gravels 
 in New Jersey ; and the more recent discoveries 
 of Dr. Metz and Mr. H. T. Cresson. 
 
 The year 187 8 marks an era in American archae- 
 ology as memorable as the year 1841 in the in- 
 vestigation of the antiquity of man in Europe. 
 With reference to these problems Dr. Abbott 
 occupies a position similar to that of Boucher de 
 Perthes in the Old World, and the Trenton valley 
 is coming to be classic ground, like the valley of 
 the Somme. In April, 1873, Dr. Abbott published 
 his description of three rude implements which he 
 had found some sixteen feet below the surface of 
 the ground “ in the gravels of a bluff overlooking 
 the Delaware river.” The implements 
 
 Discoveries in . _ . - . - , - 
 
 the Trenton were m place m an undisturbed deposit, 
 and could not have found their way 
 thither in any recent time ; Dr. Abbott assigned 
 them to the age of the Glacial drift. This was 
 the beginning of a long series of investigations, 
 in which Dr. Abbott’s work was assisted and sup- 
 plemented by Messrs. Whitney, Carr, Putnam, 
 Shaler, Lewis, Wright, Haynes, Dawkins, and 
 other eminent geologists and archaeologists. By 
 1888 Dr. Abbott had obtained not less than 60 
 implements from various recorded depths in the 
 gravel, while many others were found at depths 
 not recorded or in the talus of the banks. 2 Three 
 human skulls and other bones, along with the tusk 
 
 1 See N. H. Winchell, Annual Report of the State Geologist of 
 Minnesota , 1877, p. 60. 
 
 2 Wright’s Ice Age in North America , p. 516. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 9 
 
 of a mastodon, have been discovered in the same 
 gravel. Careful studies have been made of the 
 conditions under which the gravel-banks were de- 
 posited and their probable age ; and it is generally 
 agreed that they date from the later portion of 
 the Glacial period, or about the time of the final 
 recession of the ice-sheet from this region. At 
 that time, in its climate and general aspect, New 
 York harbour must have been much like a Green- 
 land fiord of the present day. In 1883 Professor 
 Wright of Oberlin, after a careful study of the 
 Trenton deposits and their relations to the terrace 
 and gravel deposits to the westward, predicted 
 that similar palaeolithic implements would be 
 found in Ohio. Two years afterward, the predic- 
 tion was verified by Dr. Metz, who found a true 
 palaeolith of black flint at Madisonville, in the 
 Little Miami valley, eight feet below the surface. 
 Since then further discoveries have been made in 
 the same neighbourhood by Dr. Metz, and in Jack- 
 son county, Indiana, by Mr. H. T. Cres- Disc0Terie , in 
 son ; and the existence of man in that 
 part of America toward the close of the 80ta; 
 Glacial period may be regarded as definitely es- 
 tablished. The discoveries of Miss Babbitt and 
 Professor Winchell, in Minnesota, carry the con- 
 clusion still farther, and add to the probability of 
 the existence of a human population all the way 
 from the Atlantic coast to the upper Mississippi 
 valley at that remote antiquity. 
 
 A still more remarkable discovery was made by 
 Mr. Cresson in July, 1887, at Claymont, in the 
 north of Delaware. In a deep cut of the Balti- 
 
10 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 more and Ohio Railroad, in a stratum of Phila- 
 and in Deia- delphia red gravel and brick clay, Mr. 
 ware. Cresson obtained an unquestionable pa- 
 
 lseolith, and a few months afterward his diligent 
 search was rewarded with another. 1 This forma- 
 tion dates from far back in the Glacial period. 
 If we accept Dr. Croll’s method of reckoning, we 
 can hardly assign to it an antiquity less than 
 
 150.000 years. 
 
 1 The chipped implements discovered by Messrs. Abbott, Metz, 
 and Cresson, and by Miss Babbitt, are all on exhibition at the 
 Peabody Museum in Cambridge, whither it is necessary to go if 
 one would get a comprehensive view of the relics of interglacial 
 man in North America. The collection of implements made by 
 Dr. Abbott includes much mere than the palseoliths already re- 
 ferred to. It is one of the most important collections in the 
 world, and is worth a long journey to see. Containing more than 
 
 20.000 implements, all found within a very limited area in New 
 Jersey, ‘‘as now arranged, the collection exhibits at one and the 
 same time the sequence of peoples and phases of development in 
 the valley of the Delaware, from palaeolithic man, through the 
 intermediate period, to the recent Indians, and the relative 
 numerical proportion of the many forms of their implements, 
 each in its time. ... It is doubtful whether any similar collec- 
 tion exists from which a student can gather so much information 
 at sight as in this, where the natural pebbles from the gravel be- 
 gin the series, and the beautifully chipped points of chert, jasper, 
 and quartz terminate it in one direction, and the polished celts 
 and grooved stone axes in the other.” There are three principal 
 groups, — first, the interglacial palaeoliths, secondly, the argillite 
 points and flakes, and thirdly, the arrow-heads, knives, mortars 
 and pestles, axes and hoes, ornamental stones, etc., of Indians of 
 the recent period. Dr. Abbott’s Primitive Industry , published in 
 1881, is a useful manual for studying this collection ; and an ac- 
 count of his discoveries in the glacial gravels is given in Reports 
 of the Peabody Museum , vol. ii. pp. 30-48, 225-258 ,* see also vol. 
 iii. p. 492. A succinct and judicious account of the whole subject 
 is given by H. W. Haynes, “ The Prehistoric Archaeology of 
 North America,” in Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History , 
 vol. i. pp. 329-368. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 11 
 
 But according to Professor Josiah Whitney 
 there is reason for supposing that man existed in 
 California at a still more remote period. The Calaveraa 
 He holds that the famous skull dis- 8kuU * 
 covered in 1866, in the gold-hearing gravels of 
 Calaveras county, belongs to the Pliocene age. 1 
 If this be so, it seems to suggest an antiquity not 
 less than twice as great as that just mentioned. 
 The question as to the antiquity of the Calaveras 
 skull is still hotly disputed among the foremost 
 palaeontologists, but as one reads the arguments 
 one cannot help feeling that theoretical difficulties 
 have put the objectors into a somewhat inhospit- 
 able attitude toward the evidence so ably pre- 
 sented by Professor Whitney. It has been too 
 hastily assumed that, from the point of view of 
 evolution, the existence of Pliocene man is im- 
 probable. Upon general considerations, however, 
 we have strong reason for believing that human 
 beings must have inhabited some portions of the 
 earth throughout the whole duration of the Plio- 
 cene period, and it need not surprise us if their 
 remains are presently discovered in more places 
 than one. 2 
 
 1 J. D. Whitney, “The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Ne- 
 vada,” Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Har- 
 vard College , Cambridge, 1880, vol. vi. 
 
 2 In an essay published in 1882 on “ Europe before the Arrival 
 of Man” {Excursions of an Evolutionist , pp. 1-40), I argued that 
 if we are to find traces of the “missing link,” or primordial 
 stock of primates from which man has been derived, we must 
 undoubtedly look for it in the Miocene (p. 36). I am pleased 
 at finding the same opinion lately expressed by one of the highest 
 living authorities. The case is thus stated by Alfred Russel Wal- 
 lace : “ The evidence we now possess of the exact nature of the 
 
12 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Whatever may be the final outcome of the Ca- 
 laveras controversy, there can be no doubt as to 
 the existence of man in North America far back 
 in early Pleistocene times. The men of the River- 
 drift, who long dwelt in western Europe during 
 
 resemblance of man to the various species of anthropoid apes, 
 shows us that he has little special affinity for any one rather than 
 another species, while he differs from them all in several impor- 
 tant characters in which they agree with each other. The con- 
 clusion to be drawn from these facts is, that his points of affinity 
 connect him with the whole group, while his special peculiarities 
 equally separate him from the whole group, and that he must, 
 therefore, have diverged from the common ancestral form before 
 the existing types of anthropoid apes had diverged from each 
 other. Now this divergence almost certainly took place as early 
 as the Miocene period, because in the Upper Miocene deposits of 
 western Europe remains of two species of ape have been found 
 allied to the gibbons, one of them, dryopithecus, nearly as large 
 as a man, and believed by M. Lartet to have approached man 
 in its dentition more than the existing apes. We seem hardly, 
 therefore, to have reached in the Upper Miocene the epoch of the 
 common ancestor of man and the anthropoids.” ( Darwinism , p. 
 455, London, 1889.) Mr. Wallace goes on to answer the objec- 
 tion of Professor Boyd Dawkins, “that man did not probably 
 exist in Pliocene times, because almost all the known mammalia 
 of that epoch are distinct species from those now living on the 
 earth, and that the same changes of the environment which led 
 to the modification of other mammalian species would also have 
 led to a change in man.” This argument, at first sight apparently 
 formidable, quite overlooks the fact that in the evolution of man 
 there came a point after which variations in his intelligence were 
 seized upon more and more exclusively by natural selection, to 
 the comparative neglect of physical variations. After that point 
 man changed but little in physical characteristics, except in size 
 and complexity of brain. This is the theorem first propounded 
 by Mr. Wallace in the Anthropological Review , May, 1864 ; re- 
 stated in his Contributions to Natural Selection , chap, ix., in 1870 ; 
 and further extended and developed by me in connection with the 
 theory of man’s origin first suggested in my lectures at Harvard 
 in 1871, and worked out in Cosmic Philosophy , part ii., chapters 
 
 X Vl., XXl*j XX11» 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 13 
 
 the milder intervals of the Glacial period, but 
 seem to have become extinct toward the end of it, 
 are well known to palaeontologists through their 
 bones and their rude tools. Contemporaneously 
 with these Europeans of the River-drift there cer- 
 tainly lived some kind of men, of a similar low 
 grade of culture, in the Mississippi valley and on 
 both the Atlantic and Pacific slopes of 
 
 . . . _ _ Pleistocene 
 
 .North America. Along; with these an- men and mam- 
 
 ° . ro^la. 
 
 cient Americans lived some terrestrial 
 mammals that still survive, such as the elk, rein- 
 deer, prairie wolf, bison, musk-ox, and beaver; 
 and many that have long been extinct, such as the 
 mylodon, megatherium, megalonyx, mastodon, Si- 
 berian elephant, mammoth, at least six or seven 
 species of ancestral horse, a huge bear similar to 
 the cave bear of ancient Europe, a lion similar to 
 the European cave lion, and a tiger as large as 
 the modern tiger of Bengal. 
 
 Now while the general relative positions of those 
 stupendous abysses that hold the oceans do not 
 appear to have undergone any considerable change 
 since an extremely remote geological period, their 
 shallow marginal portions have been repeatedly 
 raised so as to add extensive territories to the edges 
 of continents, and in some cases to convert archi- 
 pelagoes into continents, and to join continents 
 previously separated. Such elevation is followed 
 in turn by an era of subsidence, and almost every, 
 where either the one process or the other is slowly 
 going on. If you look at a model in relief of the 
 continents and ocean-floors, such as may be seen at 
 the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, 
 
14 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 showing the results of a vast number of soundings 
 Elevation and i n a ^ P ai> ls of the world, you cannot fail 
 subsidence. to be struck with the shallowness of 
 Bering Sea ; it looks like a part of the continent 
 rather than of the ocean, and indeed it is just that, 
 — an area of submerged continent. So in the 
 northern Atlantic there is a lofty ridge running 
 from France to Greenland. The British islands, 
 the Orkney, Shetland, and Faeroe groups, and Ice- 
 land are the parts of this ridge high enough to re- 
 main out of water. The remainder of it is shallow 
 sea. Again and again it has been raised, together 
 with the floor of the German ocean, so as to be- 
 come dry land. Both before and since the time 
 when those stone tools were dropped into the red 
 gravel from which Mr. Cresson took them the other 
 day, the northwestern part of Europe has been 
 solid continent for more than a hundred miles to 
 the west of the French and Irish coasts, the Thames 
 and Humber have been tributaries to the Rhine, 
 which emptied into the Arctic ocean, and across 
 the Atlantic ridge one might have walked to the 
 New World dryshod . 1 In similar wise the north- 
 western corner of America has repeatedly been 
 joined to Siberia through the elevation of Bering 
 Sea. 
 
 There have therefore been abundant opportunities 
 for men to get into America from the Old World 
 without crossing salt water. Probably this was 
 the case with the ancient inhabitants of the Dela- 
 ware and Little Miami valleys; it is not at all 
 
 1 See, for example, the map of Europe in early post-glacial 
 times, in James Geikie’s Prehistoric Europe. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA . 15 
 
 likely that men who used their kind of tools knew 
 much about going on the sea in boats. 
 
 Whether the Indians are descended from this 
 ancient population or not, is a question with which 
 we have as yet no satisfactory method of dealing. 
 It is not unlikely that these glacial men may have 
 perished from off the face of the earth, having been 
 crushed and supplanted by stronger races. There 
 may have been several successive waves Waves of ^ 
 of migration, of which the Indians were gratior1, 
 the latest . 1 There is time enough for a great 
 many things to happen in a thousand centuries. 
 It will doubtless be long before all the evidence 
 can be brought in and ransacked, but of one thing 
 we may feel pretty sure ; the past is more full of 
 changes than we are apt to realize. Our first 
 theories are usually too simple, and have to be en- 
 larged and twisted into all manner of shapes in 
 order to cover the actual complication of facts . 2 
 
 1 “ There are three human crania in the Museum, which were 
 found in the gravel at Trenton, one several feet below the surface, 
 the others near the surface. These skulls, which are of remark- 
 able uniformity, are of small size and of oval shape, differing from 
 all other skulls in the Museum. In fact they are of a distinct 
 type, and hence of the greatest importance. So far as they go 
 they indicate that palaeolithic man was exterminated, or has be- 
 come lost by admixture with others during the many thousand 
 years which have passed since he inhabited the Delaware valley.” 
 F. W. Putnam, “ The Peabody Museum,” Proceedings of the 
 American Antiquarian Society , 1889, New Series, vol. vi. p. 189. 
 
 2 An excellent example of this is the expansion and modifica- 
 tion undergone during the past twenty years by our theories of 
 the Aryan settlement of Europe. See Benfey’s preface to Fick’s 
 Woerterbuch der Indogermanischen Grundsprache, 1868 ; Geiger, 
 Zur EntwicJcelungsgeschichte der Menschheit, 1871 ; Cuno, For- 
 schungen im Gebiete der alten Voellcerkunde, 1871 ; Schmidt, Die 
 Verwandtschaftsverhaltnisse der Indogermanischen Sprachen, 1872; 
 
16 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 In this connection the history of the Eskimos 
 introduces us to some interesting problems. Men- 
 tion has been made of the River-drift men who 
 lived in Europe during the milder intervals of the 
 Glacial period. At such times they made their 
 way into Germany and Britain, along with leopards, 
 hyaenas, and African elephants. But as the cold 
 intervals came on and the edge of the polar ice- 
 sheet crept southward and mountain glaciers filled 
 up the valleys, these men and beasts retreated 
 into Africa ; and their place was taken by a sub- 
 The cave men arctic race of men known as the Cave 
 the E Giaciai m men, along with the reindeer and arctic 
 Period. f QX anc [ musk-sheep. More than once 
 with the secular alternations of temperature did 
 the River-drift men thus advance and retreat and 
 advance again, and as they advanced the Cave men 
 retreated, both races yielding to an enemy stronger 
 than either, — to wit, the hostile climate. At 
 length all traces of the River-drift men vanish, but 
 what of the Cave men ? They have left no repre- 
 sentatives among the present populations of Europe, 
 but the musk-sheep, which always went and came 
 with the Cave men, is to-day found only in sub- 
 
 Poesehe, Die Arier, 1878 ; Lindenschmit, Handbuch der deutschen 
 Alterthumskunde , 1880; Penka, Origines Ariacce, 1883, and Die 
 HerJcunft der Arier, 1886 ; Spiegel, Die arische Periode und ihre 
 Zustande, 1887 ; Rendal, Cradle of the Aryans , 1889 ; Schrader, 
 Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte, 1883, and second edition 
 translated into English, with the title Prehistoric Antiquities of 
 the Aryan Peoples , 1890. Schrader’s is an epoch-making book. 
 An attempt to defend the older and simpler views is made by 
 Max Miiller, Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas, 
 1888 ; see also Van den Gheyn, Horigine europeenne des Aryas , 
 1889. The whole case is well summed up by Isaac Taylor, 
 Origin of the Aryans , 1889. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 17 
 
 arctic America among the Eskimos, and the fos- 
 silized bones of the musk-sheep lie in a regular trail 
 across the eastern hemisphere, from the Pyrenees 
 through Germany and Russia and all the vast 
 length of Siberia. The stone arrow-heads, the 
 sewing-needles, the necklaces and amulets of cut 
 teeth, and the daggers made from antler, used by 
 the Eskimos, resemble so minutely the implements 
 of the Cave men, that if recent Eskimo remains 
 were to be put into the Pleistocene caves of France 
 and England they would be indistinguishable in 
 appearance from the remains of the Cave men 
 which are now found there . 1 There is another 
 striking point of resemblance. The Eskimos have 
 a talent for artistic sketching of men and beasts, 
 and scenes in which men and beasts figure, which 
 is absolutely unrivalled among rude peoples. One 
 need but look at the sketches by common Eskimo 
 fishermen which illustrate Dr. Henry Rink’s fas- 
 cinating book on Danish Greenland, to realize that 
 this rude Eskimo art has a character as pronounced 
 and unmistakable in its way as the much higher art 
 of the J apanese. Now among the European remains 
 of the Cave men are many sketches of mammoths, 
 cave bears, and other animals now extinct, and 
 hunting scenes so artfully and vividly portrayed 
 as to bring distinctly before us many details of 
 daily life in an antiquity so vast that in comparison 
 with it the interval between the pyramids ^ Eskim08 
 of Egypt and the Eiffel tower shrinks ^remn^tS 
 into a point. Such a talent is unique theCavemen * 
 among savage peoples. It exists only among the 
 living Eskimos and the ancient Cave men; and 
 1 See Dawkins, Early Man in Britain , pp. 233-245. 
 
18 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 when considered in connection with so many other 
 points of agreement, and with the indisputable fact 
 that the Cave men were a sub-arctic race, it affords 
 a strong presumption in favour of the opinion of 
 that great palaeontologist, Professor Boyd Daw- 
 kins, that the Eskimos of North America are to- 
 day the sole survivors of the race that made their 
 homes in the Pleistocene caves of western Europe . 1 
 
 1 According to Dr. Rink the Eskimos formerly inhabited the 
 central portions of North America, and have retreated or been 
 driven northward; he would make the Eskimos of Siberia an 
 offshoot from those of America, though he freely admits that 
 there are grounds for entertaining the opposite view. Dr. Abbott 
 is inclined to attribute an Eskimo origin to some of the palseo- 
 liths of the Trenton gravel. On the other hand, Mr. Clements 
 Markham derives the American Eskimos from those of Siberia. 
 It seems to me that these views may he comprehended and 
 reconciled in a wider one. I would suggest that during the 
 Glacial period the ancestral Eskimos may have gradually be- 
 come adapted to arctic conditions of life ; that in the mild inter- 
 glacial intervals they migrated northward along with the musk- 
 sheep ; and that upon the return of the cold they migrated south- 
 ward again, keeping always near the edge of the ice-sheet. 
 Such a southward migration would naturally enough bring them 
 in one continent down to the Pyrenees, in the other down to the 
 Alleghanies ; and naturally enough the modern inquirer has his 
 attention first directed to the indications of their final retreat, 
 both northward in America and northeastward from Europe 
 through Siberia. This is like what happened with so many 
 plants and animals. Compare Darwin’s remarks on “ Dispersal 
 in the Glacial Period,” Origin of Species , chap. xii. 
 
 The best books on the Eskimos are those of Dr. Rink, Tales 
 and Traditions of the Eskimo , Edinburgh, 1875 ; Danish Greenland , 
 London, 1877 ; The Eskimo Tribes , their Distribution and Charac- 
 teristics , especially in regard to Language , Copenhagen, 1887. See 
 also Franz Boas, “The Central Eskimo,” Sixth Report of the 
 Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1888, pp. 399-669 ; W. H. Dali, 
 Alaska and its Resources , 1870 ; Markham, “ Origin and Migra- 
 tions of the Greenland Esquimaux,” Journal of the Royal Geo- 
 graphical Society , 1865 ; Cranz, Historic von Groenland, Leipsic, 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 19 
 
 If we have always been accustomed to think of 
 races of men only as they are placed on modem 
 maps, it at first seems strange to think of England 
 and France as ever having been inhabited by Es- 
 kimos. Facts equally strange may be cited in 
 abundance from zoology and botany. The camel 
 is found to-day only in Arabia and Bactria ; yet 
 in all probability the camel originated in Amer- 
 ica , 1 and is an intruder into what we are accus- 
 tomed to call his native deserts, just as the people 
 of the United States are European intruders upon 
 the soil of America. So the giant trees of Mari- 
 posa grove are now found only in California, but 
 there was once a time when they were as common 
 in Europe 2 as maple-trees to-day in a New Eng- 
 land village. 
 
 Familiarity with innumerable facts of this sort, 
 concerning the complicated migrations and distri- 
 bution of plants and animals, has entirely altered 
 our way of looking at the question as to the origin 
 of the American Indians. As already observed, 
 we can hardly be said to possess sufficient data for 
 determining whether they are descended from the 
 Pleistocene inhabitants of America, or have come 
 in some later wave of migration from the Old 
 World. Nor can we as yet determine whether 
 
 1765 ; Petitot, Traditions indiennes du Canada nord-ouest , Faris, 
 1886 ; Pilling’s Bibliography of the Eskimo Language , Washington, 
 1887 ; Wells and Kelly, English-Eskimo and Eskimo-English Vo- 
 cabularies, with Ethnographical Memoranda concerning the Arctic 
 Eskimos in Alaska and Siberia, Washington, 1890 ; Carstensen s 
 Two Summers in Greenland , London, 1890. 
 
 1 Wallace, Geographical Distribution of Animals, vol. ii. p. 155. 
 
 2 Asa Gray, “ Sequoia and its History,” in his Danoiniana, 
 pp. 205-235. 
 
20 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 they were earlier or later comers than the Eskimos. 
 But since we have got rid of that feeling of specu- 
 lative necessity above referred to, for bringing the 
 red men from Asia within the historic period, it has 
 become more and more clear that they have dwelt 
 upon American soil for a very long time. The 
 aboriginal American, as we know him, with his 
 language and legends, his physical and mental 
 peculiarities, his social observances and customs, is 
 most emphatically a native and not an imported 
 article. He belongs to the American continent as 
 strictly as its opossums and armadillos, its maize 
 and its golden-rod, or any members of its aborigi- 
 There was nal ^ auna an ^ h° ra belong to it. In all 
 connectfon°or probability he came from the Old World 
 water between at some ancient period, whether pre- 
 ica’and tiT*' g lacial or post-glacial, when it was pos- 
 oid world. sib>l e to come by land; and here in all 
 probability, until the arrival of white men from 
 Europe, he remained undisturbed by later comers, 
 unless the Eskimos may have been such. There is 
 not a particle of evidence to suggest any connection 
 or intercourse between aboriginal America and 
 Asia within any such period as the last twenty 
 thousand years, except in so far as there may per- 
 haps now and then have been slight surges of 
 Eskimo tribes back and forth across Bering strait. 
 
 The Indians must surely be regarded as an en- 
 tirely different stock from the Eskimos. On the 
 other hand, the most competent American ethnol- 
 ogists are now pretty thoroughly agreed that all 
 the aborigines south of the Eskimo region, all the 
 way from Hudson’s Bay to Cape Horn, belong 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 21 
 
 to one and the same race. It was formerly sup- 
 posed that the higher culture of the Aztecs, Mayas, 
 and Peruvians must indicate that they were of 
 different race from the more barbarous Algonquins 
 and Dakotas ; and a speculative necessity was felt 
 for proving that, whatever may have been the case 
 with the other American peoples, this ig one 
 higher culture at any rate must have 
 been introduced within the historic race * 
 period from the Old World . 1 This feeling was 
 caused partly by the fact that, owing to crude 
 and loosely-framed conceptions of the real points 
 of difference between civilization and barbarism, 
 this Central American culture was absurdly exag- 
 gerated. As the further study of the uncivilized 
 parts of the world has led to more accurate and 
 precise conceptions, this kind of speculative neces- 
 sity has ceased to be felt. There is an increasing 
 disposition among scholars to agree that the war- 
 rior of Anahuac and the shepherd of the Andes 
 were just simply Indians, and that their culture 
 was no less indigenous than that of the Cherokees 
 or Mohawks. 
 
 To prevent any possible misconception of my 
 meaning, a further word of explanation may be 
 needed at this point. The word “ race _ 
 
 • . ? . Different 
 
 is used in such widely different senses senses in which 
 
 . J the word 
 
 that there is apt to be more or less “ “ 
 
 A # # used* 
 
 vagueness about it. The difference is 
 
 1 Illustrations may be found in plenty in the learned works of 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg : — Histoire des nations civilizes du Mtxique 
 et de V Ambrique centrale, 4 vols., Paris, 1857-58; Popol Vuh , 
 Paris, 1861 ; Quatre lettres sur le Mtxique, Paris, 1868 ; Le manu~ 
 scrit Troano , Paris, 1870, etc. 
 
22 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 mainly in what logicians call extension ; some- 
 times the word covers very little ground, some- 
 times a great deal. We say that the people of Eng- 
 land, of the United States, and of New South 
 Wales belong to one and the same race ; and we 
 say that an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a 
 Greek belong to three different races. There is 
 a sense in which both these statements are true. 
 But there is also a sense in which we may say 
 that the Englishman, the Frenchman, and the 
 Greek belong to one and the same race ; and that 
 is when we are contrasting them as white men 
 with black men or yellow men. Now we may 
 correctly say that a Shawnee, an Ojibwa, and a 
 Kickapoo belong to one and the same Algonquin 
 race ; that a Mohawk and a Tuscarora belong to 
 one and the same Iroquois race ; but that an Al- 
 gonquin differs from an Iroquois somewhat as an 
 Englishman differs from a Frenchman. No doubt 
 we may fairly say that the Mexicans encountered 
 by Cortes differed in race from the Iroquois en- 
 countered by Champlain, as much as an English- 
 man differs from an Albanian or a Montenegrin. 
 But when we are contrasting aboriginal Ameri- 
 cans with white men or yellow men, it is right to 
 say that Mexicans and Iroquois belong to the 
 same great red race. 
 
 In some parts of the world two strongly con- 
 trasted races have become mingled together, or 
 have existed side by side for centuries without in- 
 termingling. In Europe the big blonde Aryan- 
 speaking race has mixed with the small brunette 
 Iberian race, producing the endless varieties in 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 23 
 
 stature and complexion winch may be seen in any 
 drawing-room in London or New York. In Africa 
 south of Sahara, on the other hand, we find, inter- 
 spersed among negro tribes but kept perfectly dis- 
 tinct, that primitive dwarfish race with yellow skin 
 and tufted hair to which belong the Hottentots and 
 Bushmen, the Wambatti lately discovered by Mr. 
 Stanley, and other tribes . 1 Now in America south 
 of Hudson’s Bay the case seems to have been quite 
 otherwise, and more as it would have been in Eu- 
 rope if there had been only Aryans, or in Africa 
 if there had been only blacks . 2 
 
 The belief that the people of the Cordilleras 
 must be of radically different race from other 
 Indians was based upon the vague notion that 
 grades of culture have some necessary connection 
 with likenesses and differences of race. 
 
 There is no such necessary connection . 3 connection be- 
 
 _ _ tween differ- 
 
 Between the highly civilized Japanese encea in 
 
 ii*i i ° J * . culture and 
 
 and their barbarous Mandshu cousms differences 
 
 in race. 
 
 the difference in culture is much greater 
 
 1 See Werner, “The African Pygmies,” Popular Science 
 Monthly , September, 1890, — a thoughtful and interesting article. 
 
 2 This sort of illustration requires continual limitation and 
 qualification. The case in ancient America was not quite as it 
 would have been in Europe if there had been only Aryans there. 
 The semi-civilized people of the Cordilleras were relatively bra- 
 chycephalous as compared with the more barbarous Indians north 
 and east of New Mexico. It is correct to call this a distinction 
 of race if we mean thereby a distinction developed upon Ameri- 
 can soil, a differentiation within the limits of the red race, and 
 not an intrusion from without. In this sense the Caribs also may 
 he regarded as a distinct sub-race ; and, in the same sense, we 
 may call the Kafirs a distinct sub-race of African blacks. See, 
 as to the latter, Tylor, Anthropology , p. 39. 
 
 8 As Sir John Lubbock well says, “ Different races in similar 
 
24 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 than the difference between Mohawks and Mex- 
 icans ; and the same may be said of the people 
 of Israel and Judah in contrast with the Arabs 
 of the desert, or of the imperial Romans in com- 
 parison with their Teutonic kinsmen as described 
 by Tacitus. 
 
 At this point, in order to prepare ourselves the 
 more clearly to understand sundry facts with 
 which we shall hereafter be obliged to deal, espe- 
 cially the wonderful experiences of the Spanish con- 
 querors, it will be well to pause for a moment and 
 do something toward defining the different grades 
 Grades of cui- of culture through which men have 
 ture * passed in attaining to the grade which 
 
 can properly be called civilization. Unless we 
 begin with clear ideas upon this head we cannot 
 go far toward understanding the ancient America 
 that was first visited and described for us by 
 Spaniards. The various grades of culture need 
 to be classified, and that most original and sugges- 
 tive scholar, the late Lewis Morgan of Rochester, 
 made a brilliant attempt in this direction, to which 
 the reader’s attention is now invited. 
 
 Below Civilization Mr. Morgan 1 distinguishes 
 two principal grades or stages of culture, namely 
 Savagery and Barbarism . There is much loose- 
 ness and confusion in the popular use of these 
 
 stages of development often present more features of resemblance 
 to one another than the same race does to itself in different stages 
 of its history.” ( Origin of Civilization , p. 11.) If every student of 
 history and ethnology would begin by learning this lesson, the 
 world would be spared a vast amount of unprofitable theorizing. 
 
 1 See his great work on Ancient Society , New York, 1877. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 25 
 
 terms, and this is liable to become a fruitful 
 source of misapprehension in the case of any 
 statement involving either of them. When popu- 
 lar usage discriminates between them extinction b©. 
 it discriminates in the right direction ; 
 there is a vague but not uncertain feel- Barbarijnn - 
 ing that savagery is a lower stage than barbarism. 
 But ordinarily the discrimination is not made and 
 the two terms are carelessly employed as if inter- 
 changeable. Scientific writers long since recog- 
 nized a general difference between savagery and 
 barbarism, but Mr. Morgan was the first to sug- 
 gest a really useful criterion for distinguishing 
 between them. His criterion is the making of 
 pottery ; and his reason for selecting it is that the 
 making of pottery is something that presupposes 
 village life and more or less progress in the simpler 
 arts. The earlier methods of boiling food were 
 either putting it into holes in the ground lined 
 with skins and then using heated stones, or else 
 putting it into baskets coated with clay 0rigin of ^ 
 to be supported over a fire. The clay teiy ‘ 
 served the double purpose of preventing liquids 
 from escaping and protecting the basket against 
 the flame. It was probably observed that the clay 
 was hardened by the fire, and thus in course of 
 time it was found that the clay would answer the 
 purpose without the basket . 1 Whoever first made 
 this ingenious discovery led the way from sav- 
 agery to barbarism. Throughout the present work 
 
 1 See the evidence in Tylor, Researches into the Early History 
 of Mankind , pp. 269-272 ; cf . Lubbock, Prehistoric Times , p. 573 ; 
 and see Cushing’s masterly “Study of Pueblo Pottery,” etc., 
 Reports of Bureau of Ethnology , iv., 473-521. 
 
26 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 we shall apply the name “savages” only to un- 
 civilized people who do not make pottery. 
 
 But within each of these two stages Mr. Mor- 
 gan distinguishes three subordinate stages, or 
 Ethnic Periods, which may be called either lower, 
 middle, and upper status, or older, middle, and 
 later periods. The lower status of savagery was 
 Lower status f wholly prehistoric stage when men 
 of savagery. ii ve( t i n their original restricted habitat 
 and subsisted on fruit and nuts. To this period 
 must be assigned the beginning of articulate 
 speech. All existing races of men had passed be- 
 yond it at an unknown antiquity. 
 
 Men began to pass beyond it when they dis- 
 covered how to catch fish and how to use fire. 
 They could then begin (following coasts and 
 Middle status rivers) to spread over the earth. The 
 of savagery, middle status of savagery, thus intro- 
 duced, ends with the invention of that compound 
 weapon, the bow and arrow. The natives of Aus- 
 tralia, who do not know this weapon, are still in 
 the middle status of savagery . 1 
 
 The invention of the bow and arrow, which 
 marks the upper status of savagery, was not only 
 a great advance in military art, but it also vastly 
 Upper status increased men’s supply of food by in- 
 of savagery. cre asing their power of killing wild 
 game. The lowest tribes in America, such as 
 those upon the Columbia river, the Athabaskans 
 of Hudson’s Bay, the Fuegians and some other 
 South American tribes, are in the upper status of 
 savagery. 
 
 1 Lumholtz, Among Cannibals , London, 1889, gives a vivid pic- 
 ture of aboriginal life in Australia. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 27 
 
 The transition from this status to the lower 
 status of barbarism was marked, as before 
 observed, by the invention of pottery. The end 
 of the lower status of barbarism was marked in 
 the Old World by the domestication of animals 
 other than the dog, which was probably domesti- 
 cated a i a much earlier period as an aid to the 
 hunter. The domestication of horses and asses, 
 oxen and sheep, goats and pigs, marks Lower 
 of course an immense advance. Along 
 with it goes considerable development eml” th0 
 of agriculture, thus enabling a small iJ5phere *' 
 territory to support many people. It takes a 
 wide range of country to support hunters. In 
 the New World, except in Peru, the only do- 
 mesticated animal was the dog. Horses, oxen, 
 and the other animals mentioned did not exist in 
 America, during the historic period, until they 
 were brought over from Europe by the Spaniards. 
 In ancient American society there was no such 
 thing as a pastoral stage of development , 1 and the 
 absence of domesticable animals from the western 
 hemisphere may well be reckoned as very impor- 
 tant among the causes which retarded the pro- 
 gress of mankind in this part of the world. 
 
 On the other hand the ancient Americans had 
 a cereal plant peculiar to the New World, which 
 made comparatively small demands upon the in- 
 telligence and industry of the cultivator. Maize 
 or “ Indian corn ” has played a most important 
 
 1 The case of Peru, which forms an apparent hut not real ex- 
 ception to this general statement, will be considered below in 
 chap. ix. 
 
28 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 part in the history of the New World, as regards 
 both the red men and the white men. It could 
 be planted without clearing or ploughing the soil. 
 It was only necessary to girdle the trees with a 
 stone hatchet, so as to destroy their leaves and let 
 in the sunshine. A few scratches and digs were 
 made in the ground with a stone digger, and the 
 seed once dropped in took care of itself. The ears 
 
 importance of could hang for weeks after ripening, 
 Indian com. an( l e 0 ulcl be picked off without med- 
 
 dling with the stalk ; there was no need of thresh- 
 ing and winnowing. None of the Old World ce- 
 reals can be cultivated without much more industry 
 and intelligence. At the same time, when Indian 
 corn is sown in tilled land it yields with little la- 
 bour more than twice as much food per acre as any 
 other kind of grain. This was of incalculable ad- 
 vantage to the English settlers of New England, 
 who would have found it much harder to gain a 
 secure foothold upon the soil if they had had to 
 begin by preparing it fcr wheat and rye without 
 the aid of the beautiful and beneficent American 
 plant . 1 The Indians of the Atlantic coast of 
 North America for the most part lived in stock- 
 aded villages, and cultivated their corn along with 
 beans, pumpkins, squashes, and tobacco ; but their 
 cultivation was of the rudest sort , 2 and population 
 was too sparse for much progress toward civiliza- 
 
 1 See Shaler, “ Physiography of North America,” in Winsor’s 
 Narr. and Cric. Hist. vol. iv. p. xiii. 
 
 2 “ No manure was used,” says Mr. Parkman, speaking of the 
 Hurons, but at intervals of from ten to twenty years, when the 
 soil was exhausted and firewood distant, the village was aban- 
 doned and a new one built.” Jesuits in North America, p. xxx. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA . 
 
 29 
 
 tion. But Indian com, when sown in carefully 
 tilled and irrigated land, had much to do with 
 the denser population, the increasing organization 
 of labour, and the higher development in the arts, 
 which characterized the confederacies of Mexico 
 and Central America and all the pueblo Indians 
 of the southwest. The potato played a somewhat 
 similar part in Peru. Hence it seems proper to 
 take the regular employment of tillage with irri- 
 gation as marking the end of the lower period of 
 barbarism in the New World. To this Mr. Mor- 
 gan adds the use of adobe-brick and stone in ar- 
 chitecture, which also distinguished the Mexicans 
 and their neighbours from the ruder tribes of 
 North and South America. All these ruder tribes, 
 except the few already mentioned as in the upper 
 period of savagery, were somewhere within the 
 lower period of barbarism. Thus the Algonquins 
 and Iroquois, the Creeks, the Dakotas, etc., when 
 first seen by white men, were within this period ; 
 but some had made much further progress within 
 it than others. For example, the Algonquin tribe 
 of Ojibwas had little more than emerged from sav- 
 agery, while the Creeks and Cherokees had made 
 considerable advance toward the middle status of 
 barbarism. 
 
 Let us now observe some characteristics of this 
 extremely interesting middle period. It began, 
 we see, in the eastern hemisphere with status 
 the domestication of other animals than of barbarism - 
 the dog, and in the western hemisphere with culti- 
 vation by irrigation and the use of adobe-brick 
 and stone for building. It also possessed another 
 
BO 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 feature which distinguished it from earlier pe- 
 riods, in the materials of which its tools were 
 made. In the periods of savagery hatchets and 
 spear-heads were made of rudely chipped stones. 
 In the lower period of barbarism the chipping be- 
 came more and more skilful until it gave place to 
 polishing. In the middle period tools were greatly 
 multiplied, improved polishing gave sharp and 
 accurate points and edges, and at last metals be- 
 gan to be used as materials preferable to stone. 
 In America the metal used was copper, and in 
 some spots where it was very accessible there were 
 instances of its use by tribes not in other respects 
 above the lower status of barbarism, — as for ex- 
 ample, the “ mound-builders.” In the Old World 
 the metal used was the alloy of copper and tin 
 familiarly known as bronze, and in its working it 
 called for a higher degree of intelligence than 
 copper. 
 
 Toward the close of the middle period of bar 
 barism the working of metals became the most im- 
 portant element of progress, and the period may be 
 working of regarded as ending with the invention 
 metais. 0 f the process of smelting iron ore. 
 According to this principle of division, the in- 
 habitants of the lake villages of ancient Switzer- 
 land, who kept horses and oxen, pigs and sheep, 
 raised wheat and ground it into flour, and spun 
 and wove linen garments, but knew nothing of 
 iron, were in the middle status of barbarism. The 
 same was true of the ancient Britons before they 
 learned the use of iron from their neighbours in 
 Gaul. In the New World the representatives of 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 31 
 
 the middle status of barbarism were such peoples 
 as the Zufiis, the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Peru- 
 vians. 
 
 The upper status of barbarism, in so far as it 
 implies a knowledge of smelting iron, was never 
 reached in aboriginal America. In the Old World 
 it is the stage which had been reached Upper BtatuJ! 
 by the Greeks of the Homeric poems 1 01 barbariam - 
 and the Germans in the time of Caesar. The end 
 
 1 In the interesting architectural remains unearthed by Dr. 
 Schliemann at Mycenae and Tiryns, there have been found at the 
 former place a few iron keys and knives, at the latter one iron 
 lance-head ; but the form and workmanship of these objects 
 mark them as not older than the beginning of the fifth century 
 b. a, or the time of the Persian wars. With these exceptions 
 the weapons and tools found in these cities, as also in Troy, were 
 of bronze and stone. Bronze was in common use, but obsidian 
 knives and arrow-heads of fine workmanship abound in the ruins. 
 According to Professor Sayce, these ruins must date from 2000 
 to 1700 b. c. The Greeks of that time would accordingly be 
 placed in the middle status of barbarism. (See Schliemann’s 
 Mycenae, pp. 75, 364; Tiryns, p. 171.) In the state of society 
 described in the Homeric poems the smelting of iron was well 
 known, but the process seems to have been costly, so that bronze 
 weapons were still commonly used. (Tylor, Anthropology , p. 
 279.) The Romans of the regal period were ignorant of iron. 
 (Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, Bos- 
 ton, 1888, pp. 39-48.) The upper period of barbarism was 
 shortened for Greece and Rome through the circumstance that 
 they learned the working of iron from Egypt and the use of the 
 alphabet from Phoenicia. Such copying, of course, affects the 
 symmetry of such schemes as Mr. Morgan’s, and allowances have 
 to be made for it. It is curious that both Greeks and Romans 
 seem to have preserved some tradition of the Bronze Age : — 
 
 rots S’ xaXicea. fiev Tev\ea, ^aA/ccot 6e re oT/cot, 
 
 ^oAko> S’ eipyd^ovTO ’ fie'Aas S’ ovk etrice triSrjpof. 
 
 Hesiod, Opp. Di. 134. 
 
 Anna antiqua manus ungues dentesque fuerunt 
 Et lapides et item sil varum fragmina rami, 
 
32 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 of this period and the beginning of true civiliza- 
 tion is marked by the invention of a phonetic 
 alphabet and the production of written records. 
 This brings within the pale of civilization such 
 people as the ancient Phoenicians, the Hebrews 
 Beginning of after the exodus, the ruling classes at 
 civilization. Nineveh and Babylon, the Aryans of 
 
 Persia and India, and the Japanese. But clearly 
 it will not do to insist too narrowly upon the pho- 
 netic character of the alphabet. Where people 
 acquainted with iron have enshrined in hieroglyph- 
 ics so much matter of historic record and literary 
 interest as the Chinese and the ancient Egyptians, 
 they too must be classed as civilized ; and this Mr. 
 Morgan by implication admits. 
 
 This brilliant classification of the stages of early 
 culture will be found very helpful if we only keep 
 in mind the fact that in all wide generalizations 
 of this sort the case is liable to be somewhat un- 
 duly simplified. The story of human progress is 
 really not quite so easy to decipher as such de- 
 scriptions would make it appear, and when we 
 have laid down rules of this sort we need not be 
 surprised if we now and then come upon facts 
 that will not exactly fit into them. In such an 
 
 Et flamma atque ignes, postquam sunt cognita primum. 
 
 Posterius ferri vis est, serisque reperta. 
 
 Et prior seria erat, quam ferri cognitus usus, etc. 
 
 Lucretius, v. 1283. 
 
 Perhaps, as Munro suggests, Lucretius was thinking of Hesiod ; 
 hut it does not seem improbable that in both cases there may 
 have been a genuine tradition that their ancestors used bronze 
 tools and weapons before iron, since the change was comparatively 
 recent, and sundry religious observances tended to perpetuate the 
 memory of it. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 33 
 
 event it is best not to try to squeeze or distort the 
 unruly facts, but to look and see if our rules will 
 not bear some little qualification. The faculty 
 for generalizing is a good servant but a bad mas- 
 ter. If we observe this caution we shall find Mr. 
 Morgan’s work to be of great value. It will be 
 observed that, with one exception, his restrictions 
 leave the area of civilization as wide as that which 
 we are accustomed to assign to it in our ordinary 
 speaking and thinking. That exception is the case 
 of Mexico, Central America, and Peru. We have 
 so long been accustomed to gorgeous accounts of 
 the civilization of these countries at the time of 
 their discovery by the Spaniards that it may at 
 first shock our preconceived notions to see them 
 set down as in the “ middle status of barbarism,” 
 one stage higher than Mohawks, and one stage 
 lower than the warriors of the Iliad. This does 
 indeed mark a change since Dr. Draper expressed 
 the opinion that the Mexicans and Pe- «. Civiliza _ 
 ruvians were morally and intellectually 
 superior to the Europeans of the six- Peru * 
 teenth century . 1 The reaction from the state of 
 opinion in which such an extravagant remark was 
 even possible has been attended with some contro- 
 versy ; but on the whole Mr. Morgan’s main position 
 has been steadily and rapidly gaining ground, and 
 it is becoming more and more clear that if we are 
 to use language correctly when we speak of the civ- 
 ilizations of Mexico and Peru we really mean civil- 
 izations of an extremely archaic type, considerably 
 
 1 See his Intellectual Development of Europe , New York, 1863, 
 pp. 448, 464. 
 
34 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 more archaic than that of Egypt in the time of 
 the Pharaohs. A “ civilization ” like that of the 
 Aztecs, without domestic animals or iron tools, 
 with trade still in the primitive stage of barter, 
 with human sacrifices, and with cannibalism, has 
 certainly some of the most vivid features of bar- 
 barism. Along with these primitive features, how- 
 ever, there seem to have been — after making all 
 due allowances — some features of luxury and 
 splendour such as we are wont to associate with 
 civilization. The Aztecs, moreover, though doubt- 
 less a full ethnical period behind the ancient 
 Egyptians in general advancement, had worked 
 out a system of hieroglyphic writing, and had be- 
 gun to put it to some literary use. It would seem 
 that a people may in certain special points reach 
 a level of attainment higher than the level which 
 they occupy in other points. The Cave men of 
 the Glacial period were ignorant of pottery, and 
 thus had not risen above the upper status of sav- 
 agery; but their artistic talent, upon which we 
 have remarked, was not such as we are wont to 
 associate with savagery. Other instances will oc- 
 cur to us in the proper place. 
 
 The difficulty which people usually find in real- 
 izing the true position of the ancient Mexican 
 culture arises partly from the misconceptions which 
 have until recently distorted the facts, and partly 
 from the loose employment of terms above noticed. 
 Loose use of It is quite correct to speak of the Aus- 
 
 “ savagery ” tralian blackfellows as “savages,” but 
 and “civiliza- , . . - , 
 
 tion.” nothing is more common than to near 
 
 the same epithet employed to characterize Shaw- 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 35 
 
 nees and Mohawks ; and to call those Indians 
 “ savages ” is quite misleading. So on the other 
 hand the term “ civilization” is often so loosely used 
 as to cover a large territory belonging to “ barbar- 
 ism.” One does not look for scientific precision 
 in newspapers, but they are apt to reflect popular 
 habits of thought quite faithfully, and for that 
 reason it is proper here to quote from one. In a 
 newspaper account of Mr. Cushing’s recent discov- 
 eries of buried towns, works of irrigation, etc., in 
 Arizona, we are first told that these are the remains 
 of a “splendid prehistoric civilization,” and the 
 next moment we are told, in entire unconsciousness 
 of the contradiction, that the people who con- 
 structed these works had only stone tools. Now 
 to call a people “ civilized ” who have only stone 
 tools is utterly misleading. Nothing but confusion 
 of ideas and darkening of counsel can come from 
 such a misuse of words. Such a people may be in 
 a high degree interesting and entitled to credit for 
 what they have achieved, but the grade of culture 
 which they have reached is not “ civilization.” 
 With “savagery” thus encroaching upon its 
 area of meaning on the one side, and “ civilization ” 
 encroaching on the other, the word “ barbarism,” 
 as popularly apprehended, is left in a vague and 
 unsatisfactory plight. If we speak of Montezuma’s 
 people as barbarians one stage further advanced 
 than Mohawks, we are liable to be charged with 
 calling them “ savages.” Yet the term Value ^ 
 
 “ barbarism ” is a very useful one ; in- ° f 
 
 dispensable, indeed, in the history of “ barbariBm '” 
 human progress. There is no other word which 
 
36 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 can serve in its stead as a designation of the enor- 
 mous interval which begins with the invention of 
 pottery and ends with the invention of the alphabet. 
 The popular usage of the word is likely to be- 
 come more definite as it comes to be more generally 
 realized how prodigious that interval has been. 
 When we think what a considerable portion of 
 man’s past existence has been comprised within it, 
 and what a marvellous transformation in human 
 knowledge and human faculty has been gradually 
 wrought between its beginning and its end, the 
 period of barbarism becomes invested with most 
 thrilling interest, and its name ceases to appear 
 otherwise than respectable. It is Mr. Morgan’s 
 chief title to fame that he has so thoroughly ex- 
 plored this period and described its features with 
 such masterly skill. 
 
 It is worth while to observe that Mr. Morgan’s 
 view of the successive stages of culture is one which 
 could not well have been marked out in all its parts 
 except by a student of American archaeology. 
 Aboriginal America is the richest field in the 
 world for the study of barbarism. Its people pre- 
 sent every gradation in social life during three 
 ethnical periods — the upper period of savagery 
 and the lower and middle periods of barbarism — 
 so that the process of development may be most 
 systematically and instructively stud- 
 barbarism is led. U ntil we have become familiar with 
 pieteiy exem- ancient American society, and so long 
 Sent’ Amer- as our view is confined to the phases 
 of progress in the Old World, the de- 
 marcation between civilized and uncivilized life 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 37 
 
 seems too abrupt and sudden ; we do not get a cor- 
 rect measure of it. The oldest European tradition 
 reaches back only through the upper period of bar- 
 barism . 1 The middle and lower periods have lapsed 
 into utter oblivion, and it is only modem archaeo- 
 logical research that is beginning to recover the 
 traces of them. But among the red men of Amer- 
 ica the social life of ages more remote than that 
 of the lake villages of Switzerland is in many 
 particulars preserved for us to-day, and when we 
 study it we begin to realize as never before the con- 
 tinuity of human development, its enormous durar 
 tion, and the almost infinite accumulation of slow 
 efforts by which progress has been achieved. An- 
 cient America is further instructive in presenting 
 the middle status of barbarism in a different form 
 from that which it assumed in the eastern hemi- 
 sphere. Its most conspicuous outward manifesta- 
 tions, instead of tents and herds, were strange and 
 imposing edifices of stone, so that it was quite 
 natural that observers interpreting it from a basis 
 of European experience should mistake it for civ- 
 ilization. Certain aspects of that middle period 
 may be studied to-day in New Mexico and Arizona, 
 as phases of the older periods may still be found 
 among the wilder tribes, even after all the contact 
 they have had with white men. These Survivals of 
 
 . , i. . . bygone epochs 
 
 survivals from antiquity will not per- of culture, 
 manently outlive that contact, and it is important 
 that no time should be lost in gathering and put- 
 
 1 Now and then, perhaps, but very rarely, it just touches the 
 close of the middle period, as, e. g., in the lines from Hesiod and 
 Lucretius above quoted. 
 
38 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 ting on record all that can be learned of the speech 
 and arts, the customs and beliefs, everything that 
 goes to constitute the philology and anthropology 
 of the red men. For the intelligent and vigorous 
 work of this sort now conducted by the Bureau of 
 Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, under 
 the direction of Major Powell, no praise can be too 
 strong and no encouragement too hearty. 
 
 A brief enumeration of the principal groups of 
 Indians will be helpful in enabling us to compre- 
 hend the social condition of ancient America. The 
 groups are in great part defined by differences of 
 language, which are perhaps a better criterion of 
 racial affinity in the New World than in the Old, 
 because there seems to have been little or nothing 
 of that peculiar kind of conquest with incorporation 
 resulting in complete change of speech which we 
 sometimes find in the Old World ; as, for example, 
 when we see the Celto-Iberian population of Spain 
 and the Belgic, Celtic, and Aquitanian populations 
 of Gaul forgetting their native tongues, and adopt- 
 ing that of a confederacy of tribes in Latium. 
 Except in the case of Peru there is no indication 
 that anything of this sort went on, or that there 
 Tribal society was anything even superficially analo- 
 gy oflT 1 * gous to “empire,” in ancient America. 
 o?fJnai Amer- What strikes one most forcibly at first 
 is the vast number of American lan- 
 guages. Adelung, in his “ Mithridates,” put the 
 number at 1,264, and Ludewig, in his “ Literature 
 of the American Languages,” put it roundly at 
 1,100. Squier, on the other hand, was content 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 39 
 
 with 400. 1 The discrepancy arises from the fact 
 that where one scholar sees two or three distinct 
 languages another sees two or three dialects of 
 one language and counts them as one; it is like 
 the difficulty which naturalists find in agreeing as 
 to what are species and what are only varieties. 
 The great number of languages and dialects 
 spoken by a sparse population is one mark of the 
 universal prevalence of a rude and primitive form 
 of tribal society. 2 3 * * * 
 
 The lowest tribes in North America were those 
 that are still to be found in California, in the val- 
 ley of the Columbia river, and on the shores of 
 Puget Sound. The Athabaskans of Hudson’s 
 Bay were on about the same level of savagery. 
 They made no pottery, knew nothing of horticul- 
 ture, depended for subsistence entirely 
 upon bread-roots, nsh, and game, and upper status 
 thus had no village life. They were ° 88 &gery 
 mere prowlers in the upper status of savagery. 8 
 The Apaches of Arizona, preeminent even among 
 red men for atrocious cruelty, are an offshoot 
 from the Athabaskan stock. Very little better 
 are the Shoshones and Bannocks that still wander 
 
 1 Winsor, “ Bibliographical Notes on American Linguistics,” 
 in his Narr. and Crit. Hist., yol. i. pp. 420-428, gives an admirable 
 survey of the subject. See also Pilling’s bibliographical bulletins 
 of Iroquoian, Siouan, and Muskhogean languages, published by the 
 Bureau of Ethnology. 
 
 2 Excursions of an Evolutionist , pp. 147-174. 
 
 3 For a good account of Indians in the upper status of savagery 
 
 until modified by contact with civilization, see Myron Eells, “ The 
 
 Twana, Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of Washington Terri- 
 
 tory,” Smithsonian Report, 1887, pp. 605-681. 
 
40 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 among the lonely bare mountains and over the 
 weird sage-brush plains of Idaho. The region 
 west of the Eocky Mountains and north of New 
 Mexico is thus the region of savagery. 
 
 Between the Eocky Mountains and the Atlantic 
 coast the aborigines, at the time of the Discovery, 
 might have been divided into six or seven groups, 
 of which three were situated mainly to the east 
 cf the Mississippi river, the others mainly to the 
 west of it. All were in the lower period of bar- 
 barism. Of the western groups, by far 
 
 The Dakota , & r \ 
 
 family of the most numerous were the Dakotas, 
 comprising the Sioux, Poncas, Omahas, 
 Iowas, Kaws, Otoes, and Missouris. From the 
 headwaters of the Mississippi their territory ex- 
 tended westward on both sides of the Missouri for 
 a thousand miles. One of their tribes, the Win- 
 nebagos, had crossed the Mississippi and pressed 
 into the region between that river and Lake 
 Michigan. 
 
 A second group, very small in numbers but ex- 
 tremely interesting tc the student of ethnology, 
 comprises the Minnitarees and Mandans on the 
 upper Missouri . 1 The remnants of these tribes 
 now live together in the same village, and in per- 
 sonal appearance, as well as in intelligence, they 
 are described as superior to any other red men 
 
 1 An excellent description of them, profusely illustrated with 
 coloured pictures, may be found in Catlin’s North American In- 
 dians , vol. i. pp. 66-207, 7th ed., London, 1848 ; the author was 
 an accurate and trustworthy observer. Some writers have placed 
 these tribes in the Dakota group because of the large number of 
 Dakota words in their language ; but these are probably borrowed 
 words, like the numerous French words in English. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 41 
 
 north of New Mexico. From their first discov- 
 ery, by the brothers La Verendrye TheMinni 
 in 1742, down to Mr. Gatlin’s visit taree.and 
 nearly a century later, there was no 
 change in their condition , 1 but shortly afterward, 
 in 1838, the greater part of them were swept 
 away by small-pox. The excellence of their horti- 
 culture, the framework of their houses, and their 
 peculiar religious ceremonies early attracted at- 
 tention. Upon Mr. Catlin they made such an 
 impression that he fancied there must be an infu- 
 sion of white blood in them ; and after the fashion 
 of those days he sought to account for it by a ref- 
 erence to the legend of Madoc, a Welsh prince 
 who was dimly imagined to have sailed to America 
 about 1170. He thought that Madoc’s party might 
 have sailed to the Mississippi and founded a col- 
 ony which ascended that river and the Ohio, built 
 the famous mounds of the Ohio valley, and finally 
 migrated to the upper Missouri . 2 To this specu 
 lation was appended the inevitable list of words 
 which happen to sound somewhat alike in Man- 
 dan and in Welsh. In the realm of free fancy 
 everything is easy. That there was a Madoc who 
 went somewhere in 1170 is quite possible, but as 
 shrewd old John Smith said about it, “where 
 this place was no history can show .” 8 But one 
 
 1 See Francis Parkman’s paper, “ The Discovery of the Rocky 
 Mountains,” Atlantic Monthly , June, 1888. I hope the appear- 
 ance of this article, two years ago, indicates that we have not 
 much longer to wait for the next of that magnificent series of 
 volumes on the history of the French in North America. 
 
 2 North American Indians , vol. ii., Appendix A. 
 
 8 Smith’s Generali Histone of Virginia , New England and the 
 Summer Isles , p. 1, London, 1826. 
 
42 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 part of Mr. Catlin’s speculation may have hit 
 somewhat nearer the truth. It is possible that 
 the Minnitarees or the Mandans, or both, may be 
 a remnant of some of those Mound-builders in 
 the Mississippi valley concerning whom something 
 will presently be said. 
 
 The third group in this western region consists 
 of the Pawnees and Arickarees , 1 of the 
 Pawnees, etc. p2 a ^ e va ]j e y j n Nebraska, with a few 
 
 kindred tribes farther to the south. 
 
 Of the three groups eastward of the Mississippi 
 we may first mention the Maskoki, or Muskhogees, 
 Maskoki fam- consisting of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, 
 Uy * Seminoles, and others, with the Creek 
 
 confederacy . 2 These tribes were intelligent and 
 powerful, with a culture well advanced toward 
 the end of the lower period of barbarism. 
 
 The Algonquin family, bordering at its south- 
 ern limits upon the Maskoki, had a vast range 
 northeasterly along the Atlantic coast until it 
 reached the confines of Labrador, and north- 
 westerly through the region of the Great Lakes 
 and as far as the Churchill river 3 to the west of 
 
 1 For the history and ethnology of these interesting tribes, see 
 three learned papers by J. B. Dunbar, in Magazine of American 
 History, vol. iv. pp. 241-281 ; vol. v. pp. 321-342 ; vol. viii. pp. 
 734-756; also Grinnell’s Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales , 
 New York, 1889. 
 
 2 These tribes of the Gulf region were formerly grouped, along 
 with others not akin to them, as “Mobilians.” The Cherokees 
 were supposed to belong to the Maskoki family, but they have 
 lately been declared an intrusive offshoot from the Iroquois stock. 
 The remnants of another alien tribe, the once famous Natchez, 
 were adopted into the Creek confederacy. For a full account of 
 these tribes, see Gatschet, A Migration Legend of the Creek In- 
 dians, vol. i. , Philadelphia, 1884. 
 
 3 Howse, Grammar of the Cree Language, London, 1865, p. vii. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 43 
 
 Hudson’s Bay. In other words, the Algonquins 
 were bounded on the south by the Maskoki , 1 on 
 the west by the Dakotas, on the north- 
 
 " Algonquin 
 
 west by the Athabaskans, on the north- family o i 
 east by Eskimos, and on the east by 
 the ocean. Between Lake Superior and the Red 
 River of the North the Crees had their hunting 
 grounds, and closely related to them were the 
 Pottawatomies, Ojibwas, and Ottawas. One off- 
 shoot, including the Blackfeet, Cheyennes, and 
 Arrapahos, roamed as far west as the Rocky 
 Mountains. The great triangle between the up- 
 per Mississippi and the Ohio was occupied by the 
 Menomonees and Kickapoos, the Sacs and Foxes, 
 the Miamis and Illinois, and the Shawnees. Along 
 the coast region the principal Algonquin tribes 
 were the Powhatans of Virginia, the Lenape or 
 Delawares, the Munsees or Minisinks of the moun- 
 tains about the Susquehanna, the Mohegans on 
 the Hudson, the Adirondacks between that river 
 and the St. Lawrence, the Narragansetts and their 
 congeners in New England, and finally the Mic- 
 macs and Wabenaki far down East, as the last 
 name implies. There is a tradition, supported to 
 some extent by linguistic evidence , 2 that the Mo- 
 hegans, with their cousins the Pequots, were more 
 closely related to the Shawnees than to the Dela- 
 ware or coast group. While all the Algonquin 
 tribes were in the lower period of barbarism, there 
 was a noticeable gradation among them, the Crees 
 
 1 Except in so far as the Cherokees and Tuscaroras, presently 
 to be mentioned, were interposed. 
 
 2 Brinton, The Lenape and their Legends , p. 30. 
 
44 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 and Ojibwas of the far North standing lowest in 
 culture, and the Shawnees, at their southernmost 
 limits, standing highest. 
 
 We have observed the Dakota tribes pressing 
 eastward against their neighbours and sending out 
 an offshoot, the Winnebagos, across the Missis- 
 sippi river. It has been supposed that the Huron- 
 
 Iroquois group of tribes was a more re- 
 
 Huron-Iro- r* ^ . 
 
 qrois family of mote offshoot from the Dakotas. This 
 
 tribes. . ticti . . 
 
 is very doubtful ; but m the thirteenth 
 or fourteenth century the general trend of the Hu- 
 ron-Iroquois movement seems to have been east- 
 ward, either in successive swarms, or in a single 
 swarm, which became divided and scattered by 
 segmentation, as was common with all Indian 
 tribes. They seem early to have proved their 
 superiority over the Algonquins in bravery and 
 intelligence. Their line of invasion seems to have 
 run eastward to Niagara, and thereabouts to have 
 bifurcated, one line following the valley of the St. 
 Lawrence, and the other that of the Susquehanna. 
 The Hurons established themselves in the penin- 
 sula between the lake that bears their name and 
 Lake Ontario. South of them and along the 
 northern shore of Lake Erie were settled their 
 kindred, afterward called the “ Neutral Nation.” 1 
 On the southern shore the Eries planted themselves, 
 while the Susquehannocks pushed on in a direc- 
 tion sufficiently described by their name. Farthest 
 
 1 Because they refused to take part in the strife between the 
 Hurons and the Five Nations. Their Indian name was Attiwan- 
 darons. They were unsurpassed for ferocity. See Parkman, 
 Jesuits in North America , p. xliv. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 45 
 
 of all penetrated the Tuscaroras, even into the 
 pine forests of North Carolina, where they main- 
 tained themselves in isolation from their kindred 
 until 1715. These invasions resulted in some dis- 
 placement of Algonquin tribes, and began to sap 
 the strength of the confederacy or alliance in 
 which the Delawares had held a foremost place. 
 
 But by far the most famous and important of 
 the Huron-Iroquois were those that followed the 
 northern shore of Lake Ontario into the valley of 
 the St. Lawrence. In that direction their progress 
 was checked by the Algonquin tribe of Adiron- 
 dacks, but they succeeded in retaining a foothold 
 in the country for a long time ; for in 1535 Jacques 
 Cartier found on the site which he named Mont- 
 real an Iroquois village which had vanished before 
 Champlain’s arrival seventy years later. Those 
 Iroquois who were thrust back in the struggle for 
 the St. Lawrence valley, early in the fifteenth 
 century, made their way across Lake Ontario and 
 established themselves at the mouth of the Oswego 
 river. They were then in three small tribes, — the 
 Mohawks, Onondagas, and Senecas, — but as they 
 grew in numbers and spread eastward to the Hud- 
 son and westward to the Genesee, the intermediate 
 tribes of Oneidas and Cayugas were formed by seg- 
 mentation. 1 About 1450 the five tribes — after- 
 wards known as the Five Nations — The Fire 
 were joined in a confederacy in pursu- Nations - 
 ance of the wise counsel which Hayowentha, or 
 Hiawatha, 2 according to the legend, whispered into 
 
 1 Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 126. 
 
 3 Whether there was ever such a person as Hiawatha is, to say 
 
46 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 the ears of the Onondaga sachem, Daganoweda. 
 This union of their resources combined, with their 
 native bravery and cunning, and their occupation of 
 the most commanding military position in eastern 
 North America, to render them invincible among 
 red men. They exterminated their old enemies 
 the Adirondacks, and pushed the Mohegans over 
 the mountains from the Hudson river to the Con- 
 necticut. When they first encountered white men 
 in 1609 their name had become a terror in New 
 England, insomuch that as soon as a single Mohawk 
 was caught sight of by the Indians in that country, 
 they would raise the cry from hill to hill, “ A Mo- 
 hawk ! a Mohawk ! ” and forthwith would flee like 
 sheep before wolves, never dreaming of resistance. 1 
 
 After the Five Nations had been supplied with 
 firearms by the Dutch their power increased with 
 portentous rapidity. 2 At first they sought to per- 
 suade their neighbours of kindred blood and speech, 
 the Eries and others, to join their confederacy ; 
 
 the least, doubtful. As a traditional culture-hero his attributes 
 are those of Ioskeha Michabo, Quetzalcoatl, Viracocha, and all 
 that class of sky-gods to which I shall again have occasion to refer. 
 See Brinton’s Myths of the New World , p. 172. When the Indian 
 speaks of Hiawatha whispering advice to Daganoweda, his mean- 
 ing is probably the same as that of the ancient Greek when he 
 attributed the wisdom of some mortal hero to whispered advice from 
 Zeus or his messenger Hermes. Longfellow’s famous poem is 
 based upon Schoolcraft’s book entitled The Hiawatha Legends , 
 which is really a misnomer, for the book consists chiefly of Ojibwa 
 stories about Manabozho, son of the West Wind. There was 
 really no such legend of Hiawatha as that which the poet has 
 immortalized. See Hale, The Iroquois Booh of Rites , pp. 36, 
 180-183. 
 
 1 Cadwallader Colden, History of the Five Nations, New York, 
 1727. 
 
 2 Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 12. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 47 
 
 and failing in this they went to war and extermi- 
 nated them. 1 Then they overthrew one Algonquin 
 tribe after another until in 1690 their career was 
 checked by the French. By that time they had 
 reduced to a tributary condition most of the Algon- 
 quin tribes, even to the Mississippi river. Some 
 writers have spoken of the empire of the Iroquois, 
 and it has been surmised that, if they had not been 
 interfered with by white men, they might have 
 played a part analogous to that of the Romans in 
 the Old World ; but there is no real similarity be- 
 tween the two cases. The Romans acquired their 
 mighty strength by incorporating vanquished peo- 
 ples into their own body politic. 2 No American 
 aborigines ever had a glimmering of the process of 
 state-building after the Roman fashion. No incor- 
 poration resulted from the victories of the Iroquois. 
 Where their burnings and massacres stopped short 
 of extermination, they simply took tribute, which 
 was as far as state-craft had got in the lower period 
 of barbarism. General Walker has summed up 
 their military career in a single sentence : “ They 
 
 were the scourge of God upon the aborigines of 
 the continent.” 3 
 
 The six groups here enumerated — Dakota, 
 Mandan, Pawnee, Maskoki, Algonquin, Iroquois 
 
 1 All except the distant Tuscaroras, who in 1715 migrated from 
 North Carolina to New York, and joining the Iroqnois league 
 made it the Six Nations. All the rest of the outlying Huron- 
 Iroquois stock was wiped out of existence before the end of the 
 seventeenth century, except the remnant of Hurons since known 
 as Wyandots. 
 
 2 See my Beginnings of New England , chap. i. 
 
 8 F. A. Walker, “The Indian Question,” North American Re- 
 view, April, 1873, p. 370. 
 
48 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 — made up the great body of the aborigines of 
 North America who at the time of the Discovery 
 lived in the lower status of barbarism. All made 
 pottery of various degrees of rudeness. Their 
 tools and weapons were of the Neolithic type, — 
 stone either polished or accurately and 
 
 Horticulture 
 
 mustbedis- artistically chipped. tor the most 
 from field part they lived in stockaded villages, 
 and cultivated maize, beans, pumpkins, 
 squashes, sunflowers, and tobacco. They depended 
 for subsistence partly upon such vegetable prod- 
 ucts, partly upon hunting and fishing, the women 
 generally attending to the horticulture, the men to 
 the chase. Horticulture is an appropriate desig- 
 nation for this stage in which the ground is merely 
 scratched with stone spades and hoes. It is incip- 
 ient agriculture, but should be carefully distin- 
 guished from the field agriculture in which exten- 
 sive pieces of land are subdued by the plough. 
 The assistance of domestic animals is needed be- 
 fore such work can be carried far, and it does not 
 appear that there was an approach to field agri- 
 culture in any part of pre-Columbian America 
 except Peru, where men were harnessed to the 
 plough, and perhaps occasionally llamas were used 
 in the same way . 1 Where subsistence depended 
 upon rude horticulture eked out by game and fish, 
 it required a large territory to support a sparse 
 population. The great diversity of languages 
 contributed to maintain the isolation of tribes 
 and prevent extensive confederation. Intertribal 
 
 1 See Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur, 3d ed., Stuttgart, 1849, 
 vol. i. p. 203. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 49 
 
 warfare was perpetual, save now and then for 
 truces of brief duration. Warfare was attended 
 by wholesale massacre. As many prisoners as 
 could be managed were taken home by perpetual 
 their captors ; in some cases they were warfare - 
 adopted into the tribe of the latter as a means of 
 increasing its fighting strength, otherwise they 
 were put to death with lingering torments . 1 There 
 was nothing which afforded the red men such ex- 
 quisite delight as the spectacle of live human flesh 
 lacerated with stone knives or hissing under the 
 touch of firebrands, and for elaborate ingenuity in 
 devising tortures they have never been equalled . 2 
 
 1 “ Women and children joined in these fiendish atrocities, and 
 when at length the victim yielded up his life, his heart, if he were 
 brave, was ripped from his body, cut in pieces, broiled, and given 
 to the young men, under the belief that it would increase their 
 courage; they drank his blood, thinking it would make them 
 more wary; and finally his body was divided limb from limb, 
 roasted or thrown into the seething pot, and hands and feet, 
 arms and legs, head and trunk, were all stewed into a horrid 
 mess and eaten amidst yells, songs, and dances.” Jeffries Wy- 
 man, in Seventh Report of Peabody Museum , p. 37. For details 
 of the most appalling character, see Butterfield’s History of the 
 Girtys, pp. 176-182 ; Stone’s Life of Joseph Brant, vol. ii. pp. 31, 
 32; Dodge’s Plains of the Great West, p. 418, and Our Wild In- 
 dians, pp. 525-529; Parkman’s Jesuits in North America , pp. 
 387-391 ; and many other places in Parkman’s writings. 
 
 2 One often hears it said that the cruelty of the Indians was 
 not greater than that of mediaeval Europeans, as exemplified in 
 judicial torture and in the horrors of the Inquisition. But in 
 such a judgment there is lack of due discrimination. In the 
 practice of torture by civil and ecclesiastical tribunals in the 
 Middle Ages, there was a definite moral purpose which, however 
 lamentably mistaken or perverted, gave it a very different char- 
 acter from torture wantonly inflicted for amusement. The atro- 
 cities formerly attendant upon the sack of towns, as e. g. Beziers, 
 Magdeburg, etc., might more properly be regarded as an illustra- 
 
50 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, 
 
 Cannibalism was quite commonly practised . 1 The 
 
 tion of the survival of a spirit fit only for the lowest barbarism : 
 and the Spanish conquerors of the New World themselves often 
 exhibited cruelty such as even Indians seldom surpass. See be- 
 low, vol. ii. p. 444. In spite of such eases, however, it must be 
 held that for artistic skill in inflicting the greatest possible in- 
 tensity of excruciating pain upon every nerve in the body, the 
 Spaniard was a bungler and a novice as compared with the In- 
 dian. See Dodge’s Our Wild Indians , pp. 536-538. Colonel 
 Dodge was in familiar contact with Indians for more than thirty 
 years, and writes with fairness and discrimination. 
 
 In truth the question as to comparative cruelty is not so much 
 one of race as of occupation, except in so far as race is moulded 
 by long occupation. The “ old Adam,” i. e. the inheritance from 
 our brute ancestors, is very stiong in the human race. Callous- 
 ness to the suffering of others than self is part of this brute-in- 
 heritance, and under the influence of certain habits and occu- 
 pations this germ of callousness may be developed to almost any 
 height of devilish cruelty. In the lower stages of culture the 
 lack of political aggregation on a l",rge scale is attended with 
 incessant warfare in the shape in which it comes home to every- 
 body’s door. This state of things keeps alive the passion of re- 
 venge and stimulates cruelty to the highest degree. As long as 
 such a state of things endures, as it did in Europe to a limited 
 extent throughout the Middle Ages, there is sure to be a dread- 
 ful amount of cruelty. The change in the conditions of modern 
 warfare has been a very important factor in the rapidly increas- 
 ing mildness and humanity of modern times. See my Beginnings 
 of New England , pp. 226-229. Something more will be said 
 hereafter with reference to the special causes concerned in the 
 cruelty and brutality of the Spaniards in America. Meanwhile 
 it may be observed in the present connection, that the Spanish 
 taskmasters who mutilated and burned their slaves were not rep- 
 resentative types of their own race to anything like the same 
 extent as the Indians who tortured Br^beuf or Crawford. If 
 the fiendish Pedrarias was a Spaniard, so too was the saintly Las 
 Casas. The latter type would be as impossible among barbari- 
 ans as an Aristotle or a Beethoven. Indeed, though there are 
 writers who would like to prove the contrary, it may be doubted 
 whether that type has ever attained to perfection except under 
 the influence of Christianity. 
 
 1 See the evidence collected by Jeffries Wyman, in Seventh Re> 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 51 
 
 scalps of slain enemies were always taken, and 
 until they had attained such trophies the young 
 men were not likely to find favour in the eyes of 
 women. The Indian’s notions of morality were 
 those that belong to that state of society in which 
 the tribe is the largest well-established political 
 aggregate. Murder without the tribe was meri- 
 torious unless it entailed risk of war at an obvious 
 disadvantage ; murder within the tribe was either 
 revenged by blood-feud or compounded by a pres- 
 ent given to the victim’s kinsmen. Such rudi- 
 mentary wergild was often reckoned in wampum, 
 or strings of beads made of a kind of mussel shell, 
 and put to divers uses, as personal ornament, 
 mnemonic record, and finally money. Religious 
 thought was in the fetishistic or animistic stage , 1 
 while many tribes had risen to a vague conception 
 of tutelar deities embodied in human or animal 
 forms. Myth-tales abounded, and the folk-lore of 
 the red men is found to be extremely interesting 
 and instructive . 2 Their religion consisted mainly 
 
 port of Peabody Museum , pp. 27-37 ; cf. Wake, Evolution of Mo- 
 rality, yoI. i. p. 243. Many illustrations are given by Mr. Park- 
 man. In this connection it may be observed that the name 
 “Mohawk” means “Cannibal.” It is an Algonquin word, ap- 
 plied to this Iroquois tribe by their enemies in the Connecticut 
 valley and about the lower Hudson. The name by which the 
 Mohawks called themselves was “ Caniengas,” or “ People-at- 
 the-Flint.” See Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites , p. 173. 
 
 1 For accounts and explanations of animism see Tylor’s Primi- 
 tive Culture , London, 1871, 2 vols. ; Caspari, XJrgeschickte der 
 Menschheit , Leipsic, 1877, 2 vols. ; Spencer’s Principles of Soci- 
 ology, part i. ; and my Myths and Mythmakers, chap. vii. 
 
 2 No time should be lost in gathering and recording every 
 scrap of this folk-lore that can be found. The American Folk- 
 Lore Society, founded chiefly through the exertions of my friend 
 
52 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 in a devout belief in witchcraft. No well-defined 
 priestly class had been evolved; the so-called 
 “medicine men” were mere conjurers, though 
 possessed of considerable influence. 
 
 But none of the characteristics of barbarous 
 society above specified will carry us so far toward 
 realizing the gulf which divides it from civilized 
 society as the imperfect development of its do- 
 mestic relations. The importance of this subject 
 is such as to call for a few words of special eluci- 
 dation. 
 
 Thirty years ago, when Sir Henry Maine pub- 
 lished that magnificent treatise on Ancient Law, 
 which, when considered in all its potency of sug- 
 gestiveness, has perhaps done more than any 
 other single book of our century toward placing 
 the study of history upon a, scientific basis, he be- 
 gan by showing that in primitive soci- 
 ety the individual is nothing and the 
 state nothing, while the family-group is everything, 
 and that the progress of civilization politically has 
 
 Mr. W. W. Newell, and organized January 4, 1888, is already doing 
 excellent work and promises to become a valuable aid, within its 
 field, to the work of the Bureau of Ethnology. Of the Journal 
 of American Folk-Lore , published for the society by Messrs. 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co., nine numbers have appeared, and the 
 reader will find them full of valuable information. One may also 
 profitably consult Knortz’s Mahrchen und Sagen der nordamerika- 
 nischen Indianer , Jena, 1871 ; Brinton’s Myths of the New World, 
 N. Y., 1868, and his American Hero-Myths, Phila., 1882 ; Leland’s 
 Algonquin Legends of New England, Boston, 1884 ; Mrs. Emerson’s 
 Indian Myths, Boston, 1884. Some brief reflections and criticisms 
 of much value, in relation to aboriginal American folk-lore, may 
 be found in Curtin’s Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, pp. 12-27. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 53 
 
 consisted on the one hand in the aggregation and 
 building up of family-groups through intermediate 
 tribal organizations into states, and on the other 
 hand in the disentanglement of individuals from 
 the family thraldom. In other words, we began 
 by having no political communities larger than 
 clans, and no bond of political union except blood 
 relationship, and in this state of things the indi- 
 vidual, as to his rights and obligations, was sub- 
 merged in the clan. We at length come to have 
 great nations like the English or the French, in 
 which blood-relationship as a bond of political 
 union is no longer indispensable or even much 
 thought of, and in which the individual citizen is 
 the possessor of legal rights and subject to legal 
 obligations. No one in our time can forget how 
 beautifully Sir Henry Maine, with his profound 
 knowledge of early Aryan law and custom, from 
 Ireland to Hindustan, delineated the slow growth 
 of individual ownership of property and individ- 
 ual responsibility for delict and crime out of an 
 earlier stage in which ownership and responsibility 
 belonged only to family-groups or clans. 
 
 In all these brilliant studies Sir Henry Maine 
 started with the patriarchal family as we find it at 
 the dawn of history among all peoples of Aryan 
 and Semitic speech, — the patriarchal 
 family of the ancient Roman and the ^h£ a fSaUy 
 ancient Jew, the family in which kin- notprmutlve< 
 ship is reckoned through males, and in which all 
 authority centres in the eldest male, and descends 
 to his eldest son. Maine treated this patriarchal 
 family as primitive ; but his great book had hardly 
 
54 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 appeared when other scholars, more familiar than 
 he with races in savagery or in the lower status of 
 barbarism, showed that his view was too restricted. 
 We do not get back to primitive society by study- 
 ing Greeks, Romans, and Jews, peoples who had 
 nearly emerged from the later period of barbarism 
 when we first know them. 1 Their patriarchal fam- 
 ily was perfected in shape during the later period 
 of barbarism, and it was preceded by a much ruder 
 and less definite form of family-group in which 
 kinship was reckoned only through the mother, 
 and the headship never descended from father to 
 son. As so often happens, this discovery was 
 made almost simultaneously by two investigators, 
 each working in ignorance of what the other was 
 doing. In 1861, the same year in which “ Ancient 
 Law ” was published, Professor Bachofen, of Basel, 
 “ Mother- published his famous book, “ Das Mut- 
 terrecht,” of which his co-discoverer and 
 rival, after taking exception to some of his state- 
 ments, thus cordially writes : “ It remains, how- 
 
 1 Until lately our acquaintance with human history was derived 
 almost exclusively from literary memorials, among which the 
 Bible, the Homeric poems, and the Vedas, carried us back about 
 as far as literature could take us. It was natural, therefore, to 
 suppose that the society of the times of Abraham or Agamemnon 
 was “primitive,” and the wisest scholars reasoned upon such an 
 assumption. With vision thus restricted to civilized man and his 
 ideas and works, people felt free to speculate about uncivilized 
 races (generally grouped together indiscriminately as “ savages ”) 
 according to any a priori whim that might happen to captivate 
 their fancy. But the discoveries of the last half-century have 
 opened such stupendous vistas of the past that the age of Abra- 
 ham seems but as yesterday. The state of society described in the 
 book of Genesis had five entire ethnical periods, and che greater 
 part of a sixth, behind it ; and its institutions were, comparatively 
 speaking, modern. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 55 
 
 ever, after all qualifications and deductions, that 
 Bachofen, before any one else, discovered the fact 
 that a system of kinship through mothers only, 
 had anciently everywhere prevailed before the tie 
 of blood between father and child had found a 
 place in systems of relationships. And the honour 
 of that discovery, the importance of which, as 
 affording a new starting-point for all history, can- 
 not be overestimated, must without stint or qual- 
 ification be assigned to him.” 1 Such are the gen- 
 erous words of the late John Ferguson McLennan, 
 who had no knowledge of Bachofen’s work when 
 his own treatise on “ Primitive Marriage ” was 
 published in 1865. Since he was so modest in urg- 
 ing his own claims, it is due to the Scotch lawyer’s 
 memory to say that, while he was inferior in point 
 of erudition to the Swiss professor, his book is char- 
 acterized by greater sagacity, goes more Primitive 
 directly to the mark, and is less encum- marriage ' 
 bered by visionary speculations of doubtful value. 2 
 Mr. McLennan proved, from evidence collected 
 chiefly from Australians and South Sea Islanders, 
 and sundry non-Aryan tribes of Hindustan and 
 Thibet, that systems of kinship in which the father 
 is ignored exist to-day, and he furthermore discov- 
 ered unmistakable and very significant traces of the 
 former existence of such a state of things among 
 the Mongols, the Greeks and Phoenicians, and the 
 ancient Hebrews. By those who were inclined to 
 
 1 McLennan’s Studies in Ancient History , comprising a reprint of 
 Primitive Marriage, etc. London, 1876, p. 421. 
 
 2 There is much that is unsound in it, however, as is often 
 inevitably the case with books that strike boldly into a new field 
 of inquiry. 
 
56 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 regard Sir Henry Maine’s views as final, it was 
 argued that Mr. McLennan’s facts were of a spo- 
 radic and exceptional character. But when the 
 evidence from this vast archaic world of America 
 began to be gathered in and interpreted by Mr. 
 Morgan, this argument fell to the ground, and as to 
 the point chiefly in contention, Mr. McLennan was 
 
 proved to be right. Throughout abo- 
 reckoning riginal America, with one or two ex- 
 through ceptions, kinship was reckoned through 
 
 females only. » , , . , . 
 
 females only, and m the exceptional in- 
 stances the vestiges of that system were so promi- 
 nent as to make it clear that the change had been 
 but recently effected. During the past fifteen 
 years, evidence has accumulated from various 
 parts of the world, until it k beginning to appear 
 as if it were the patriarchal system that is excep- 
 tional, having been reached only by the highest 
 races . 1 Sir Henry Maine’s work has lost none of 
 
 1 A general view of the subject may he obtained from the fol- 
 lowing works: Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht, Stuttgart, 1871, 
 and Die Sage von Tanaquil, Heidelberg, 1870; MeLennan’s Stud- 
 ies in Ancient History , London, 1876, and The Patriarchal 
 Theory , London, 1884; Morgan’s Systems of Consanguinity 
 (Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. xvii.), Washing- 
 ton, 1871, and Ancient Society , New York, 1877 ; Robertson 
 Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia , Cambridge, Eng., 
 1885; Lubbock, Origin of Civilization , 5th ed., London, 1889; 
 Giraud-Teulon, La Mere chez certains peuples de V antiquite, Paris, 
 1867, and Les Origines de la Famille , Geneva, 1874 ; Starcke (of 
 Copenhagen), The Primitive Family , London, 1889. Some criti- 
 cisms upon McLennan and Morgan may be found in Maine’s later 
 works, Early History of Institutions , London, 1875, and Early 
 Law and Custom , London, 1883. By far the ablest critical survey 
 of the whole field is that in Spencer’s Principles of Sociology , vol. 
 i. pp. 621-797. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA . 
 
 57 
 
 its value, only, like all human work, it is not final ; 
 it needs to be supplemented by the further study 
 of savagery as best exemplified in Australia and 
 some parts of Polynesia, and of barbarism as best 
 exemplified in America. The subject is, more- 
 over, one of great and complicated difficulty, and 
 leads incidentally to many questions for solving 
 which the data at our command are still inade- 
 quate. It is enough for us now to observe in 
 general that while there are plenty of instances 
 of change from the system of reckoning kinship 
 only through females, to the system of reckoning 
 through males, there do not appear to have been 
 any instances of change in the reverse direction ; 
 and that in ancient America the earlier system 
 was prevalent. 
 
 If now we ask the reason for such a system of 
 reckoning kinship and inheritance, so strange ac- 
 cording to all our modern notions, the true answer 
 doubtless is that which was given by 
 prudent (rcTTwiievoi) Telemachus to the bod for the 
 goddess Athene when she asked him to 
 tell her truly if he was the son of Odysseus : — 
 “ My mother says I am his son, for my part, I 
 don’t know ; one never knows of one’s self who one’s 
 father is .” 1 Already, no doubt, in Homer’s time 
 
 1 ’'AAA’ &ye fxoi rSSe ehre teal arpeKews Kard\e^ov, 
 ei 8)/ 4£ aiiroio t 6ffos ttcus eh ’OSvaijos. 
 aivws y dp Ke<pa \i]V re Kal ofifiara /caAa eoiKas 
 Kelvcp, iirel dapa roTov 4puffy6fie& > ctAA^Aouriy, 
 irpiv ye rbv 4s Tpolrfv VajS^/uevai, ivQa irep &W 01 
 *Apyeio)u oi &pi<rroi ifrav ko(\t]S 4irl vrjvalv* % 
 
 4k rov 8 ' otfr * ’OSuenja 4- ytbv 18ov otir' 4 fib Ke7vos. 
 
 TV S’ a3 TifXefiaxos ireTrvvfievos avrlov i)&8a 
 
58 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 there was a gleam of satire about this answer, such 
 as it would show on a modern page ; but in more 
 primitive times it was a very serious affair. From 
 what we know of the ideas and practices of unciv- 
 ilized tribes all over the world, it is evident that 
 the sacredness of the family based upon indissolu- 
 ble marriage is a thing of comparatively modern 
 growth. If the sexual relations of the Austra- 
 lians, as observed to-day , 1 are an improvement 
 upon an antecedent state of things, that antece- 
 The primeval dent state must have been sheer pro- 
 human horde. m i scu ity. There is ample warrant for 
 
 supposing, with Mr. McLennan, that at the be- 
 ginning of the lower status of savagery, long since 
 everywhere extinct, the family had not made itself 
 distinctly visible, but men Jived in a horde very 
 much like gregarious brutes . 2 * * I have shown that 
 
 to iy up iyco toi, £e?j/e, juaA' arpeKews ayopeia (a. 
 p.'firrjp jueV t 5 ip.4 (pr)(ri tov eju/zevai, avrap eyooye 
 ovk oW • ov ydp ttu) tis eby yovov aurbs aveyvco. 
 
 Odyssey , i. 206. 
 
 1 Lumholtz, Among Cannibals , p. 213; Lubbock, Origin of 
 Civilization , p. 107 ; Morgan, Ancient Society , part iii., chap. iii. 
 “ After battle it frequently happens among the native tribes of 
 Australia that the wives of the conquered, of their own free-will, 
 go over to the victors ; reminding us of the lioness which, quietly 
 watching the fight between two lions, goes off with the con- 
 queror.” Spencer, Principles of Sociology , vol. i. p. 632. 
 
 2 The notion of the descent of the human race from a single 
 
 “pair,” or of different races from different “ pairs,” is a curious 
 
 instance of transferring modern institutions into times primeval. 
 Of course the idea is absurd. When the elder Agassiz so em- 
 phatically declared that “ pines have originated in forests, heaths 
 in heaths, grasses in prairies, bees in hives, herrings in shoals, 
 buffaloes in herds, men in nations ” {Essay on Classification , Lon- 
 
 don, 1859, p. 58), he made, indeed, a mistake of the same sort, 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 59 
 
 the essential difference between this primeval hu- 
 man horde and a mere herd of brutes consisted in 
 the fact that the gradual but very great prolon- 
 gation of infancy had produced two effects : the 
 lengthening of the care of children tended to dif- 
 ferentiate the horde into family-groups, and the 
 lengthening of the period of youthful mental plas- 
 ticity made it more possible for a new generation 
 to improve upon the ideas and customs of its pre- 
 decessors . 1 In these two concomitant processes 
 — the development of the family and the increase 
 of mental plasticity, or ability to adopt new meth- 
 ods and strike out into new paths of thought — lies 
 the whole explanation of the moral and intellectual 
 superiority of men over dumb animals. But in 
 each case the change was very gradual . 2 The true 
 savage is only a little less unteachable than the 
 beasts of the field. The savage family is at first 
 barely discernible amid the primitive social chaos 
 
 so far as concerns the origin of Man, for the nation is a still more 
 modem institution than the family ; but in the other items of his 
 statement he was right, and as regards the human race he was 
 thinking in the right direction when he placed multitude instead 
 of duality at the beginning. If instead of that extremely com- 
 plex and highly organized multitude called “ nation ” (in the plu- 
 ral), he had started with the extremely simple and almost unor- 
 ganized multitude called “horde” (in the singular), the state- 
 ment for Man would have been correct. Such views were hardly 
 within the reach of science thirty years ago. 
 
 1 Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy , part ii., chaps, xvi., xxi., xxii. ; 
 Excursions of an Evolutionist , pp. 306-319 ; Darwinism , and other 
 Essays , pp. 40-49 ; The Destiny of Man , §§ iii.-ix. 
 
 2 The slowness of the development has apparently been such 
 as befits the transcendent value of the result. Though the ques- 
 tion is confessedly beyond the reach of science, may we not hold 
 that civilized man, the creature of an infinite past, is the child of 
 eternity, maturing for an inheritance of immortal life ? 
 
60 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 in which, it had its origin. Along with polyandry 
 and polygyny in various degrees and forms, in- 
 stances of exclusive pairing, of at least a tempo- 
 rary character, are to be found among the lowest 
 existing savages, and there are reasons 
 
 Earliest fam- „ ° . ° , , - _ 
 
 iiy-group : the tor supposing that such may have been 
 the case even in primeval times. But 
 it was impossible for strict monogamy to flourish 
 in the ruder stages of social development; and 
 the kind of family-group that was first clearly 
 and permanently differentiated from the primeval 
 horde was not at all like what civilized people 
 would recognize as a family. It was the gens or 
 clan , as we find it exemplified in all stages from 
 the middle period of savagery to the middle pe- 
 riod of barbarism. The gens or clan was simply 
 — - to define it by a third synonym — the kin ; it 
 was originally a group of males and females who 
 were traditionally aware of their common descent 
 reckoned in the female line. At this 
 stage of development there was quite 
 generally though not universally prevalent the cus- 
 tom of “ exogamy,” by which a man was forbid- 
 den to marry a woman of his own clan. Among 
 such Australian tribes as have been studied, this 
 primitive restriction upon promiscuity seems to be 
 about the only one. 
 
 Throughout all the earlier stages of culture, 
 and even into the civilized period, we find society 
 organized with the clan for its ultimate unit, al- 
 though in course of time its character becomes 
 greatly altered by the substitution of kinship in 
 the paternal, for that in the maternal line. By 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 01 
 
 long-continued growth and repeated segmentation 
 the primitive clan was developed into a p^try and 
 more complex structure, in which a tribe ' 
 group of clans constituted a phratry or brother- 
 hood, and a group of phratries constituted a tribe. 
 This threefold grouping is found so commonly in 
 all parts of the world as to afford good ground 
 for the belief that it has been universal. It was 
 long ago familiar to historians in the case of 
 Greece and Rome, and of our Teutonic forefathers , 1 
 but it also existed generally in ancient America, 
 and many obscure points connected with the his- 
 tory of the Greek and Roman groups have been 
 elucidated through the study of Iroquois and Al- 
 gonquin institutions. Along with the likenesses, 
 however, there are numerous unlikenesses, due to 
 the change of kinship, among the European 
 groups, from the female line to the male. 
 
 This change, as it occurred among Aryan and 
 Semitic peoples, marked one of the most momen- 
 tous revolutions in the history of mankind. It 
 probably occurred early in the upper period of 
 barbarism, or late in the middle period, after the 
 long-continued domestication of animals had re- 
 sulted in the acquisition of private property ( pe - 
 cus , peculium , pecunia ) in large amounts by in- 
 dividuals. In primitive society there 
 was very little personal property ex- torafufe Spon 
 cept in weapons, clothing (such as it upon the fam- 
 was), and trinkets. Real estate was un- 
 known. Land was simply occupied by the tribe. 
 There was general communism and social equal- 
 
 1 The Teutonic hundred and Roman curia answered to the 
 Greek phratry. 
 
62 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 ity. In the Old World the earliest instance of 
 extensive “ adverse possession ” on the part of in- 
 dividuals, as against other individuals in the clan- 
 community, was the possession of flocks and herds. 
 Distinctions in wealth and rank were thus inaugu- 
 rated ; slavery began to be profitable and personal 
 retainers and adherents useful in new ways. As 
 in earlier stages the community in marital rela- 
 tions had been part of the general community in 
 possessions, so now the exclusive possession of a 
 wife or wives was part of the system of private 
 property that was coming into vogue. The man 
 of many cattle, the man who could attach subor- 
 dinates to him through motives of self-interest as 
 well as personal deference, the man who could de- 
 fend his property against robbers, could also have 
 his separate household and maintain its sanctity. 
 In this way, it is believed, indissoluble marriage, 
 in its two forms of monogamy and polygamy, 
 originated. That it had already existed sporadi- 
 cally is not denied, but it now acquired such sta- 
 bility and permanence that the older and looser 
 forms of alliance, hitherto prevalent, fell into dis- 
 favour, A natural result of the growth of private 
 wealth and the permanence of the marital rela- 
 tion was the change in reckoning kinship from the 
 maternal to the paternal line. This change was 
 probably favoured by the prevalence of polygamy 
 among those who were coming to be distinguished 
 as “upper classes,” since a large family of chil- 
 dren by different mothers could be held together 
 only by reckoning the kinship through the father. 
 Thus, we may suppose, originated the patriarchal 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 63 
 
 family. Even in its rudest form it was an im- 
 mense improvement upon what had gone before, 
 and to the stronger and higher social organization 
 thus acquired we must largely ascribe the rise of 
 the Aryan and Semitic peoples to the foremost 
 rank of civilization . 1 
 
 It is not intended to imply that there is no 
 other way in which the change to the male line 
 may have been brought about among other peo- 
 ples. The explanation just given applies very 
 well to the Aryan and Semitic peoples, but it is 
 inapplicable to the state of things which seems to 
 have existed in Mexico at the time of the Dis- 
 covery . 2 The subject is a difficult one, and some- 
 times confronts us with questions much easier to 
 ask than to answer. The change has been ob- 
 served among tribes in a lower stage than that 
 just described . 3 On the other hand, as old cus- 
 toms die hard, no doubt inheritance has in many 
 places continued in the maternal line long after 
 paternity is fully known. Symmetrical regularity 
 in the development of human institutions has by 
 no means been the rule, and there is often much 
 difficulty in explaining particular cases, even when 
 the direction of the general drift can be discerned. 
 
 1 Fenton’s Early Hebrew Life , London, 1880, is an interesting 
 study of the upper period of barbarism ; see also Spencer, Prin- 
 cip. of Sociol., i. 724-737. 
 
 2 See below, p. 122. 
 
 8 As among the Hervey Islanders; Gill, Myths and Songs of the 
 South Pacific , p. 36. Sir John Lubbock would account for the 
 curious and widely spread custom of the Couvade as a feature of 
 this change. Origin of Civilization , pp. 14-17, 159 ; cf. Tylor, 
 Early Hist, of Mankind, pp. 288, 297. 
 
64 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 In aboriginal America, as already observed, 
 kinship through females only was the rule, and 
 The exoga- exogamy was strictly enforced, — the 
 SentAmer- wife must be taken from a different 
 lca> clan. Indissoluble marriage, whether 
 
 monogamous or polygamous, seems to have been 
 unknown. The marriage relation was terminable 
 at the will of either party . 1 The abiding unit 
 upon which the social structure was founded was 
 not the family but the exogamous clan. 
 
 I have been at some pains to elucidate this 
 point because the house -life of the American 
 aborigines found visible, and in some instances 
 very durable, expression in a remarkable style of 
 house-architecture. The manner in which the In- 
 dians built their houses grew directly out of the 
 requirements of their life. It was an unmistak- 
 ably characteristic architecture, and while it ex- 
 
 1 “ There is no embarrassment growing out of problems re- 
 specting the woman’s future support, the division of property, or 
 the adjustment of claims for the possession of the children. The 
 independent self-support of every adult healthy Indian, male or 
 female, and the gentile relationship, which is more wide-reaching 
 and authoritative than that of marriage, have already disposed of 
 these questions, which are usually so perplexing for the white 
 man. So far as personal maintenance is concerned, a woman is, 
 as a rule, just as well off without a husband as with one. What 
 is hers, in the shape of property, remains her own whether she is 
 married or not. In fact, marriage among these Indians seems to 
 be but the natural mating of the sexes, to cease at the option of 
 either of the interested parties.” Clay MaeCauley, “ The Semi- 
 nole Indians of Florida,” in Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of 
 Ethnology , Washington, 1887, p. 497. For a graphic account of 
 the state, of things among the Cheyennes and Arrapahos, see 
 Dodge, Our Wild Indians , pp. 204-220. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 65 
 
 hibits manifold unlikenesses in detail, due to dif- 
 ferences in intelligence as well as to 
 
 ° Intimate con- 
 
 the presence or absence of sundry mar nection of ab- 
 
 r m , J , original arcbi- 
 
 terials, there is one underlying princi- 
 pie always manifest. That underlying 
 principle is adaptation to a certain mode of com- 
 munal living such as all American aborigines that 
 have been carefully studied are known to have 
 practised. Through many gradations, from the 
 sty of the California savage up to the noble sculp- 
 tured ruins of Uxmal and Chichen-Itza, the prin- 
 ciple is always present. Taken in connection with 
 evidence from other sources, it enables us to ex- 
 hibit a gradation of stages of culture in aboriginal 
 North America, with the savages of the Sacra- 
 mento and Columbia valleys at the bottom, and the 
 Mayas of Yucatan at the top ; and while in going 
 from one end to the other a very long interval was 
 traversed, we feel that the progress of the abori- 
 gines in crossing that interval was made along 
 similar lines . 1 
 
 The principle was first studied and explained by 
 Mr. Morgan in the case of the famous “long 
 houses ” of the Iroquois. “ The long house . . . 
 was from fifty to eighty and sometimes one hun- 
 dred feet long. It consisted of a strong frame 
 of upright poles set in the ground, which was 
 strengthened with horizontal poles attached with 
 withes, and surmounted with a triangular, and in 
 some cases with a round roof. It was covered over, 
 
 1 See Morgan’s Houses and House-Life of the American Abori- 
 gines , Washington, 1881, an epoch-making book of rare and ab- 
 sorbing interest. 
 
66 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 both sides and roof, with long strips of elm bark 
 tied to the frame with strings or splints. An ex- 
 
 Seneca-Iroquois long’ house. 
 
 ternal frame of poles for the sides and of rafters 
 The long f° r the roof were then adjusted to hold 
 houses of the the bark shingles between them, the 
 two frames being tied together. The 
 interior of the house was comparted 1 at intervals 
 
 L 1 
 * « 
 
 ! 1 
 
 i 
 
 V. 
 
 U 
 
 i 1 
 
 i 
 
 u 
 
 n 
 
 i i 
 
 n 
 
 i i 
 
 1 I 
 1* 
 
 M 
 
 n 
 
 L.l 
 
 ! 1 
 
 n 
 
 1 
 
 n 
 
 u 
 
 n 
 
 i 
 
 u 
 
 n 
 
 i 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 96 
 
 rr. 
 
 Ground-plan of long house. 
 
 of six or eight feet, leaving each chamber entirely 
 open like a stall upon the passageway which 
 passed through the centre of the house from end 
 to end. At each end was a doorway covered with 
 suspended skins. Between each four apartments, 
 two on a side, was a fire-pit in the centre of the 
 hall, used in common by their occupants. Thus a 
 house with five fires would contain twenty apart- 
 
 1 This verb of Mr. Morgan’s at first struck me as odd, hut 
 though rarely used, it is supported by good authority ; see Cen- 
 tury Dictionary, s. v. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 67 
 
 merits and accommodate twenty families, unless 
 some apartments were reserved for storage. They 
 were warm, roomy, and tidily-kept habitations. 
 Raised bunks were constructed around the walls 
 of each apartment for beds. From the roof-poles 
 were suspended their strings of corn in the ear, 
 braided by the husks, also strings of dried squashes 
 and pumpkins. Spaces were contrived here and 
 there to store away their accumulations of provi- 
 sions. Each house, as a rule, was occupied by re- 
 lated families, the mothers and their children be- 
 longing to the same gens, while their husbands 
 and the fathers of these children belonged to other 
 gentes ; consequently the gens or clan of the 
 mother largely predominated in the household. 
 Whatever was taken in the hunt or raised by cul- 
 tivation by any member of the household . . . 
 was for the common benefit. Provisions were 
 made a common stock within the household.” 1 
 “ Over every such household a matron presided, 
 whose duty it was to supervise its domestic econ- 
 omy. After the single daily meal had been cooked 
 at the different fires within the house, it was her 
 province to divide the food from the kettle to the 
 several families according to their respective needs. 
 What remained was placed in the custody of an- 
 other person until she again required it.” 2 
 
 1 The Iroquois ceased to build such houses before the begin- 
 ning of the present century. I quote Mr. Morgan’s description 
 at length, because his book is out of print and hard to obtain. 
 It ought to be republished, and in octavo, like his Ancient So- 
 ciety, of which it is a continuation. 
 
 2 Lucien Carr, “ On the Social and Political Position of Woman 
 among the Huron-Iroquois Tribes,” Reports of Peabody Museum , 
 vol. iii. p. 215. 
 
68 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Summary 
 
 divorce. 
 
 Not only the food was common property, hut 
 many chattels, including the children, belonged to 
 the gens or clan. When a young woman got mar- 
 ried she brought her husband home with her. 
 Though thenceforth an inmate of this household 
 he remained an alien to her clan. “ If he proved 
 lazy and failed to do his share of the providing, 
 woe be to him. No matter how many children, or 
 whatever goods he might have in the house, he 
 might at any time be ordered to pick 
 up his blanket and budge; and after 
 such orders it would not be healthful for him to 
 disobey ; the house would be too hot for him ; and 
 unless saved by the intercession of some aunt or 
 grandmother [of his wife] he must retreat to his 
 own clan, or, as was often done, go and start a 
 new matrimonial alliance in some other. . . . The 
 female portion ruled the house .” 1 
 
 Though there was but one freshly-cooked meal, 
 taken about the middle of the day, any member of 
 the household when hungry could be helped from 
 the common stock. Hospitality was universal. If 
 a person from one of the other communal house- 
 holds, or a stranger from another tribe (in time of 
 peace), were to visit the house, the women would 
 immediately offer him food, and it was 
 a breach of etiquette to decline to eat it. 
 This custom was strictly observed all over the 
 continent and in the West India Islands, and was 
 often remarked upon by the early discoverers, in 
 
 Hospitality. 
 
 1 This was not incompatible with the subjection of women to 
 extreme drudgery and ill-treatment. For an instructive compari- 
 son with the ease among the tribes of the Far West, see Dodge, 
 Our Wild Indians , chap. xvi. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 69 
 
 whose minds it was apt to implant idyllic notions 
 that were afterward rudely disturbed. The prev- 
 alence of hospitality among uncivilized races has 
 long been noted by travellers, and is probably in 
 most cases, as it certainly was in ancient America, 
 closely connected with communism in living. 
 
 The clan, which practised this communism, had 
 its definite organization, officers, rights, and duties. 
 Its official head was the “sachem,” whose func- 
 tions were of a civil nature. The sachem was 
 elected by the clan and must be a member of it, 
 so that a son could not be chosen to succeed his 
 father, but a sachem could be succeeded structure of 
 by his uterine brother or by his sister’s the cUn ' 
 son, and in this way customary lines of succession 
 could and often did tend to become established. 
 The clan also elected its “ chiefs,” whose functions 
 were military ; the number of chiefs was propor- 
 tionate to that of the people composing the clan, 
 usually one chief to every fifty or sixty persons. 
 The clan could depose its sachem or any of its 
 chiefs. Personal property, such as weapons, or 
 trophies, or rights of user in the garden-plots, was 
 inheritable in the female line, and thus stayed 
 within the clan. The members were reciprocally 
 bound to help, defend, and avenge one another. 
 The clan had the right of adopting strangers to 
 strengthen itself. It had the right of naming its 
 members, and these names were always obviously 
 significant, like Little Turtle, Yellow Wolf, etc.; 
 of names like our Richard or William, with the 
 meaning lost, or obvious only to scholars, no trace 
 is to be found in aboriginal America. The clan 
 
70 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 itself, too, always had a name, which was usually 
 that of some animal, — as Wolf, Eagle, or Salmon, 
 and a rude drawing or pictograph of the creature 
 served as a “ totem ” or primitive heraldic device. 
 A mythological meaning was attached to this em- 
 blem. The clan had its own common religious 
 rites and common burial place. There was a clan- 
 council, of which women might be members ; there 
 were instances, indeed, of its being composed en- 
 tirely of women, whose position was one of much 
 more dignity and influence than has commonly 
 been supposed. Instances of squaw sachems were 
 not so very rare . 1 
 
 The number of clans in a tribe naturally bore 
 some proportion to the populousness of the tribe, 
 varying from three, in the case of the Delawares, 
 to twenty or more, as in the case of the Ojibwas 
 and Creeks. There were usually eight or ten, and 
 these were usually grouped into two or three phra- 
 origin and tries. The phratry seems to have origi- 
 — eof nated in the segmentation of the over- 
 
 grown clan, for in some cases exogamy 
 was originally practised as between the phratries 
 and afterward the custom died out while it was 
 retained as between their constituent clans . 2 The 
 
 1 Among the Wyandots there is in each clan a council com- 
 posed of four squaws, and this council elects the male sachem who 
 is its head. Therefore the tribal council, which is the aggregate 
 of the clan-councils, consists one fifth of men and four fifths of 
 women. See Powell, “ Wyandot Government : a Short Study of 
 Tribal Society,” in First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnol- 
 ogy , Washington, 1881, pp. 59-69 ; and also Mr. Carr’s interesting 
 essay above cited. 
 
 2 H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States , vol. i. p. 
 109. 
 
 i 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 71 
 
 system of naming often indicates this origin of 
 the phratry, though seldom quite so forcibly as in 
 the case of the Mohegan tribe, Which was thus 
 composed : 1 — 
 
 I. Wolf Phratry. 
 
 Clans : 1. Wolf, 2. Bear, 3. Dog, 4. Opossum. 
 
 II. Turtle Phratry. 
 
 Clans : 5. Little Turtle, 6. Mud Turtle, 7. Great 
 Turtle, 8. Yellow Eel. 
 
 III. Turkey Phratry. 
 
 Clans : 9. Turkey, 10. Crane, 11. Chicken. 
 
 Here the senior clan in the phratry tends to keep 
 the original clan-name, while the junior clans have 
 been guided by a sense of kinship in choosing their 
 new names. This origin of the phratry is further 
 indicated by the fact that the phratry does not al- 
 ways occur ; sometimes the clans are organized di- 
 rectly into the tribe. The phratry was not so much 
 a governmental as a religious and social organiza- 
 tion. Its most important function seems to have 
 been supplementing or reinforcing the action of the 
 single clan in exacting compensation for murder ; 
 and this point is full of interest because it helps us 
 to understand how among our Teutonic forefathers 
 the “ hundred ” (the equivalent of the phratry) 
 became charged with the duty of prosecuting 
 criminals. The Greek phratry had a precisely 
 analogous function. 2 
 
 1 Morgan, Houses and House-Life, p. 16. 
 
 2 See Freeman, Comparative Politics, p. 117 ; Stubbs, Const. 
 
72 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 The Indian tribe was a group of people distin- 
 guished by the exclusive possession of a dialect in 
 common. It possessed a tribal name and occupied 
 structure of a mor e or less clearly defined territory ; 
 the tnbe. there were also tribal religious rites. 
 Its supreme government was vested in the council 
 of its clan-chiefs and sachems ; and as these were 
 thus officers of the tribe as well as of the clan, the 
 tribe exercised the right of investing them with 
 office, amid appropriate solemnities, after their 
 election by their respective clans. The tribal- 
 council had also the right to depose chiefs and 
 sachems. In some instances, not always, there 
 was a head chief or military commander for the 
 tribes, elected by the tribal council. Such was 
 the origin of the office which, in most societies of 
 the Old World, gradually multiplied its functions 
 and accumulated power until it developed into 
 true kingship. Nowhere in ancient North America 
 did it quite reach such a stage. 
 
 Among the greater part of the aborigines no 
 higher form of social structure was attained than 
 the tribe. There were, however, several instances 
 Cross-relation- of permanent confederation, of which 
 cfans and Ween the two most interesting and most 
 niJquoJcon- highly developed were the League of 
 federacy. the Iroquois, mentioned above, and the 
 Mexican Confederacy, presently to be considered. 
 The principles upon which the Iroquois league 
 
 Hist., vol. i. pp. 98-104; Grote, History of Greece, vol. iii. pp. 74, 
 88. It is interesting to compare Grote’ s description with Mor- 
 gan’s (Anc. Soc., pp. 71, 94) and note both the closeness of the 
 general parallelism and the character of the specific variations. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 73 
 
 was founded have been thoroughly and minutely 
 explained by Mr. Morgan . 1 It originated in a 
 union of five tribes composed of clans in co mmo n, 
 and speaking five dialects of a common language. 
 These tribes had themselves arisen through the 
 segmentation of a single overgrown tribe, so that 
 portions of the original clans survived in them all. 
 The Wolf, Bear, and Turtle clan were common to 
 all the five tribes ; three other clans were common 
 to three of the five. “ All the members of the 
 same gens [clan], whether Mohawks, Oneidas, 
 Onondagas, Cayugas, or Senecas, were brothers 
 and sisters to each other in virtue of their descent 
 from the same common [female] ancestor, and 
 they recognized each other as such with the full- 
 est cordiality. When they met, the first inquiry 
 was the name of each other’s gens, and next the 
 immediate pedigree of each other’s sachems ; after 
 which they were able to find, under their peculiar 
 system of consanguinity, the relationship in which 
 they stood to each other. . . . This cross-relation- 
 ship between persons of the same gens in the dif- 
 ferent tribes is still preserved and recognized 
 among them in all its original force. It explains 
 the tenacity with which the fragments of the old 
 confederacy still cling together.” 2 Acknowledged 
 
 1 In his League of the Iroquois , Rochester, 1861, a hook now 
 out of print and excessively rare. A brief summary is given in 
 his Ancient Society, chap, v., and in his Houses and House-Life, 
 pp. 23-41. Mr. Morgan was adopted into the Seneca tribe, and 
 his life work was begun by a profound and exhaustive study of 
 this interesting people. 
 
 2 Houses and House-Life, p. 33. At the period of its greatest 
 power, about 1675, the people of the confederacy were about 
 25,000 in number. In 1875, according to official statistics (see 
 
74 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 consanguinity is to the barbarian a sound reason, 
 and the only one conceivable, for permanent po- 
 litical union ; and the very existence of such a 
 confederacy as that of the Five Nations was ren- 
 dered possible only through the permanence of 
 the clans or communal households which were its 
 ultimate units. We have here a clue to the policy 
 of these Indians toward the kindred tribes who 
 refused to join their league. These tribes, too, so 
 far as is known, would seem to have contained the 
 same clans. After a separation of at least four 
 hundred years the Wyandots have still five of 
 their eight clans in common with the Iroquois. 
 When the Eries and other tribes would not join 
 the league of their kindred, the refusal smacked 
 of treason to the kin, and we can quite understand 
 the deadly fury with which the latter turned upon 
 them and butchered every man, woman, and child 
 except such as they saw fit to adopt into their own 
 clans. 
 
 table appended to Dodge’s Plains of the Great West , pp. 441- 
 448), there were in the state of New York 198 Oneidas, 203 
 Onondagas, 165 Cayugas, 3,043 Senecas, and 448 Tuscaroras, — in 
 all 4,057. Besides these there were 1,279 Oneidas on a reservation 
 in Wisconsin, and 207 Senecas in the Indian Territory. The Mo- 
 hawks are not mentioned in the list. During the Revolutionary 
 War, and just afterward, the Mohawks migrated into Upper Can- 
 ada (Ontario), for an account of which the reader may consult 
 the second volume of Stone’s Life of Brant. Portions of the 
 other tribes also went to Canada. In New York the Oneidas and 
 Tuscaroras were converted to Christianity by Samuel Kirkland 
 and withheld from alliance with the British during the Revolu- 
 tion ; the others still retain their ancient religion. They are for 
 the most part farmers and are now increasing in numbers. Their 
 treatment by the state of New York has been honourably distin- 
 guished for justice and humanity. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA . 
 
 75 
 
 Each of the Five Tribes retained its local self- 
 government. The supreme government of the con- 
 federacy was vested in a General Council of fifty 
 sachems, “ equal in rank and authority.” The fifty 
 sachemships were created in perpetuity in certain 
 clans of the several tribes; whenever a vacancy 
 occurred, it was filled by the clan electing one of 
 its own members ; a sachem once thus elected 
 could be deposed by the clan-council for 
 good cause ; “ but the right to invest the confed- 
 these sachems with office was reserved eracy ' 
 to the General Council.” These fifty sachems of 
 the confederacy were likewise sachems in their 
 respective tribes, “and with the chiefs of these 
 tribes formed the council of each, which was su- 
 preme over all matters pertaining to the tribe ex- 
 clusively.” The General Council could not con- 
 vene itself, but could be convened by any one of 
 the five tribal councils. The regular meeting was 
 once a year in the autumn, in the valley of Onon- 
 daga, but in stirring times extra sessions were fre- 
 quent. The proceedings were opened by an ad- 
 dress from one of the sachems, “ in the course of 
 which he thanked the Great Spirit [i. e. Ioskeha, 
 the sky-god] for sparing their lives and permit- 
 ting them to meet together ; ” after this they were 
 ready for business. It was proper for any orator 
 from among the people to address the Council 
 with arguments, and the debates were sometimes 
 very long and elaborate. When it came to vot- 
 ing, the fifty sachems voted by tribes, each tribe 
 counting as a unit, and unanimity was as impera- 
 tive as in an English jury, so that one tribe could 
 
76 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 block the proceedings. The confederacy had no 
 head-sachem, or civil chief-magistrate ; but a mili- 
 tary commander was indispensable, and, curiously 
 enough, without being taught by the experience of 
 a Tarquin, the Iroquois made this a dual office, 
 like the Roman consulship. There were two per- 
 manent chieftainships, one in the Wolf, the other 
 in the Turtle clan, and both in the Seneca tribe, 
 because the western border was the most exposed 
 to attack . 1 The chiefs were elected by the clan, 
 and inducted into office by the General Council ; 
 their tenure was during life or good behaviour. 
 This office never encroached upon the others in its 
 powers, but an able warrior in this position could 
 wield great influence. 
 
 Such was the famous confederacy of the Iro- 
 quois. They called it the Long House, and by 
 The “Long this name as commonly as any other it 
 
 House.” i s known in history. The name by 
 
 which they called themselves was Hodenosaunee, 
 or “ People of the Long House.” The name was 
 picturesquely descriptive of the long and narrow 
 strip of villages with its western outlook toward 
 the Niagara, and its eastern toward the Hudson, 
 three hundred miles distant. But it was appro- 
 priate also for another and a deeper reason than 
 this. We have seen that in its social and political 
 
 1 Somewhat on the same principle that in mediaeval Europe 
 led an earl or count, commanding an exposed border district or 
 march to rise in power and importance and become a “ margrave ” 
 \marh -j - graf — march-count] or “marquis.” Compare the in- 
 crease of sovereignty accorded to the earls of Chester and bishops 
 of Durham as rulers of the two principal march counties of Eng- 
 land. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 77 
 
 structure, from top to bottom and from end to 
 end, the confederacy was based upon and held to- 
 gether by the gentes, clans, communal households, 
 or “ long houses,” which were its component units. 
 They may be compared to the hypothetical inde- 
 structible atoms of modem physics, whereof all 
 material objects are composed. The whole insti- 
 tutional fabric was the outgrowth of the group of 
 ideas and habits that belong to a state of society 
 ignorant of and incapable of imagining any other 
 form of organization than the clan held together 
 by the tie of a common maternal ancestry. The 
 house architecture was as much a constituent part 
 of the fabric as the council of sachems. There is 
 a transparency about the system that is very dif- 
 ferent from the obscurity we continually find in 
 Europe and Asia, where different strata of ideas 
 and institutions have been superimposed one upon 
 another and crumpled and distorted with as little 
 apparent significance or purpose as the porches 
 and gables of a so-called “ Queen Anne ” house . 1 
 Conquest in the Old World has resulted in the 
 commingling and manifold fusion of peoples in 
 very different stages of development. In the New 
 World there has been very little of that sort of 
 thing. Conquest in ancient America was pretty 
 much all of the Iroquois type, entailing in its 
 milder form the imposition of tribute, in its more 
 desperate form the extermination of a tribe with 
 the adoption of its remnants into the similarly- 
 
 1 For instance, the whole discussion in Gomme’s Village Com- 
 munity , London, 1890, an excellent book, abounds with instances 
 of this crumpling. 
 
78 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 contituted tribe of the conquerors. There was 
 therefore but little modification of the social struc- 
 ture while the people, gradually acquiring new 
 arts, were passing through savagery and into a 
 more or less advanced stage of barbarism. The 
 symmetry of the structure and the relation of 
 one institution to another is thus distinctly ap- 
 parent. 
 
 The communal household and the political struc- 
 ture built upon it, as above described in the case 
 of the Iroquois, seem to have existed all over an- 
 cient North America, with agreement in funda- 
 mental characteristics and variation in details and 
 degree of development. There are many corners 
 as yet imperfectly explored, but hitherto, in so far 
 as research has been rewarded with information, it 
 all points in the same general direction. Among 
 the tribes above enumerated as either in savagery 
 or in the lower status of barbarism, so far as they 
 have been studied, there seems to be a general 
 agreement, as to the looseness of the marriage 
 tie, the clan with descent in the female line, the 
 phratry, the tribe, the officers and councils, the 
 social equality, the community in goods (with ex- 
 ceptions already noted), and the wigwam or house 
 adapted to communal living. 
 
 The extreme of variation consistent with adher- 
 ence to the common principle was to be found in 
 the shape and material of the houses. Those of 
 the savage tribes were but sorry huts. The long 
 house was used by the Powhatans and other Al- 
 gonquin tribes. The other most highly developed 
 type may be illustrated by the circular frame- 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 79 
 
 houses of the Mandans . 1 These houses were from 
 forty to sixty feet in diameter. A dozen 
 or more posts, each about eight inches houses of tb* 
 in diameter, were set in the ground, 
 
 “ at equal distances in the circumference of a cir- 
 cle, and. rising about six feet above the level of 
 the floor.” The tops of the posts were connected 
 by horizontal stringers; and outside each post a 
 slanting wooden brace sunk in the ground about 
 four feet distant served as a firm support to the 
 structure. The spaces between these braces were 
 filled by tall wooden slabs, set with the same 
 slant and resting against the stringers. Thus the 
 framework of the outer wall was completed. To 
 support the roof four posts were set in the ground 
 about ten feet apart in the form of a square, near 
 the centre of the building. They were from 
 twelve to fifteen feet in height, and were connected 
 at the top by four stringers forming a square. 
 The rafters rested upon these stringers and upon 
 the top of the circular wall below. The rafters 
 were covered with willow matting, and upon this 
 was spread a layer of prairie grass. Then both 
 wall and roof, from the ground up to the summit, 
 were covered with earth, solid and hard, to a thick- 
 ness of at least two feet. The rafters projected 
 above the square framework at the summit, so as 
 to leave a circular opening in the centre about 
 four feet in diameter. This hole let in a little 
 light, and let out some of the smoke from the fire 
 which blazed underneath in a fire-pit lined with 
 
 1 Morgan, Houses and House-Life , pp. 126-129 ; Cation's North 
 Amer. Indians , i. 81 ff. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 81 
 
 stone slabs set on edge. The only other aperture 
 for light was the doorway, which was a kind of 
 vestibule or passage some ten feet in length. Cur- 
 tains of buffalo robes did duty instead of doors. 
 The family compartments were triangles with base 
 at the outer wall, and apex opening upon the 
 central hearth; and the partitions were hanging 
 mats or skins, which were tastefully fringed and 
 ornamented with quill-work and pictographs . 1 In 
 the lower Mandan village, visited by Catlin, there 
 were about fifty such houses, each able to accom- 
 modate from thirty to forty persons. The village, 
 situated upon a bold bluff at a bend of the Mis- 
 souri river, and surrounded by a palisade of stout 
 timbers more than ten feet in height, was very 
 strong for defensive purposes. Indeed, it was 
 virtually impregnable to Indian methods of attack, 
 for the earth-covered houses could not be set on 
 fire by blazing arrows, and just within the palisade 
 ran a trench in which the defenders could securely 
 skulk, while through the narrow chinks between 
 the timbers they could shoot arrows fast enough 
 to keep their assailants at a distance. This pur- 
 pose was further secured by rude bastions, and 
 considering the structure as a whole one cannot 
 help admiring the ingenuity which it exhibits. It 
 shows a marked superiority over the conceptions 
 of military defence attained by the Iroquois or 
 any other Indians north of New Mexico. Besides 
 the communal houses the village contained its 
 “ medicine lodge,” or council house, and an open 
 area for games and ceremonies. In the spaces 
 1 Catlin, i. 83. 
 
82 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 between the houses were the scaffolds for drying 
 maize, buffalo meat, etc., ascended by well-made 
 portable ladders. Outside the village, at a short 
 distance on the prairie, was a group of such scaf- 
 folds upon which the dead were left to moulder, 
 somewhat after the fashion of the Parsees . 1 
 
 We are now prepared to understand some es- 
 sential points in the life of the groups of Indians 
 occupying the region of the Cordilleras, both 
 north and south of the Isthmus of Darien, all the 
 way from Zuni to Quito. The principal groups 
 are the Moquis and Zuhis of Arizona 
 S?e e ptSioS— and New Mexico, the Nahuas or Na- 
 status of bar- huatlac tribes of Mexico, the Mayas, 
 Quiches, and kindred peoples of Cen- 
 tral America ; and beyond the isthmus, the Chib- 
 chas of New Granada, and sundry peoples com- 
 prised within the domain of the Incas. With 
 regard to the ethnic relationships of these various 
 groups, opinion is still in a state of confusion ; but 
 it is not necessary for our present purpose that we 
 should pause to discuss the numerous questions 
 thus arising. Our business is to get a clear notion 
 in outline of the character of the culture to which 
 these peoples had attained at the time of the Dis- 
 covery. Here we observe, on the part of all, a 
 very considerable divergence from the average In- 
 dian level which we have thus far been describing. 
 
 This divergence increases as we go from Zuni 
 toward Cuzco, reaching its extreme, on the whole, 
 among the Peruvians, though in some respects the 
 1 Catlin, i. 90. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 83 
 
 nearest approach to civilization was made by the 
 Mayas. All these peoples were at least one full 
 ethnical period nearer to true civilization than the 
 Iroquois, — and a vast amount of change and im- 
 provement is involved in the conception of an en- 
 tire ethnical period. According to Mr. Morgan, 
 one more such period would have brought the 
 average level of these Cordilleran peoples to as 
 high a plane as that of the Greeks described in 
 the Odyssey. Let us now observe the principal 
 points involved in the change, bearing in mind 
 that it implies a considerable lapse of time. While 
 the date 1325, at which the city of Mexico was 
 founded, is the earliest date in the history of that 
 country which can be regarded as securely estab- 
 lished, it was preceded by a long series of generar 
 tions of migration and warfare, the confused and 
 fragmentary record of which historians have tried 
 — hitherto with scant success — to unravel. To 
 develop such a culture as that of the Aztecs out of 
 an antecedent culture similar to that of the Iro- 
 quois must of course have taken a long time. 
 
 It will be remembered that the most conspicu- 
 ous distinctive marks of the grade of culture at- 
 tained by the Cordilleran peoples were two, — the 
 cultivation of maize in large quanti- ^ ^ 
 ties by irrigation, and the use of adobe- withimga- 
 brick or stone in building-. Probably chitecture 
 there was at first, to some extent, a 
 causal connection between the former and the lat- 
 ter. The region of the Moqui-Zuni culture is a 
 region in which arid plains become richly fertile 
 when water from neighbouring cliffs or peaks is 
 
84 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 directed down upon them. It is mainly an affair 
 of sluices, not of pump or well, which seem to have 
 been alike beyond the ken of aboriginal Ameri- 
 cans of whatever grade. The change of occupa- 
 tion involved in raising large crops of corn by the 
 aid of sluices would facilitate an increase in density 
 of population, and would encourage a preference 
 for agricultural over predatory life. Such changes 
 would be likely to favour the development of de- 
 fensive military art. The Mohawk’s surest de- 
 fence lay in the terror which his prowess created 
 hundreds of miles away. One can easily see how 
 the forefathers of our Moquis and Zuriis may have 
 come to prefer the security gained by living more 
 closely together and building impregnable for- 
 tresses. 
 
 The earthen wall of the Mandan, supported on 
 a framework of posts and slabs, seems to me cu- 
 riously and strikingly suggestive of the incipient 
 pottery made by surrounding a basket with a 
 coating of clay . 1 When it was discovered how 
 to make the earthen bowl or dish without the 
 basket, a new era in progress was begun. So 
 when it was discovered that an earthen wall could 
 be fashioned to answer the requirements of house- 
 builders without the need of a permanent wooden 
 framework, another great step was taken. Again 
 the consequences were great enough to 
 of adobe archi- make it mark the beginning ot a new 
 ethnical period. If we suppose the 
 central portion of our continent, the Mississippi 
 and Missouri valleys, to have been occupied at 
 1 See above, p. 25. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 85 
 
 some time by tribes familiar with the Mandan 
 style of building; and if we further suppose a 
 gradual extension or migration of this population, 
 or some part of it, westward into the mountain re- 
 gion ; that would be a movement into a region in 
 which timber was scarce, while adobe clay was 
 abundant. Under such circumstances the useful 
 qualities of that peculiar clay could not fail to be 
 soon discovered. The simple exposure to sunshine 
 would quickly convert a Mandan house built with 
 it into an adobe house ; the coating of earth would 
 become a coating of brick. It would not then take 
 long to ascertain that with such adobe-brick could 
 be built walls at once light and strong, erect and 
 tall, such as could not be built with common clay. 
 In some such way as this I think the discovery 
 must have been made by the ancestors of the 
 Zunis, and others who have built pueblos. After 
 the pueblo style of architecture, with its erect 
 walls and terraced stories, had become developed, 
 it was an easy step, when the occasion suggested 
 it, to substitute for the adobe-brick coarse rubble- 
 stones embedded in adobe. The final stage was 
 reached in Mexico and Yucatan, when soft coral- 
 line limestone was shaped into blocks with a flint 
 chisel and laid in courses with adobe-mortar. 
 
 The pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona are 
 among the most interesting structures in the 
 world. Several are still inhabited by the de- 
 scendants of the people who were living in them 
 at the time of the Spanish Discovery, and their 
 primitive customs and habits of thought have 
 been preserved to the present day with but little 
 
86 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 change. The long sojourn of Mr. Cushing, of 
 Mr. Cushing the Bureau of Ethnology, in the Zuiii 
 at zum. pueblo, has already thrown a flood of 
 light upon many points in American archaeology . 1 
 As in the case of American aborigines generally, 
 the social life of these people is closely connected 
 with their architecture, and the pueblos which are 
 still inhabited seem to furnish us with the key to 
 the interpretation of those that we find deserted 
 or in ruins, whether in Arizona or in Guatemala. 
 
 In the architecture of the pueblos one typical 
 form is reproduced with sundry varia- 
 ^ureofth ™ 0 tions in detail. The typical form is 
 that of a solid block of buildings mak- 
 ing three sides of an extensive rectangular en- 
 
 1 See his articles in the Century Magazine , Dec., 1882, Feb., 
 1883, May, 1883 ; and his papers on “ Zuni Fetiches,” Reports of 
 the Bureau of Ethnology , ii. 9-45; “ A Study of Pueblo Pottery 
 as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth,” id. iv. 473-521 ; see also 
 Mrs. Stevenson’s paper, “ Religious Life of a Zuni Child,” id. v. 
 539-555 ; Sylvester Baxter, “ An Aboriginal Pilgrimage,” Cen- 
 tury Magazine , Aug., 1882. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 87 
 
 closure or courtyard. On the inside, facing upon 
 the courtyard, the structure is but one story in 
 height ; on the outside, looking out upon the sur- 
 rounding country, it rises to three, or perhaps 
 even five or six stories. From inside to outside 
 the flat roofs rise in a series of terraces, so that 
 the floor of the second row is continuous with the 
 roof of the first, the floor of the third row is con- 
 tinuous with the roof of the second, and on. 
 The fourth side of the rectangle is formed by a 
 solid block of one-story apartments, usually with 
 one or two narrow gateways overlooked by higher 
 structures within the enclosure. Except these 
 gateways there is no entrance from without ; the 
 only windows are frowning loop-holes, and access 
 to the several apartments is gained through sky- 
 lights reached by portable ladders. Such a struc- 
 ture is what our own forefathers would have na- 
 turally called a “ burgh,” or fortress ; it is in one 
 sense a house, yet in another sense a town ; 1 its 
 divisions are not so much houses as compart- 
 ments ; it is a joint-tenement affair, like the Iro- 
 quois long houses, but in a higher stage of de- 
 velopment. 
 
 So far as they have been studied, the pueblo 
 Indians are found to be organized in clans, with 
 descent in the female line, as in the case of the 
 ruder Indians above described. In the event of 
 marriage the young husband goes to live with his 
 wife, and she may turn him out of doors if he 
 
 1 Cf. Greek oT/coj, “ house,” with Latin rricus, “ street ” or “ vil- 
 lage,” Sanskrit vesa , “dwelling-place,” English wick, “man- 
 sion ” or “ village.” 
 
Restoration of Pueblo Hungo Pavie. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 89 
 
 deserves it . 1 The ideas of property seem still lim- 
 ited to that of possessory right, with Puebl0B0 . 
 the ultimate title in the clan, except ciety< 
 that portable articles subject to individual owner- 
 ship have become more numerous. In govern- 
 ment the council of sachems reappears with a 
 principal sachem, or cacique, called by the Span- 
 iards “ gobernador.” There is an organized priest- 
 hood, with distinct orders, and a ceremonial more 
 elaborate than those of the ruder Indians. In 
 every pueblo there is to be found at least one 
 “ estufa,” or council-house, for governmental or 
 religious transactions. Usually there are two or 
 three or more such estufas. In mythology, in 
 what we may call pictography or rudimentary 
 hieroglyphics, as well as in ordinary handicrafts, 
 there is a marked advance beyond the Indians of 
 the lower status of barbarism, after making due 
 allowances for such things as the people of the 
 pueblos have learned from white men . 2 
 
 1 “ With the woman rests the security of the marriage ties ; 
 and it must be said, in her high honour, that she rarely abuses 
 the privilege ; that is, never sends her husband ‘ to the home of 
 his fathers,’ unless he richly deserves it.” But should not Mr. 
 Cushing have said “home of his mothers,” or perhaps, of “his 
 sisters and his cousins and his aunts ? ” For a moment after- 
 ward he tells us, “ To her belong all the children ; and descent, 
 including inheritance, is on her side.” Century Magazine , May, 
 1883, p. 35. 
 
 2 For example, since the arrival of the Spaniards some or per- 
 haps all of the pueblos have introduced chimneys into their apart- 
 ments ; but when they were first visited by Coronado, he found 
 the people wearing cotton garments, and Franciscan friars in 
 1581 remarked upon the superior quality of their shoes. In spin- 
 ning and weaving, as well as in the grinding of meal, a notable 
 advance had been made. 
 
Restoration of Pueblo Bonito. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 91 
 
 From the pueblos still existing, whether in- 
 habited or in ruins, we may eventually get some 
 sort of clue to the populations of ancient towns 
 visited by the Spanish discoverers. 1 Wonderfulan _ 
 The pueblo of Zuni seems to have had 
 at one time a population of 5,000, but vaUey ' 
 it has dwindled to less than 2,000. Of the ruined 
 pueblos, built of stone with adobe mortar, in the 
 valley of the Bio Chaco, the Pueblo Hungo Pavie 
 contained 73 apartments in the first story, 53 in 
 the second, and 29 in the third, with an average 
 size of 18 feet by 13 ; and would have accommo- 
 dated about 1,000 Indians. In the same valley 
 Pueblo Bonito, with four stories, contained not less 
 than 640 apartments, with room enough for a pop- 
 ulation of 3,000 ; within a third of a mile from 
 this huge structure stood Pueblo Chettro Kettle, 
 with 506 apartments. The most common variation 
 from the rectangular shape was that in which a 
 terraced semicircle was substituted for the three 
 terraced sides, as in Pueblo Bonito, or the whole 
 rectangular design was converted into an ellipse, 
 as in Pueblo Penasca Blanca. There are indica- 
 tions that these fortresses were not in all cases 
 built at one time, but that, at least in some cases, 
 they grew by gradual accretions. 2 The smallness 
 of the distances between those in the Chaco val- 
 ley suggests that their inhabitants must have been 
 united in a confederation ; and one can easily see 
 that an actual juxtaposition or partial coalescence 
 
 1 At least a better one than Mr. Prescott had when he naively 
 reckoned five persons to a household, Conquest of Mexico , ii. 97. 
 
 2 Morgan, Houses and House-Life, chap. vii. 
 
92 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 of such communities would have made a city of 
 very imposing appearance. The pueblos are al- 
 
 ways found situated near a river, and their gar- 
 dens, lying outside, are easily accessible to sluices 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 93 
 
 from neighbouring cliffs or mesas. But in some 
 cases, as the Wolpi pueblo of the Mo- T^Moqui 
 quis, the whole stronghold is built upon puebl0lu 
 the summit of the cliff ; there is a coalescence of 
 communal structures, each enclosing a courtyard, 
 in which there is a spring for the water-supply ; 
 and the irrigated gardens are built in terrace-form 
 just below on the bluff, and protected by solid 
 walls. From this curious pueblo another transi- 
 tion takes us to the extraordinary cliff-houses 
 found in the Chelly, Mancos, and McElmo cafions, 
 and elsewhere, — veritable human eyries perched 
 in crevices or clefts of the perpendic- ^ cliff 
 ular rock, accessible only by dint of a puebl08 * 
 toilsome and perilous climb ; places of refuge, per- 
 haps for fragments of tribes overwhelmed by more 
 barbarous invaders, yet showing in their dwelling- 
 rooms and estufas marks of careful building and 
 tasteful adornment . 1 
 
 The pueblo of Zuni is a more extensive and 
 complex structure than the ruined pueblos on the 
 Chaco river. It is not so much an enormous com- 
 munal house as a small town formed of a number 
 of such houses crowded together, with access from 
 one to another along their roof-terraces. Pueblo of 
 Some of the structures are of adobe ZuSi * 
 brick, others of stone embedded in adobe mortar 
 
 1 For careful descriptions of the ruined pueblos and cliff- 
 houses, see Nadaillac’s Prehistoric America, chap, v., and Short’s 
 North Americans of Antiquity , chap. vii. The latter sees in them 
 the melancholy vestiges of a people gradually “ succumbing to 
 their unpropitious surroundings — a land which is, fast becoming 
 a howling wilderness, with its scourging sands and roaming savage 
 Bedouin — the Apaches.” 
 
94 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 and covered with plaster. There are two open 
 plazas or squares in the town, and several streets, 
 some of which are covered ways passing beneath 
 the upper stories of houses. The effect, though 
 not splendid, must be very picturesque, and would 
 doubtless astonish and bewilder visitors unpre- 
 pared for such a sight. When Coronado’s men 
 discovered Zuni in 1540, although that style of 
 building was no longer a novelty to them, they 
 compared the place to Granada. 
 
 Now it is worthy of note that Cortes made the 
 same comparison in the case of Tlascala, one of the 
 famous towns at which he stopped on his march 
 from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico. In his 
 letter to the emperor Charles V., he compared 
 Pueblo of Tlascala to Granada, “ affirming that it 
 Tiascaia. was larger, stronger, and more populous 
 than the Moorish capital at the time of the con- 
 quest, and quite as well built.” 1 Upon this Mr. 
 Prescott observes, “we shall be slow to believe 
 that its edifices could have rivalled those monu- 
 ments of Oriental magnificence, whose light aerial 
 forms still survive after the lapse of ages, the ad- 
 miration of every traveller of sensibility and taste. 
 The truth is that Cortes, like Columbus, saw ob- 
 jects through the warm medium of his own fond 
 imagination, giving them a higher tone of colour- 
 ing and larger dimensions than were strictly war- 
 ranted by the fact.” Or, as Mr. Bandelier puts 
 
 1 “La qual ciudad . . . es muy mayor que Granada, ymuy 
 mas fuerte, y de tan buenos edificios, y de mucha mas gente, que 
 Granada tenia al tiempo que se gaiio.” Cortes, Relacion segunda 
 al Emperador, ap. Lorenzana, p. 58, cited in Prescott’s Conquest 
 of Mexico , vol. i. p. 401 (7th ed., London, 1855). 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 95 
 
 it, when it comes to general statements about 
 numbers and dimensions, “ the descriptions of the 
 conquerors cannot be taken as facts, only as the 
 expression of feelings, honestly entertained but 
 uncritical.” From details given in various Span- 
 ish descriptions, including those of Cortes himself, 
 it is evident that there could not have been much 
 difference in size between Tlascala and its neigh- 
 bour Cholula. The population of the latter town 
 has often been given as from 150,000 to 200,000 ; 
 but, from elaborate archaeological investigations 
 made on the spot in 1881, Mr. Bandelier con- 
 cludes that it cannot have greatly exceeded 30,- 
 000. and this number really agrees with the esti- 
 mates of two very important Spanish authorities, 
 Las Casas and Torquemada, when correctly under- 
 stood. 1 We may therefore suppose that the popu- 
 lation of Tlascala was about 30,000. Now the 
 population of the city of Granada, at the time of 
 
 1 See Bandelier’s Archaeological Tour in Mexico, Boston, 1885, 
 pp. 160-164. Torquemada’s words, cited by Bandelier, are 
 “ Quando entraron los Espafioles, dicen que tenia mas de quarenta 
 mil vecinos esta ciudad.” Monarqma Indiana , lib. iii. cap. xix. 
 p. 281. A prolific source of error is the ambiguity in the word 
 vecinos , which may mean either “ inhabitants ” or “household- 
 ers.” Where Torquemada meant 40,000 inhabitants, uncritical 
 writers fond of the marvellous have understood him to mean 
 40,000 houses, and multiplying this figure by 5, the average 
 number of persons in a modern family, have obtained the figure 
 200,000. But 40,000 houses peopled after the old Mexican fash- 
 ion, with at least 200 persons in a house (to put it as low as pos- 
 sible), would make a city of 8,000,000 inhabitants ! Las Casas, 
 in his Destruycion de las Indias, vii., puts the population of Cho- 
 lula at about 30,000. I observe that Llorente (in hir (Euvres de 
 Las Casas, tom. i. p. 38) translates the statement correctly. I 
 shall recur to this point below, vol. ii. p. 264. 
 
96 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 its conquest by Ferdinand and Isabella, is said by 
 the greatest of Spanish historians 1 to have been 
 about 200,000. It would thus appear that Cortes 
 sometimes let his feelings run away with him ; 
 and, all things considered, small blame to him if 
 he did! In studying the story of the Spanish 
 conquest of America, liberal allowance must often 
 be made for inaccuracies of statement that were 
 usually pardonable and sometimes inevitable. 
 
 But when Cortes described Tlascala as “quite 
 as well built ” as Granada, it is not at all likely 
 that he was thinking about that exquisite Moorish 
 architecture which in the mind of Mr. Prescott 
 or any cultivated modern writer is the first thing 
 to be suggested by the name. The Spaniards of 
 those days did not admire the artistic work of 
 “ infidels ; ” they covered up beautiful arabesques 
 with a wash of dirty plaster, and otherwise be- 
 haved very much like the Puritans who smashed 
 the “ idolatrous ” statues in English cathedrals. 
 When Cortes looked at Tlascala, and Coronado 
 looked at Zuni, and both soldiers were reminded 
 of Granada, they were probably looking at those 
 places with a professional eye as fortresses hard 
 to capture ; and from this point of view there was 
 doubtless some justice in the comparison. 
 
 In the description of Tlascala by the Spaniards 
 who first saw it, with its dark and narrow streets, 
 its houses of adobe, or “ the better sort ” of stone 
 laid in adobe mortar, and its flat and terraced 
 roofs, one is irresistibly reminded of such a pueblo 
 
 1 Mariana, Historia de Espana , Valencia, 1795, tom. viii. p. 
 317. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA . 
 
 97 
 
 as Zufii. Tlascala was a town of a type prob- 
 ably common in Mexico. In some respects, as 
 will hereafter appear, the city of 
 Mexico showed striking variations from dty “m^ico 
 the common type. Yet there too were 
 to be seen the huge houses, with ter- puebl0, 
 raced roofs, built around a square courtyard; in 
 one of them 450 Spaniards, with more than 1,000 
 Tlascalan allies, were accommodated ; in another, 
 called “ Montezuma’s palace,” one of the conquer- 
 ors, who came several times intending to see the 
 whole of it, got so tired with wandering through 
 the interminable succession of rooms that at 
 length he gave it up and never saw them all. 1 
 This might have happened in such a building as 
 Pueblo Bonito ; and a suspicion is raised that 
 Montezuma’s city was really a vast composite 
 pueblo, and that its so-called palaces were com- 
 munal buildings in principle like the pueblos of 
 the Chaco valley. 
 
 Of course the Spanish discoverers could not be 
 expected to understand the meaning of what they 
 saw. It dazed and bewildered them. They knew 
 little or nothing of any other kind of Natural mia- 
 society than feudal monarchy, and if St 
 they made such mistakes as to call the c07erera * 
 head war-chief a -“king” (i. e. feudal king) or 
 “ emperor,” and the clan-chiefs “ lords ” or “ noble- 
 men,” if they supposed that these huge fortresses 
 
 1 “ Et io entrai piu di quattro volte in una casa del gran Signor 
 non por altro effetto che per vederla, et ogni volta vi camminauo 
 tanto che mi stancauo, et mai la fini di vedere tutta.” Relatione 
 fatta per un gentiV huomo del Signor Fernando Cortese, apnd Ra- 
 musio, Navigationi et Viaggi, Venice, 1556, tom. iii. fol. 309. 
 
98 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 were like feudal castles and palaces in Europe, 
 they were quite excusable. Such misconceptions 
 were common enough before barbarous societies 
 had been much studied ; and many a dusky war- 
 rior, without a tithe of the pomp and splendour 
 about him that surrounded Montezuma, has figured 
 in the pages of history as a mighty potentate girt 
 with many of the trappings of feudalism . 1 Initial 
 misconceptions that were natural enough, indeed 
 unavoidable, found expression in an absurdly in- 
 appropriate nomenclature ; and then the use of 
 wrong names and titles bore fruit in what one 
 cannot properly call a theory but rather an inco- 
 herent medley of notions about barbaric society. 
 Nothing could be further from feudalism, in which 
 the relation of landlord and tenant is a funda- 
 mental element, than the society of the American 
 aborigines, in which that relation was utterly un- 
 contrast be- known and inconceivable. This more 
 
 San d Uda1 ’ primitive form of society is not improp- 
 gentiiism. e rly called gentilism, inasmuch as it is 
 based upon the gens or clan, with communism in 
 
 1 When Pocahontas visited London in 1616 she was received at 
 court as befitted a “ king’s daughter,” and the old Virginia his- 
 torian, William Stith (born in 1689), says it was a “ constant 
 tradition” in his day that James I. “became jealous, and was 
 highly offended at Mr. Rolfe for marrying a princess.” The no- 
 tion was that “ if Virginia descended to Pocahontas, as it might 
 do at Powhatan’s death, at her own death the kingdom would be 
 vested in Mr. Rolfe’s posterity.” Esten Cooke’s Virginia , p. 100. 
 Powhatan (i. e. Wahunsunakok, chief of the Powhatan tribe) was 
 often called “emperor” by the English settlers. To their in- 
 tense bewilderment he told one of them that his office would de- 
 scend to his [maternal] brothers, even though he had sons living. 
 It was thought that this could not be true. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 99 
 
 living, and with the conception of individual own- 
 ership of property undeveloped. It was gentilism 
 that everywhere prevailed throughout the myriads 
 of unrecorded centuries during which the foremost 
 races of mankind struggled up through savagery 
 and barbarism into civilization, while weaker and 
 duller races lagged behind at various stages on 
 the way. The change from “ gentile ” Chan( , e from 
 society to political society as we know it C^iitiSi iety 
 was in some respects the most impor- * ociety ' 
 tant change that has occurred in human affairs 
 since men became human. It might be roughly 
 defined a3 the change from personal to territorial 
 organization. It was accomplished when the sta- 
 tionary clan became converted into the township, 
 and the stationary tribe into the small state ; 1 
 when the conception of individual property in land 
 was fully acquired ; when the tie of physical kin- 
 ship ceased to be indispensable as a bond for hold- 
 ing a society together ; when the clansman became 
 a citizen . This momentous change was accom- 
 plished among the Greeks during a period begin- 
 
 1 The small states into which tribes were at first transformed 
 have in many cases survived to the present time as portions of 
 great states or nations. The shires or counties of England, which 
 have been reproduced in the United States, originated in this 
 way, as I have briefly explained in my little book on Civil Gov- 
 ernment in the United States , p. 49. When you look on the map 
 of England, and see the town of IcJclingham in the county of 
 Suffolk , it means that this place was once the “ home ” of the 
 “ Icklings ” or “ children of Ickel,” a clan which formed part of 
 the tribe of Angles known as “South folk.” So the names of 
 Gaulish tribes survived as names of French provinces, e. g. Au- 
 vergne from the Arverni , Poitou from the Pictavi, Anjou from 
 the Andecavi , Biarn from the Bigerrones , etc. 
 
100 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 ning shortly before the first Olympiad (b. c. 776), 
 and ending with the reforms of Kleisthenes at 
 Athens (b. c. 509) ; among the Romans it was 
 accomplished by the series of legislative changes 
 beginning with those ascribed to Servius Tullius 
 (about B. c. 550), and perfected by the time of 
 the first Punic War (b. c. 264-241). In each 
 case about three centuries was required to work 
 the change. 1 If now the reader, familiar with Eu- 
 ropean history, will reflect upon the period of more 
 than a thousand years which intervened between 
 the date last named and the time when feudalism 
 became thoroughly established, if he will recall to 
 mind the vast and powerful complication of causes 
 which operated to transform civil society from the 
 aspect which it wore in the days of Regulus and 
 the second Ptolemy to that which it had assumed 
 in the times of Henry the Fowler or Fulk of An- 
 jou, he will begin to realize how much “ feudal- 
 ism ” implies, and what a wealth of experience it 
 involves, above and beyond the change from 44 gen- 
 tile ” to 44 civil ” society. It does not appear that 
 any people in ancient America ever approached 
 very near to this earlier change. None had fairly 
 begun to emerge from gentilism ; none had ad- 
 vanced so far as the Greeks of the first Olympiad 
 or the Romans under the rule of the Tarquins. 
 
 The first eminent writer to express a serious 
 
 1 “It was no easy task to accomplish such a fundamental 
 change, however simple and obvious it may now seem. . . . An- 
 terior to experience, a township, as the unit of a political system, 
 was abstruse enough to tax the Greeks and Romans to the depths 
 of their capacities before the conception was formed and set in 
 practical operation.” Morgan, Ancient Society , p. 218. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 101 
 
 doubt as to the correctness of the earlier views of 
 Mexican civilization was that sagacious 
 Scotchman, William Robertson . 1 The totheen-o- 
 
 _ i *1 i * neousneae of 
 
 illustrious statesman and philologist, thespaniah 
 Albert Gallatin, founder of the Ameri- 
 can Ethnological Society, published in the first 
 volume of its “ Transactions ” an essay which rec- 
 ognized the danger of trusting the Spanish narra- 
 tives without very careful and critical scrutiny . 2 
 It is to be observed that Mr. Gallatin approached 
 the subject with somewhat more knowledge of 
 aboriginal life in America than had been pos- 
 sessed by previous writers. A similar scepticism 
 was expressed by Lewis Cass, who also knew a 
 great deal about Indians . 3 Next came Mr. Mor- 
 gan , 4 the man of path-breaking ideas, whose mi- 
 nute and profound acquaintance with Indian life 
 was joined with a power of penetrating the hidden 
 implications of facts so keen and so sure as to 
 
 1 Robertson’s History of America, 9th ed. vol. iii. pp. 274, 281. 
 
 2 “ Notes on the Semi-civilized Nations of Mexico, Yucatan, 
 and Central America,” American Ethnological Society’s Transac- 
 tions, vol. i., New York, 1852. There is a brief account of Mr. 
 Gallatin’s pioneer work in American philology and ethnology in 
 Stevens’s Albert Gallatin , pp. 386-396. 
 
 3 Cass, “Aboriginal Structures,” North Amer. Review , Oct., 
 1840. 
 
 4 Mr. R. A. Wilson’s New History of the Conquest of Mexico , 
 Philadelphia, 1859, denounced the Spanish conquerors as whole- 
 sale liars, but as his book was ignorant, uncritical, and full of wild 
 fancies, it produced little effect. It was demolished, with neat- 
 ness and despatch, in two articles in the Atlantic Monthly , April 
 and May, 1859, by the eminent historian John Foster Kirk, whose 
 History of Charles the Bold is in many respects a worthy compan- 
 ion to the works of Prescott and Motiey. Mr. Kirk had been Mr. 
 Prescott’s secretary. 
 
102 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 amount to genius. Mr. Morgan saw the nature 
 of the delusion under which the Spaniards la- 
 boured ; he saw that what they mistook for feudal 
 castles owned by great lords, and inhabited by 
 Detection and dependent retainers, were really huge 
 the' eworTby communal houses, owned and inhabited 
 Lewis Morgan. ^ c ] ans? or ra ther by segments of over- 
 grown clans. He saw this so vividly that it be- 
 trayed him now and then into a somewhat impa- 
 tient and dogmatic manner of statement ; but that 
 was a slight fault, for what he saw was not the 
 outcome of dreamy speculation but of scientific 
 insight. His researches, which reduced “Monte- 
 zuma’s empire ” to a confederacy of tribes dwell- 
 ing in pueblos, governed by a council of chiefs, and 
 collecting tribute from neighbouring pueblos, have 
 been fully sustained by subsequent investigation. 
 
 The state of society which Cortes saw has, in- 
 deed, passed away, and its monuments and hiero- 
 glyphic records have been in great part destroyed. 
 Nevertheless some monuments and some hiero- 
 glyphic records remain, and the people are still 
 there. Tlascalans and Aztecs, descendants in the 
 eleventh or twelfth generation from the men whose 
 bitter feuds gave such a golden opportunity to 
 Cortes, still dwell upon the soil of Mexico, and 
 speak the language in which Montezuma made 
 his last harangue to the furious people. There is, 
 moreover, a great mass of literature in Spanish, 
 besides more or less in Nahuatl, written during the 
 century following the conquest, and the devoted 
 missionaries and painstaking administrators, who 
 wrote books about the country in which they were 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 103 
 
 working, were not engaged in a wholesale conspir- 
 acy for deceiving mankind. From a really critical 
 study of this literature, combined with archaeolog- 
 ical investigation, much may be expected ; and a 
 noble beginning has already been made. A more 
 extensive acquaintance with Mexican literature 
 would at times have materially modified Mr. Mor- 
 gan’s conclusions, though without altering their 
 general drift. At this point the work 
 has been taken up by Mr. Adolf Bande- delier’s re- 
 lier, of Highland, Illinois, to whose rare 
 sagacity and untiring industry as a field archaeol- 
 ogist is joined such a thorough knowledge of 
 Mexican literature as few men before him have 
 possessed. Armed with such resources, Mr. Ban- 
 delier is doing for the ancient history of Amer- 
 ica work as significant as that which Mommsen 
 has done for Kome, or Baur for the beginnings 
 of Christianity. When a sufficient mass of facts 
 and incidents have once been put upon record, it 
 is hard for ignorant misconception to bury the 
 truth in a pit so deep but that the delving genius 
 of critical scholarship will sooner or later drag it 
 forth into the light -of day . 1 
 
 At this point in our exposition a very concise 
 summary of Mr. Bandelier’s results will suffice to 
 
 1 A summary of Mr. Bandelier’s principal results, with copious 
 citation and discussion of original Spanish and Nahuatl sources, is 
 contained in his three papers, “ On the art of war and mode of 
 warfare of the ancient Mexicans,” — “On the distribution and 
 tenure of land, and the customs with respect to inheritance, 
 among the ancient Mexicans,” — “ On the social organization and 
 mode of government of the ancient Mexicans,” Peabody Museum 
 Reports , vol. ii., 1876-79, pp. 95-161, 385-448, 557-699. 
 
104 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 enable the reader to understand their import. 
 What has been called the “empire of Monte- 
 zuma ” was in reality a confederacy of three tribes, 
 the Aztecs, Tezcucans, and Tlacopans , 1 dwelling in 
 three large composite pueblos situated very near 
 together in one of the strongest defensive po- 
 The Aztec sitions ever occupied by Indians. This 
 confederacy, j^tec confederacy extended its “ sway ” 
 over a considerable portion of the Mexican pe- 
 ninsula, but that “ sway ” could not correctly be 
 described as “ empire,” for it was in no sense a 
 military occupation of the country. The confeder- 
 acy did not have garrisons in subject pueblos 
 or civil officials to administer their affairs for 
 them. It simply sent some of its chiefs about 
 from one pueblo to another to collect tribute. 
 This tax consisted in great part of maize and 
 other food, and each tributary pueblo reserved a 
 certain portion of its tribal territory to be culti- 
 vated for the benefit of the domineering confed- 
 eracy. If a pueblo proved delinquent or recalci- 
 trant, Aztec warriors swooped down upon it in 
 stealthy midnight assault, butchered its inhab- 
 itants and emptied its granaries, and when the 
 paroxysm of rage had spent itself, went exulting 
 homeward, carrying away women for concubines, 
 
 1 In the Iroquois confederacy the Mohawks enjoyed a certain 
 precedence or seniority, the Onondagas had the central council- 
 fire, and the Senecas, who had the two head war-chiefs, were 
 much the most numerous. In the Mexican confederacy the va- 
 rious points of superiority seem to have been more concentrated 
 in the Aztecs ; hut spoils and tribute were divided into five por- 
 tions, of which Mexico and Tezcuco each took two, and Tlacopan 
 one. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 105 
 
 men to be sacrificed, and such miscellaneous booty 
 as could be conveyed without wagons or beasts to 
 draw them . 1 If the sudden assault, with scaling 
 ladders, happened to fail, the assailants were likely 
 to be baffled, for there was no artillery, and so lit- 
 tle food could be carried that a siege meant starve 
 tion for the besiegers. 
 
 The tributary pueblos were also liable to be 
 summoned to furnish a contingent of warriors to 
 the war-parties of the confederacy, under the same 
 penalties for delinquency as in the case of refusal 
 of tribute. In such cases it was quite common for 
 the confederacy to issue a peremptory summons, 
 followed by a declaration of war. When a pueblo 
 was captured, the only way in which the van- 
 quished people could stop the massacre was by 
 holding out signals of submission ; a parley then 
 sometimes adjusted the affair, and the payment of 
 a year’s tribute in advance induced the conquerors 
 to depart, but captives once taken could seldom 
 if ever be ransomed. If the parties could not 
 agree upon terms, the slaughter was renewed, and 
 sometimes went on until the departing victors left 
 nought behind them but ruined houses belching 
 from loop-hole and doorway lurid clouds of smoke 
 and flame upon narrow silent streets heaped up 
 with mangled corpses. 
 
 The sway of the Aztec confederacy over the 
 Mexican peninsula was thus essentially similar to 
 the sway of the Iroquois confederacy over a great 
 part of the tribes between the Connecticut river 
 
 1 The wretched prisoners were ordinarily compelled to carry 
 the booty. 
 
106 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 and the Mississippi. It was simply the levying of 
 tribute, — a system of plunder enforced by terror. 
 The so-called empire was “only a partnership 
 formed for the purpose of carrying on the busi- 
 ness of warfare, and that intended, not for the ex- 
 tension of territorial ownership, but only for an 
 increase of the means of subsistence .” 1 There 
 was none of that coalescence and incorporation of 
 peoples which occurs after the change from gen- 
 tilism to civil society has been effected. Among 
 the Mexicans, as elsewhere throughout North 
 America, the tribe remained intact as the highest 
 completed political integer. 
 
 The Aztec tribe was organized in clans and 
 , phratries, and the number of clans 
 
 Aztec clans. A . 7 . 
 
 would indicate that the tribe was a very 
 large one . 2 There were twenty clans, called in the 
 Nahuatl language “ calpullis.” We may fairly 
 suppose that the average size of a clan was larger 
 
 1 Bandelier, op. cit. p. 563. 
 
 2 The notion of an immense population groaning- under the 
 lash of taskmasters, and building huge palaces for idle despots 
 must be dismissed. The statements which refer to such a vast 
 population are apt to be accompanied by incompatible state- 
 ments. Mr. Morgan is right in throwing the burden of proof 
 upon those who maintain that a people without domestic animals 
 or field agriculture could have been so numerous (Anc. Soc., p. 
 195). On the other hand, I believe Mr. Morgan makes a grave 
 mistake in the opposite direction, in underestimating the numbers 
 that could be supported upon Indian corn even under a system of 
 horticulture without the use of the plough. Some pertinent re- 
 marks on the extraordinary reproductive power of maize in Mex- 
 ico may be found in Humboldt, Essai politique sur la Nouvelle 
 Espagne , Paris, 1811, tom. iii. pp. 51-60 ; the great naturalist is 
 of course speaking of the yield of maize in ploughed lands, but, 
 after making due allowances, the yield under the ancient system 
 must have been wellnigh unexampled in barbaric agriculture. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 107 
 
 than the average tribe of Algonquins or Iroquois ; 
 but owing to the compact “ city ” life, this increase 
 of numbers did not result in segmentation and 
 scattering, as among Indians in the lower status. 
 Each Aztec clan seems to have occupied a number 
 of adjacent communal houses, forming a kind of 
 precinct, with its special house or houses for offi- 
 cial purposes, corresponding .to the estufas in the 
 New Mexican pueblos. The houses were the com- 
 mon property of the clan, and so was the land 
 which its members cultivated; and such houses 
 and land could not be sold or bartered away by 
 the clan, or in anywise alienated. The idea of 
 “ real estate ” had not been developed ; the clan 
 simply exercised a right of occupancy, and — as 
 among some ruder Indians — its individual mem- 
 bers exercised certain limited rights of user in 
 particular garden-plots. 
 
 The clan was governed by a clan council, consist- 
 ing of chiefs ( tecuhtli ) elected by the clan, and 
 inducted into office after a cruel religious ordeal, 
 in which the candidate was bruised, tortured, and 
 half starved. Am executive department 
 was more clearly differentiated from the Cbm offlcer8, 
 council than among the Indians of the lower star 
 tus. The clan ( calpulli ) had an official head, or 
 sachem, called the calpullec ; and also a military 
 commander called the ahcacautin , or “ elder 
 brother.” The ahcacautin was also a kind of 
 peace officer, or constable, for the precinct occupied 
 by the clan, and carried about with him a staff of 
 office ; a tuft of white feathers attached to this 
 staff betokened that his errand was one of death. 
 
108 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 The clan elected its calpullec and ahcacautin , and 
 could depose them for cause . 1 
 
 The members of the clan were reciprocally 
 bound to aid, defend, and avenge one another ; but 
 wergild was no longer accepted, and the penalty 
 for murder was death. The clan exercised the 
 right of naming its members. Such names were 
 invariably significant (as Nemhualcoyotl , “ Hungry 
 Coyote,” Axayacatl , “ Face-in-the- Water,” etc.), 
 and more or less “ medicine,” or super- 
 
 Rightsand . . . r 
 
 duties of the stitious association, was attached to the 
 name. The clans also had their signifi- 
 cant names and totems. Each clan had its pecul- 
 iar religious rites, its priests or medicine-men who 
 were members of the clan council, and its temple 
 or medicine-house. Instead of burying their dead 
 the Mexican tribes practised cremation ; there was, 
 therefore, no common cemetery, but the funeral 
 ceremonies were conducted by the clan. 
 
 The clans of the Aztecs, like those of many 
 other Mexican tribes, were organized into four 
 phratries ; and this divided the city of Mexico, 
 Aztec phra- as Spaniards at once remarked, into 
 tries. f our quarters. The phratry had ac- 
 
 quired more functions than it possessed in the 
 lower status. Besides certain religious and social 
 duties, and besides its connection with the punish- 
 ment of criminals, the Mexican phratry was an 
 organization for military purposes . 2 The four 
 
 1 Compare this description with that of the institutions of In- 
 dians in the lower status, above, p. 69. 
 
 2 In this respect it seems to have had some resemblance to the 
 Roman centuria and Teutonic hundred. So in prehistoric Greece 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 109 
 
 phratries were four divisions of the tribal host, 
 each with its captain. In each of the quarters 
 was an arsenal, or “ dart-house,” where weapons 
 were stored, and from which they were handed out 
 to war-parties about to start on an expedition. 
 
 The supreme government of the Aztecs was 
 vested in the tribal council composed ^ tribal 
 of twenty members, one for each clan. counciL 
 The member, representing a clan, was not its cal- 
 pullec , or “ sachem ; ” he was one of the tecuhtli, 
 or clan-chiefs, and was significantly called the 
 “ speaker ” ( tlatoani ). The tribal council, thus 
 composed of twenty speakers, was called the tla- 
 tocan , or “ place of speech.” 1 At least as often 
 as once in ten days the council assembled at the 
 tecpan , or official house of the tribe, but it could 
 be convened whenever occasion required, and in 
 cases of emergency was continually in session. Its 
 powers and duties were similar to those of an an- 
 cient English shiremote, in so far as they were 
 partly directive and partly judicial. A large part 
 of its business was settling disputes between the 
 
 we may perhaps infer from Nestor’s advice to Agamemnon that a 
 similar organization existed : — 
 
 Kpiv &vdpas Kara <pv\a, Kara (ppjjrpas, ' Ay dpefivov, 
 
 &s (pp^rpri <pp’f)pTT]<f)iv ap^iyri, <pv\a 8k <pv\ois. 
 
 Iliad, ii. 362. 
 
 But the phratry seems never to have reached so high a develop- 
 ment among the Greeks as among the Romans and the early 
 English. 
 
 1 Compare parliament from parler. These twenty were the 
 “ grandees,” “ counsellors,” and “ captains ” mentioned by Bernal 
 Diaz as always in Montezuma’s company ; “ y siempre & la 
 contina estaban en su compaitfa veinte grandes seilores y consejeros 
 y capitanes,” etc. Historia verdadera, ii. 95. See Bandelier, op. 
 cit. p. 646. 
 
110 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 clans. It superintended the ceremonies of inves- 
 titure with which the chiefs and other officers 
 of the clans were sworn into office. At intervals 
 of eighty days there was an “ extra session ” of 
 the tlatocan , attended also by the twenty “ elder 
 brothers,” the four phratry-captains, the two exec- 
 utive chiefs of the tribe, and the leading priests, 
 and at such times a reconsideration of an unpopu- 
 lar decision might be urged ; but the authority of 
 the tlatocan was supreme, and from its final deci- 
 sion there could be no appeal . 1 2 
 
 The executive chiefs of the tribe were two in 
 number, as was commonly the case in ancient 
 America. The tribal sachem, or civil executive, 
 bore the grotesque title of cihuacoatl , or “ snake- 
 The “ snake- woman.” 2 His relation to the tribe 
 woman.” was in general like that of the calpul- 
 lec to the clan. He executed the decrees of the 
 tribal council, of which he was ex officio a mem- 
 ber, and was responsible for the housing of tribute 
 and its proper distribution among the clans. 
 He was also chief judge, and he was lieutenant 
 to the head war-chief in command of the tribal 
 
 1 Mr. Bandelier’s note on this point gives an especially apt 
 illustration of the confusion of ideas and inconsistencies of state- 
 ment amid which the early Spanish writers struggled to under- 
 stand and describe this strange society : op. cit. p. 651. 
 
 2 In Aztec mythology Cihuacoatl was wife of the supreme 
 night deity, Tezcatlipoca. Squier, Serpent Symbol in America, pp. 
 159-166, 174-183. On the connection between serpent worship 
 and human sacrifices, see Fergusson’s Tree and Serpent Worship, 
 pp. 3-5, 38-41. Much evidence as to American serpent worship 
 is collected in J. G. Muller’s Geschichte der amerikanischen Urre- 
 ligionen, Basel, 1855. The hieroglyphic emblem of the Aztec 
 tribal sachem was a female head surmounted by a snake. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. Ill 
 
 host. 1 He was elected for life by the tribal council, 
 which could depose him for misconduct. 
 
 The office of head war-chief was an instance of 
 primitive royalty in a very interesting stage of 
 development. The title of this officer was tlaca- 
 tecuhtli , or “ chief- of- men.” 2 He was primarily 
 head war-chief of the Aztec tribe, but about 1430 
 became supreme military commander of The « chief-of- 
 the three confederate tribes, so that his men ” 
 office was one of peculiar dignity and impor- 
 tance. When the Spaniards arrived upon the 
 scene Montezuma was tlacatecuhtli , and they nat- 
 urally called him “king.” To understand pre- 
 cisely how far such an epithet could correctly be 
 applied to him, and how far it was misleading, we 
 must recall the manner in which early kingship 
 arose in Europe. The Roman rex was an officer 
 elected for life ; the typical Greek basileus was 
 a somewhat more fully developed king, inasmuch 
 as his office was becoming practically hereditary ; 
 otherwise rex was about equivalent to Evolution of 
 basileus. Alike in Rome and in Greece 
 the king had at least three great func- Rome • 
 tions, and possibly four. 3 He was, primarily, chief 
 
 1 Other tribes besides the Aztec had the “ snake-woman.” In 
 the city of Mexico the Spaniards mistook him for a “ second- 
 king,” or “ royal lieutenant.” In other towns they regarded him, 
 somewhat more correctly, as “governor,” and called him gober- 
 nador , — a title still applied to the tribal sachem of the pueblo 
 Indians, as e. g. in Zufii heretofore mentioned ; see above p. 89. 
 
 2 This title seems precisely equivalent to &va£ avSpwv, com- 
 monly applied to Agamemnon, and sometimes to other chieftains, 
 in the Iliad. 
 
 3 Ramsay’s Roman Antiquities, p. 64; Hermann’s Political 
 Antiquities of Greece , p. 105 ; Morgan, Anc. Soc., p. 248. 
 
112 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 commander, secondly, chief priest, thirdly, chief 
 judge ; whether he had reached the fourth stage 
 and added the functions of chief civil executive, 
 is matter of dispute. Kingship in Rome and in 
 most Greek cities was overthrown at so early a 
 date that some questions of this sort are difficult 
 to settle. But in all probability the office grew 
 up through the successive acquisition of ritual, 
 judicial, and civil f unctions by the military com- 
 mander. The paramount necessity of consulting 
 the tutelar deities before fighting resulted in mak- 
 ing the general a priest competent to perform 
 sacrifices and interpret omens ; 1 he thus naturally 
 became the most important among priests ; an in- 
 creased sanctity invested his person and office; 
 and by and by he acquired control over the dispen- 
 sation of justice, and finally over the whole civil 
 administration. One step more was needed to 
 develop the basileus into a despot, like the king 
 of Persia, and that was to let him get into his 
 hands the law-making power, involving complete 
 control over taxation. When the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans became dissatisfied with the increasing pow- 
 ers of their kings, they destroyed the office. The 
 
 1 Such would naturally result from the desirableness of secur- 
 ing’ unity of command. If Demosthenes had been in sole com- 
 mand of the Athenian armament in the harbour of Syracuse, and 
 had been a basileus , with priestly authority, who can doubt that 
 some such theory of the eclipse as that suggested by Philochorus 
 would have been adopted, and thus one of the world’s great 
 tragedies averted ? See Grote, Hist. Greece , vol. vii. chap. lx. 
 M. Fustel de Coulanges, in his admirable book La CiU antique , 
 pp. 205-210, makes the priestly function of the king primitive, 
 and the military function secondary ; which is entirely inconsist- 
 ent with what we know of barbarous races. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 113 
 
 Romans did not materially diminish its functions, 
 but put them into commission, by entrusting them 
 to two consuls of equal authority elected annually. 
 The Greeks, on the other hand, divided the royal 
 functions among different officers, as e. g. at Ath- 
 ens among the nine archons . 1 
 
 The typical kingship in mediaeval Europe, after 
 the full development of the feudal system, was 
 very different indeed from the kingship in early 
 Greece and Rome. In the Middle Ages M edi*vai 
 all priestly functions had passed into kingwhip ' 
 the hands of the Church . 2 A king like Charles 
 VII. of France, or Edward III. of England, was 
 military commander, civil magistrate, chief judge, 
 and supreme landlord ; the people were his ten- 
 ants. That was the kind of king with which the 
 Spanish discoverers of Mexico were familiar. 
 
 Now the Mexican tlacatecuhtli , or “ chief-of- 
 men,” was much more like Agamemnon in point 
 of kingship than like Edward III. He was not 
 supreme landlord, for landlordship did not exist 
 in Mexico. He was not chief judge or civil mag- 
 
 1 It is worthy of note that the archon who retained the priestly 
 function was called basileus, showing* perhaps that at that time 
 this had come to he most prominent among the royal functions, 
 or more likely that it was the one with which reformers had some 
 religious scruples about interfering. The Romans, too, retained 
 part of the king’s priestly function in an officer called rex sacro- 
 rum , whose duty was at times to offer a sacrifice in the forum, 
 and then run away as fast as legs could carry him, — V 6v<ras 6 
 Pa<n\ei>Sy /caret rdxos Hireiai (pevyuv ay o pas (!) Plutarch, Qucest. 
 
 Rom. 63. 
 
 2 Something of the priestly quality of “sanctity,” however, 
 surrounded the king’s person ; and the ceremony of anointing 
 the king at his coronation was a survival of the ancient rite which 
 invested the head war-chief with priestly attributes. 
 
114 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 istrate ; those functions belonged to the “ snake- 
 woman.” Mr. Bandelier regards the “ chief -of- 
 men” as simply a military commander; but for 
 reasons which I shall state hereafter, 1 it 
 
 Montezuma . . 
 
 was a “ priest- seems quite clear that he exercised cer- 
 
 commander.” . . . 
 
 tain very important priestly functions, 
 although beside him there was a kind of high- 
 priest or medicine-chief. If I am right in hold- 
 ing that Montezuma was a “priest-commander,” 
 then incipient royalty in Mexico had advanced 
 at least one stage beyond the head war-chief of 
 the Iroquois, and remained one stage behind the 
 basileus of the Homeric Greeks. 
 
 The tlacatecuhtli , or “ chief-of-men,” was elected 
 by an assembly consisting of the tribal council, 
 the “ elder brothers ” of the several clans, and cer- 
 tain leading priests. Though the office was thus 
 elective, the choice seems to have been 
 cession to the practically limited to a particular clan, 
 and in the eleven chiefs who were 
 chosen from 1375 to 1520 a certain principle or 
 custom of succession seems to be plainly indi- 
 cated. 2 There was a further limit to the order of 
 succession. Allusion has been made to the four 
 phratry-captains commanding the quarters of the 
 
 1 They can be most conveniently stated in connection with the 
 story of the conquest of Mexico ; see below, vol. ii. p. 278. When 
 Mr. Bandelier completes his long-promised paper on the ancient 
 Mexican religion, perhaps it will appear that he has taken these 
 facts into the account. 
 
 2 I cannot follow Mr. Bandelier in discrediting Clavigero’s 
 statement that the office of tlacatecuhtli “ should always remain 
 in the house of Acamapitzin,” inasmuch as the eleven who were 
 actually elected were all closely akin to one another. In point of 
 fact it did remain “ in the house of Acamapitzin.” 
 
\ 
 
 ANCIENT AMERICA. 115 
 
 city. Their cheerful titles were “ man of the 
 house of darts,” “ cutter of men,” “ bloodshedder,” 
 and “ chief of the eagle and cactus.” These cap- 
 tains were military chiefs of the phratries, and also 
 magistrates charged with the duty of maintain- 
 ing order and enforcing the decrees of the council 
 in their respective quarters. The “ chief of the 
 eagle and cactus” was chief executioner, — Jack 
 Ketch. He was not eligible for the office of 
 “ chief-of-men ; ” the three other phratry-captains 
 were eligible. Then there was a member of the 
 priesthood entitled “man of the dark house.” 
 This person, with the three eligible captains, made 
 a quartette, and one of this privileged four must 
 succeed to the office of “ chief-of-men.” 
 
 The eligibility of the “ man of the dark house ” 
 may be cited here as positive proof that some- 
 times the “chief-of-men” could be a “ priest-com- 
 mander.” That in all cases he acquired priestly 
 functions after election, even when he did not 
 possess them before, is indicated by the fact that 
 at the ceremony of his induction into office he 
 ascended to the summit of the pyramid sacred 
 to the war-god Huitzilopochtli, where he was 
 anointed by the high-priest with a black ointment, 
 and sprinkled with sanctified water ; having thus 
 become consecrated he took a censer of live coals 
 and a bag of copal, and as his first official act 
 offered incense to the war-god . 1 
 
 1 H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States , vol. ii. p. 
 145. Hence the accounts of the reverent demeanour of the peo- 
 ple toward Montezuma, though perhaps overcoloured, are not 
 so absurd as Mr. Morgan deemed them. Mr. Morgan was some- 
 times too anxious to reduce Montezuma to the level of an Iro- 
 quois war- chief. 
 
116 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 As the 44 chief -of- men ” was elected, so too he 
 could be deposed for misbehaviour. He was ex 
 officio a member of the tribal council, and he had 
 his official residence in the tecpan , or tribal house, 
 where the meetings of the council were held, and 
 where the hospitalities of the tribe were extended 
 to strangers. As an administrative officer, the 
 44 chief-of-men ” had little to do within the limits 
 of the tribe; that, as already observed, was the 
 business of the 44 snake-woman.” But outside of 
 the confederacy the 44 chief-of-men ” exercised ad- 
 ministrative functions. He superintended the col- 
 lection of tribute. Each of the three confederate 
 Manner of coi- trlbes appointed, through its tribal 
 lectmg tribute. counc y^ agents to visit the subjected 
 
 pueblos and gather in the tribute. These agents 
 were expressively termed calpixqui , 44 crop-gather- 
 ers.” As these men were obliged to spend con- 
 siderable time in the vanquished pueblos in the 
 double character of tax-collectors and spies, we 
 can imagine how hateful their position was. Their 
 security from injury depended upon the reputation 
 of their tribes for ruthless ferocity . 1 The tiger- 
 like confederacy was only too ready to take of- 
 fence; in the lack of a decent pretext it often 
 went to war without one, simply in order to get 
 human victims for sacrifice. 
 
 Once appointed, the tax-gatherers were directed 
 
 1 As I have elsewhere observed in a similar case : — “ Each 
 summer there came two Mohawk elders, secure in the dread that 
 Iroquois prowess had everywhere inspired ; and up and down the 
 Connecticut valley they seized the tribute of weapons and wam- 
 pum, and proclaimed the last harsh edict issued from the savage 
 council at Onondaga.” Beginnings of New England , p. 121. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 117 
 
 by the “chief- of -men.” The tribute was chiefly 
 maize, but might be anything the conquerors 
 chose to demand, — weapons, fine pottery or 
 featherwork, gold ornaments, or female slaves. 
 Sometimes the tributary pueblo, instead of sacri- 
 ficing all its prisoners of war upon its own altars, 
 sent some of them up to Mexico as part of its trib- 
 ute. The ravening maw of the horrible deities 
 was thus appeased, not by the pueblo that paid 
 the blackmail, but by the power that extorted it, 
 and thus the latter obtained a larger share of di- 
 vine favour. Generally the unhappy prisoners 
 were forced to carry the corn and other articles. 
 They were convoyed by couriers who saw that 
 everything was properly delivered at the tecpan , 
 and also brought information by word of mouth 
 and by picture-writing from the calpixqui to the 
 “ chief-of-men.” When the newly-arrived Span- 
 iards saw these couriers coming and going they 
 fancied that they were “ ambassadors.” This sys- 
 tem of tribute-taking made it necessary to build 
 roads, and this in turn facilitated, not only military 
 operations, but trade, which had already made some 
 progress albeit of a simple sort. These “roads” 
 might perhaps more properly be called Indian 
 trails , 1 but they served their purpose. 
 
 The general similarity of the Aztec confederacy 
 
 1 See Salmeron’s letter of August 13, 1531, to the Council of 
 the Indies, cited in Bandelier, op. cit. p. 696. The letter recom- 
 mends that to increase the security of the Spanish hold upon the 
 country the roads should he made practicable for beasts and 
 wagons. They were narrow paths running straight ahead up hill 
 and down dale, sometimes crossing narrow ravines upon heavy 
 stone culverts. 
 
118 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 to that of the Iroquois, in point of social structure, 
 is thus clearly manifest. Along with this general 
 Aztec and iro- similarity we have observed some points 
 eracfes con-^" °f higher development, such as one 
 trasted. might expect to find in traversing the 
 entire length of an ethnical period. Instead of 
 stockaded villages, with houses of bark or of clay 
 supported upon a wooden framework, we have 
 pueblos of adobe-brick or stone, in various stages 
 of evolution, the most advanced of which present 
 the appearance of castellated cities. Along with 
 the systematic irrigation and increased dependence 
 upon horticulture, we find evidences of greater 
 density of population; and we see in the victo- 
 rious confederacy a more highly developed organi- 
 zation for adding to its stock of food and other 
 desirable possessions by the systematic plunder 
 of neighbouring weaker communities. Naturally 
 such increase in numbers and organization entails 
 some increase in the number of officers and some 
 differentiation of their functions, as illustrated in 
 the representation of the clans (calpulli) in the 
 tribal council ( tlatocan ), by speakers ( tlatoani ) 
 chosen for the purpose, and not by the official 
 heads ( calpullec ) of the clan. Likewise in the 
 military commander-in-chief ( tlacatecuhtli ) we 
 observe a marked increase in dignity, and — as I 
 have already suggested and hope to maintain — we 
 find that his office has been clothed with sacerdo- 
 tal powers, and has thus taken a decided step to- 
 ward kingship of the ancient type, as depicted in 
 the Homeric poems. 
 
 No feature of the advance is more noteworthy 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 119 
 
 than the development of the medicine-men into an 
 organized priesthood . 1 The presence of 
 
 . , -T . , , Aztec prieut- 
 
 this priesthood and its ritual was pro- hood : human 
 
 1 # sacrifices. 
 
 claimed to the eyes of the traveller in 
 ancient Mexico by the numerous tall truncated 
 pyramids ( teocallis ), on the flat summits of which 
 men, women, and children were sacrificed to the 
 gods. This custom of human sacrifice seems to 
 have been a characteristic of the middle period 
 of barbarism, and to have survived, with dimin- 
 ishing frequency, into the upper period. There 
 are abundant traces of its existence throughout 
 the early Aryan world, from Britain to Hindu- 
 stan, as well as among the ancient Hebrews and 
 their kindred . 2 But among all these peoples, at 
 the earliest times at which we can study them 
 with trustworthy records, we find the custom of 
 human sacrifice in an advanced stage of decline, 
 and generally no longer accompanied by the cus- 
 tom of cannibalism in which it probably origi- 
 nated . 3 Among the Mexicans, however, when they 
 were first visited by the Spaniards, cannibalism 
 flourished as nowhere else in the world except 
 perhaps in Fiji, and human sacrifices were con- 
 
 1 The priesthood was not hereditary, nor did it form a caste. 
 There was no hereditary nobility in ancient Mexico, nor were 
 there any hereditary vocations, as “artisans,” “ merchants,” etc. 
 See Bandelier, op. cit. p. 599. 
 
 2 See the copious references in Tylor’s Primitive Culture , ii. 
 340-371 ; Mackay, Religious Development of the Greeks and He- 
 brews , ii. 406-434; Oort and Hooykaas, The Bible for Young 
 People , i. 30, 189-193 ; ii. 102, 220 ; iii. 21, 170, 316, 393, 395 ; iv. 
 85, 226. Ghillany, Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebraer , Nurem- 
 berg-, 1842, treats the subject with much learning. 
 
 3 Spencer, Princip. Sociol ., i. 287 ; Tylor, op. cit. ii. 345. 
 
120 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 ducted on such a scale as could not have been 
 witnessed in Europe without going back more 
 than forty centuries. 
 
 The custom of sacrificing captives to the gods 
 was a marked advance upon the practice in the 
 lower period of barbarism, when the prisoner, un- 
 less saved by adoption into the tribe of his cap- 
 tors, was put to death with lingering torments. 
 There were occasions on which the Aztecs tortured 
 their prisoners before sending them to the altar , 1 
 but in general the prisoner was well-treated and 
 highly fed, — fatted, in short, for the final ban- 
 quet in which the worshippers participated with 
 their savage deity . 2 In a more advanced stage 
 of development than that which the Aztecs had 
 reached, in the stage when agriculture became 
 extensive enough to create a steady demand for 
 servile labour, the practice of enslaving prisoners 
 became general ; and as slaves became more and 
 more valuable, men gradually succeeded in com- 
 pounding with their deities for easier terms, — a 
 ram, or a kid, or a bullock, instead of the human 
 victim . 3 
 
 1 Mr. Prescott, to avoid shocking the reader with details, re- 
 fers him to the twenty-first canto of Dante’s Inferno, Conquest of 
 Mexico, vol. i. p. 64. 
 
 2 See below, vol. ii. p. 283. 
 
 3 The victim, by the offer of which the wrath of the god was 
 appeased or his favour solicited, must always be some valued 
 possession of the sacrificer. Hence, e. g., among the Hebrews 
 “ wild animals, as not being property, were generally considered 
 unfit for sacrifice.” (Mackay, op. cit. ii. 398.) Among the Aztecs 
 (Prescott, loc. cit.) on certain occasions of peculiar solemnity the 
 clan offered some of its own members, usually children. In the 
 lack of prisoners such offerings would more often be necessary, 
 hence one powerful incentive to war. The use of prisoners to 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 121 
 
 The ancient Mexicans had not arrived at this 
 stage, which in the Old World characterized the 
 upper period of barbarism. Slavery had, however, 
 made a beginning among the Aztecs. 
 
 ° ® ® Aztec slaves. 
 
 The nucleus of the small slave-popu- 
 lation of Mexico consisted of outcasts , persons 
 expelled from the clan for some misdemeanour. 
 The simplest case was that in which a member 
 of a clan failed for two years to cultivate his 
 garden-plot . 1 The delinquent member was de- 
 prived, not only of his right of user, but of all his 
 rights as a clansman, and the only way to escape 
 starvation was to work upon some other lot, either 
 
 buy the god’s favour was to some extent a substitute for the use 
 of the clan’s own members, and at a later stage the use of do- 
 mestic animals was a further substitution. The legend of Abra- 
 ham and Isaac ( Genesis , xxii. 1-14) preserves the tradition of this 
 latter substitution among the ancient Hebrews. Compare the 
 Boeotian legend of the temple of Dionysos Aigobolos : — Moines 
 yap rep deep irpo'f)xQ r t)(rav wore virb fiedr] s is vfipiv, Sxrre KaX rov At o- 
 vvffov rbv tepea cutout elvovaiv • cutout elvavras bh avr'ina 4ir4\a(ic 
 vSffos Xoi/jLCtibrjs * Kal crcpiaiv cupluero a pa 4k Ae\<pojp t r$ Aiovvacp 
 Bveiv iraiSa wpofiov • erei n Se ov iroWols varepop top 6e6v <paaiv 
 alya iepeTov viraWa^ai fffplaiv avrl tov iraTSos. Pausanias, ix. 8. 
 A further stage of progress was the substitution of a mere inanh 
 mate symbol for a living victim, whether human or brute, aC 
 shown in the old Roman custom of appeasing “ Father Tiber ” 
 once a year by the ceremony of drowning a lot of dolls in that 
 river. Of this significant rite Mommsen aptly observes, “ Die 
 Ideen gottlicher Gnade und Versohnbarkeit sind hier ununter- 
 scheidbar gemischt mit der frommen Schlauigkeit, welche es ver- 
 sucht den gefahrlichen Herrn durch scheinhafte Befriedigung zu 
 beriicken und abzufinden.” Romische Geschichte, 4" AuflL, 1865, 
 bd. i. p. 176. After reading such a remark it may seem odd to 
 find the writer, in a footnote, refusing to accept the true explana- 
 tion of the custom ; but that was a quarter of a century ago, 
 when much less was known about ancient society than now. 
 
 1 Bandolier, op. cit. p. 611. 
 
122 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 in his own or in some other clan, and be paid in 
 such pittance from its produce as the occupant 
 might choose to give him. This was slavery in 
 embryo. The occupant did not own this outcast 
 labourer, any more than he owned his lot ; he only 
 possessed a limited right of user in both labourer 
 and lot. To a certain extent it was “ adverse ” or 
 exclusive possession. If the slave ran away or 
 was obstinately lazy, he could be made to wear a 
 wooden collar and sold without his consent ; if it 
 proved too troublesome to keep him, the collared 
 slave could be handed over to the priests for 
 sacrifice . 1 In this class of outcasts and their 
 masters we have an interesting illustration of a 
 rudimentary phase of slavery and of private prop- 
 erty. 
 
 At this point it is worthy of note that in the 
 development of the family the Aztecs had ad- 
 vanced considerably beyond the point attained by 
 Shawnees and Mohawks, and a little way toward 
 the point attained in the patriarchal family of the 
 ancient Romans and Hebrews. In the Aztec clan 
 (which was exogamous 2 ) the change to descent in 
 The Aztec the male line seems to have been accom- 
 famiiy. plished before the time of the Discovery. 
 Apparently it had been recently accomplished. 
 Names for designating family relationships re- 
 mained in that primitive stage in which no dis- 
 
 1 There was, however, in this extreme case, a right of sanctuary. 
 If the doomed slave could flee and hide himself in the tecpan be- 
 fore the master or one of his sons could catch him, he became 
 free and recovered his clan-rights ; and no third person was al- 
 lowed to interfere in aid of the pursuer. Torquemada, Monarquia 
 Indiana, ii. 504-566. 
 
 2 Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States , vol. ii. p. 251. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 123 
 
 tinction is made between father and uncle, grand- 
 children and cousins. The family was still too 
 feebly established to count for much in the struc- 
 ture of society, which still rested firmly upon the 
 clan . 1 Nevertheless the marriage bonds were 
 drawn much tighter than among Indians of the 
 lower status, and penalties for incontinence were 
 more severe. The wife became her husband’s 
 property and was entitled to the protection of his 
 clan. All matrimonial arrangements were con- 
 trolled by the clan, and no member of it, male or 
 female, was allowed to remain unmarried, except 
 for certain religious reasons. The penalty for 
 contumacy was expulsion from the clan, and the 
 same penalty was inflicted for such sexual irregu- 
 larities as public opinion, still in what we should 
 call quite a primitive stage, condemned. Men 
 and women thus expelled went to swell the num- 
 bers of that small class of outcasts already noted. 
 With men the result, as we have seen, was a kind 
 of slavery ; with women it was prostitution ; and 
 it is curious to see that the same penalty, entail- 
 ing such a result, was visited alike upon unseemly 
 frailty and upon refusal to marry. In either case 
 the sin consisted in rebellion against the clan’s 
 standards of proper or permissible behaviour. 
 
 The inheritance in the male line, the beginnings 
 of individual property in slaves, the tightening of 
 the marriage bond, accompanied by the condemna- 
 tion of sundry irregularities heretofore tolerated, 
 are phenomena which we might expect to find 
 associated together. They are germs of the up- 
 1 Bandelier, op. cit. pp. 429, 570, 620. 
 
124 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 per status of barbarism, as well as of tbe earliest 
 status of civilization more remotely to follow. 
 Tbe common cause, of which they are the manifes- 
 tations, is an increasing sense of the value and im- 
 Aztec prop- portance of personal property. In the 
 
 erty * Old World this sense grew up during a 
 
 pastoral stage of society such as the New World 
 never knew, and by the ages of Abraham and 
 Agamemnon 1 it had produced results such as had 
 not been reached in Mexico at the time of the 
 Discovery. Still the tendency in the latter coun- 
 try was in a similar direction. Though there was 
 no notion of real estate, and the house was still 
 clan-property, yet the number and value of arti- 
 cles of personal ownership had no doubt greatly 
 increased during the long interval which must 
 have elapsed since the ancestral Mexicans entered 
 upon the middle status. The mere existence of 
 large and busy market-places with regular and 
 frequent fairs, even though trade had scarcely be- 
 gun to emerge from the stage of barter, is suffi- 
 cient proof of this. Such fairs and markets do 
 not belong to the Mohawk chapter in human pro- 
 gress. They imply a considerable number and di- 
 versity of artificial products, valued as articles of 
 personal property. A legitimate inference from 
 them is the existence of a certain degree of luxury, 
 though doubtless luxury of a barbaric type. 
 
 1 I here use these world-famous names without any implication 
 as to their historical character, or their precise date, which are 
 in themselves interesting- subjects for discussion. I use them as 
 best symbolizing the state of society which existed about the 
 northern and eastern shores of the eastern Mediterranean, several 
 centuries before the Olympiads. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 125 
 
 It is at this point, I think, that a judicious critic 
 will begin to part company with Mr. Morgan. 
 As regards the outward aspect of the society 
 which the Spaniards found in Mexico, Mr Morgan’s 
 that eminent scholar more than once ruleB * 
 used arguments that were inconsistent with prin- 
 ciples of criticism laid down by himself. At the 
 beginning of his chapter on the Aztec confederacy 
 Mr. Morgan proposed the following rules : — 
 
 “The histories of Spanish America may be 
 trusted in whatever relates to the acts of the 
 Spaniards, and to the acts and personal character- 
 istics of the Indians ; in whatever relates to their 
 weapons, implements and utensils, fabrics, food 
 and raiment, and things of a similar character. 
 
 “ But in whatever relates to Indian society and 
 government, their social relations and plan of life, 
 they are nearly worthless, because they learned 
 nothing and knew nothing of either. We are at 
 full liberty to reject them in these respects and 
 commence anew ; using any facts they may contain 
 which harmonize with what is known of Indian 
 society.” 1 
 
 Perhaps it would have been better if the second 
 of these rules had been somewhat differently 
 worded ; for even with regard to the strange so- 
 ciety and government, the Spanish writers have 
 recorded an immense number of valuable facts, 
 without which Mr. Bandelier’s work would have 
 been impossible. It is not so much the facts as 
 the interpretations of the Spanish historians that 
 are “nearly worthless,” and even their misinter- 
 1 Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 186, note. 
 
126 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 pretations are interesting and instructive when 
 once we rightly understand them. Sometimes 
 they really help us toward the truth. 
 
 The broad distinction, however, as stated in 
 Mr. Morgan’s pair of rules, is well taken. In re- 
 gard to such a strange form of society the Span- 
 ish discoverers of Mexico could not help making 
 mistakes, but in regard to utensils and dress their 
 senses were not likely to deceive them, and their 
 Mr. Morgan statements, according to Mr. Morgan, 
 SSSThff 8 ' ma y be trusted. Very good. But as 
 “Montes- soon as Mr. Morgan had occasion to 
 ma’s Dinner.” ^fte about the social life of the Az- 
 tecs, he forgot his own rules and paid as little 
 respect to the senses of eye-witnesses as to their 
 judgment. This was amusingly illustrated in his 
 famous essay on “ Montezuma’s Dinner .” 1 When 
 Bernal Diaz describes Montezuma as sitting on 
 a low chair at a table covered with a white cloth, 
 Mr. Morgan declares that it could not have been 
 so, — there were no chairs or tables ! On second 
 thought he will admit that there may have been 
 a wooden block hollowed out for a stool, but in 
 the matter of a table he is relentless. So when 
 Cortes, in his despatch to the emperor, speaks of 
 the “ wine-cellar ” and of the presence of “ secre- 
 taries ” at dinner, Mr. Morgan observes, “ Since 
 cursive writing was unknown among the Aztecs, 
 the presence of these secretaries is an amusing 
 feature in the account. The wine-cellar also is 
 remarkable for two reasons: firstly, because the 
 
 1 North Amer. Review , April, 1876. The substance of it was 
 reproduced in his Houses and House-Life , chap. x. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 127 
 
 level of the streets and courts was but four feet 
 above the level of the water, which made cellars 
 impossible ; and, secondly, because the Aztecs had 
 no knowledge of wine. An acid beer ( jpvlque ), 
 made by fermenting the juice of the maguey, was 
 a common beverage of the Aztecs ; but it is hardly 
 supposable that even this was used at dinner.” 1 
 To this I would reply that the fibre of that 
 same useful plant from which the Aztecs made 
 their “ beer ” supplied them also with paper, upon 
 which they were in the habit of writing, not in- 
 deed in cursive characters, but in hieroglyphics. 
 This kind of writing, as well as any other, ac- 
 counts for the presence of secretaries, which seems 
 to me, by the way, a very probable and character- 
 istic feature in the narrative. From the moment 
 the mysterious strangers landed, every movement 
 of theirs had been recorded in hieroglyphics, and 
 there is no reason why notes of what they said 
 and did should not have been taken at dinner. 
 As for the place where the ‘pulque was kept, it 
 was a venial slip of the pen to call it a “ wine-cel- 
 lar,” even if it was not below the ground. The 
 language of Cortes does not imply that he visited 
 the “ cellar ; ” he saw a crowd of Indians drinking 
 the beverage, and supposing the great house he 
 was in to be Montezuma’s, he expressed his sense 
 of that person’s hospitality by saying that “his 
 wine-cellar was open to all.” And really, is it not 
 rather a captious criticism which in one breath 
 chides Cortes for calling the beverage “wine,” 
 and in the next breath goes on to call it “ beer ” ? 
 
 1 Houses and House-Life , p. 241. 
 
128 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 The pulque was neither the one nor the other ; 
 for want of any other name a German might have 
 called it beer, a Spaniard would be more likely to 
 call it wine. And why is it “ hardly supposable ” 
 that pulque was used at dinner? Why should 
 Mr. Morgan, who never dined with Montezuma, 
 know so much more about such things than Cortes 
 and Bernal Diaz, who did ? 1 
 
 The Spanish statements of facts are, of course, 
 not to be accepted uncritically. When we are 
 told of cut slabs of porphyry inlaid in the walls 
 
 of a room, we have a right to inquire 
 
 The reaction ° A 
 
 against uncrit- how so hard a stone could be cut with 
 
 ical and ex- 
 aggerated flint or copper chisels, 2 and are ready 
 
 statements. o A A # J 
 
 to entertam the suggestion that some 
 other stone might easily have been mistaken for 
 porphyry. Such a critical inquiry is eminently 
 profitable, and none the less so when it brings us 
 to the conclusion that the Aztecs did succeed in 
 cutting porphyry. Again, when we read about 
 Indian armies of 200,000 men, pertinent questions 
 arise as to the commissariat, and we are led to re- 
 flect that there is nothing about which old soldiers 
 spin such unconscionable yarns as about the size 
 
 1 Mr. Andrew Lang asks some similar questions in his Myth , 
 Ritual, and Religion, vol. ii. p. 349, but in a tone of impatient 
 contempt which, as applied to a man of Mr. Morgan’s calibre, is 
 hardly becoming. 
 
 2 For an excellent account of ancient Mexican knives and 
 chisels, see Dr. Valentini’s paper on “ Semi-Lunar and Crescent- 
 Shaped Tools,” in Proceedings of Amer. Antiq. Soc., New Series, 
 vol. iii. pp. 449-474. Compare the very interesting Spanish 
 observations on copper hatchets and flint chisels in Clavigero, 
 Historia antigua, tom. i. p. 242 ; Mendieta, Historia ecclesiastica 
 Indiana, tom. iv. cap. xii. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 129 
 
 of the armies they have thrashed. In a fairy tale, 
 of course, such suggestions are impertinent ; things 
 can go on anyhow. In real life it is different. The 
 trouble with most historians of the conquest of 
 Mexico has been that they have made it like a 
 fairy tale, and the trouble with Mr. Morgan was 
 that, in a wholesome and much-needed spirit of 
 reaction, he was too much inclined to dismiss the 
 whole story as such. He forgot the first of his 
 pair of rules, and applied the second to everything 
 alike. He felt “at full liberty to reject” the 
 testimony of the discoverers as to what they saw 
 and tasted, and to “commence anew,” reasoning 
 from “what is known of Indian society.” And 
 here Mr. Morgan’s mind was so full of the kind 
 of Indian society which he knew more minutely 
 and profoundly than any other man, that he was 
 apt to forget that there could be any other kind. 
 He overlooked his own distinction between the 
 lower and middle periods of barbarism in his at- 
 tempt Jto ignore or minimize the points of differ- 
 ence between Aztecs and Iroquois . 1 In this way 
 he did injustice to his own brilliant and useful 
 classification of stages of culture, and in particular 
 to the middle period of barbarism, the significance 
 of which he was the first to detect, but failed to 
 realize fully because his attention had been so in- 
 tensely concentrated upon the lower period. 
 
 1 It often happens that the followers of a great man are more 
 likely to run to extremes than their master, as, for example, when 
 we see the queen of pueblos rashly described as “ a collection of 
 mud huts, such as Cortes found and dignified with the name of a 
 city.” Smithsonian Report , 1887, part i. p. 691. This is quite 
 inadmissible. 
 
130 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 In truth, the middle period of barbarism was 
 one of the most important periods in the career 
 of the human race, and full of fascination to the 
 importance of st ‘ udent, as the unfading interest in an- 
 periS ofbar- °i ent Mexico and the huge mass of lit- 
 bansm. erature devoted to it show. It spanned 
 the interval between such society as that of Hia- 
 watha and such as that of the Odyssey. One 
 more such interval (and, I suspect, a briefer one, 
 because the use of iron and the development of 
 inheritable wealth would accelerate progress) led 
 to the age that could write the Odyssey, one of 
 the most beautiful productions of the human mind. 
 If Mr. Morgan had always borne in mind that, on 
 his own classification, Montezuma must have been 
 at least as near to Agamemnon as to Powhatan, 
 his attitude toward the Spanish historians would 
 have been less hostile. A Moqui pueblo stands 
 near the lower end of the middle period of bar- 
 barism ; ancient Troy stood next the upper end. 
 Mr. Morgan found apt illustrations in the former ; 
 perhaps if he had lived long enough to profit by 
 the work of Schliemann and Bandelier, he might 
 have found equally apt ones in the latter. Mr. 
 Bandelier’s researches certainly show that the an- 
 cient city of Mexico, in point of social develop- 
 ment, stood somewhere between the two. 
 
 How that city looked may best be described 
 when we come to tell what its first Spanish vis- 
 itors saw. Let it suffice here to say that, upon a 
 reasonable estimate of their testimony, pleasure- 
 gardens, menageries and aviaries, fountains and 
 baths, tessellated marble floors, finely wrought pot- 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA . 
 
 181 
 
 tery, exquisite feather-work, brilliant mats and 
 tapestries, silver goblets, dainty spices burning in 
 golden censers, varieties of highly seasoned dishes, 
 dramatic performances, jugglers and acrobats, bal- 
 lad singers and dancing girls, — such things were 
 to be seen in this city of snake-worshipping canni- 
 bals. It simulated civilization as a tree-fern simu- 
 lates a tree. 
 
 In its general outlines the account here given of 
 Aztec society and government at the time of the 
 Discovery will probably hold true of all the semi- 
 civilized communities of the Mexican peninsula 
 and Central America. The pueblos of Mexico 
 were doubtless of various grades of size, strength, 
 and comfort, ranging from such structures as Zuni 
 up to the city of Mexico. The cities Meiicwl8 and 
 of Chiapas, Yucatan, and Guatemala, Maya8, 
 whose ruins, in those tropical forests, are so im- 
 pressive; probably belong to the same class. The 
 Maya-Quiche tribes, who dwelt and still dwell in 
 this region, were different in stock-language from 
 their neighbours of Mexico ; but there are strong 
 reasons for believing that the two great groups, 
 Mexicans and Mayas, arose from the expansion 
 and segmentation of one common stock, and there 
 is no doubt as to the very close similarity be- 
 tween the two in government, religion, and social 
 advancement. In some points the Mayas were 
 superior. They possessed a considerable liters 
 ture, written in highly developed hieroglyphic 
 characters upon maguey paper and upon deerskin 
 parchment, so that from this point of view they 
 
132 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 stood upon the threshold of civilization as strictly- 
 defined . 1 But, like the Mexicans, they were igno- 
 
 1 This writing was at once recognized by learned Spaniards, 
 like Las Casas, as entirely different from anything found else- 
 where in America. He found in Yucatan “letreros de ciertos 
 caracteres que en otra ninguna parte,” Las Casas, Historia apo- 
 logttica, cap. cxxiii. For an account of the hieroglyphics, see the 
 learned essays of Dr. Cyrus Thomas, A Study of the Manuscript 
 Troano, Washington, 1882 ; “ Notes on certain Maya and Mexican 
 MSS.,” Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology , pp. 7-153 ; “ Aids 
 to the Study of the Maya Codices,” Sixth Report , pp. 259-371. 
 (The paper last mentioned ends with the weighty words, “ The 
 more I study these characters the stronger becomes the convic- 
 tion that they have grown out of a pictographic system similar to 
 that common among the Indians of North America.” Exactly 
 so ; and this is typical of every aspect and every detail of ancient 
 American culture. It is becoming daily more evident that the 
 old notion of an influence from Asia has not a leg to stand on.) 
 See also a suggestive paper by the astronomer, E. S. Holden, 
 “ Studies in Central American Picture-Writing,” First Report of 
 the Bureau of Ethnology , pp. 205-245 ; Brinton, Ancient Phonetic 
 Alphabet of Yucatan, New York, 1870 ; Essays of an Americanist , 
 Philadelphia, 1890, pp. 193-304 ; L£on de Rosny, Les ecritures 
 figuratives , Paris, 1870 , L' interpretation des anciens textes Mayas, 
 Paris, 1875 ; Essai sur le dichiffrement de Vicriture hiiratique de 
 VAmirique Centrale, Paris, 1876 ; Forstemann, Erlduterungen der 
 Maya Handschrift, Dresden, 1886. The decipherment is as yet 
 but partially accomplished. The Meidcan system of writing is 
 clearly developed from the ordinary Indian pictographs ; it could 
 not have arisen from the Maya system, but the latter might well 
 have been a further development of the Mexican system ; the 
 Maya system had probably developed some characters with a 
 phonetic value, i. e. was groping toward the alphabetical stage ; 
 but how far this groping had gone must remain very doubtful 
 until the decipherment has proceeded further. Dr. Isaac Taylor 
 is too hasty in saying that “the Mayas employed twenty-seven 
 characters which must be admitted to be alphabetic” (Taylor, 
 The Alphabet, vol. i. p. 24) ; this statement is followed by the 
 conclusion that the Maya system of writing was “superior in 
 simplicity and convenience to that employed ... by the great 
 Assyrian nation at the epoch of its greatest power and glory.” 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 133 
 
 rant of iron, their society was organized upon the 
 principle of gentilism, they were cannibals and 
 sacrificed men and women to idols, some of which 
 were identical with those of Mexico. The Mayas 
 had no conception of property in land ; their 
 
 _ N 
 
 an±±±±±±±±±±di3 i 
 
 264 FT 
 
 Ground-plan of so-called “House of the Nuns” at Uxmal. 
 
 buildings were great communal houses, like pueb- 
 los ; in some cases these so-called palaces, at first 
 supposed to be scanty remnants of vast cities, were 
 themselves the entire “ cities ; ” in other cases 
 
 Dr. Taylor has been misled by Diego de Landa, whose work 
 ( Relation des choses de V Yucatan, ed. Brasseur, Paris, 1864) has 
 in it some pitfalls for the unwary. 
 
134 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 there were doubtless large composite pueblos fit 
 to be called cities. 
 
 These noble ruins have excited great and in- 
 creasing interest since the publication of Mr. Ste- 
 phens’s charming book just fifty years ago . 1 An 
 air of profound mystery surrounded them, and 
 many wild theories were propounded to account 
 
 Ruined cities ^ or ^ eir existence. They were at first 
 of central accredited with a fabulous antiquity, 
 
 America. 1 . 1 . A J 1 
 
 and m at least one instance this notion 
 was responsible for what must be called misrepre- 
 sentation, if not humbug . 2 Having been placed 
 
 1 Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Central America , Chiapas , 
 and Yucatan , 2 vols., New York, 1841. 
 
 2 It occurred in the drawings of the artist Frederic de Wal- 
 deck, who visited Palenque before Stephens, hut whose re- 
 searches were published later. “His drawings,” says Mr. Winsor, 
 “ are exquisite ; but he was not free from a tendency to improve 
 and restore, where the conditions gave a hint, and so as we have 
 them in the final publication they have not been accepted as 
 wholly trustworthy.” Narr. and Crit. Hist., i. 194. M. de Char- 
 nay puts it more strongly. Upon his drawing of a certain panel 
 at Palenque, M. de Waldeck “ has seen fit to place three or four 
 elephants. What end did he propose to himself in giving this 
 fictitious representation ? Presumably to give a prehistoric origin 
 to these ruins, since it is an ascertained fact that elephants in a 
 fossil state only have been found on the American continent. It 
 is needless to add that neither Catherwood, who drew these in- 
 scriptions most minutely, nor myself who brought impressions of 
 them away, nor living man, ever saw these elephants and their 
 fine trunks. But such is the mischief engendered by precon- 
 ceived opinions. With some writers it would seem that to give 
 a recent date to these monuments would deprive them of all in- 
 terest. It would have been fortunate had explorers been imbued 
 with fewer prejudices and gifted with a little more common sense, 
 for then we should have known the truth with regard to these 
 ruins long since.” Charnay, The Ancient Cities of the New 
 World , London, 1887, p. 248. The gallant explorer’s indigna- 
 tion is certainly quite pardonable. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 135 
 
 by popular fancy at such a remote age, they were 
 naturally supposed to have been built, not by the 
 Mayas, — who still inhabit Yucatan and do not 
 absolutely dazzle us with their exalted civilization, 
 — but by some wonderful people long since van- 
 ished. Now as to this point the sculptured slabs 
 of Uxmal and Chichen-Itza tell their own story. 
 They are covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, 
 and these hieroglyphs are the same as those in 
 which the Dresden Codex and other Maya manu- 
 scripts still preserved are written ; though their 
 decipherment is not yet complete, there is no sort 
 of doubt as to their being written in the Maya 
 characters. Careful inspection, moreover, shows 
 that the buildings in which these inscriptions oc- 
 cur are not so very ancient. Mr. Stephens, who 
 was one of their earliest as well as sanest ex- 
 plorers, believed them to be the work of the 
 Mayas a p a comparatively recent period . 1 The 
 notion of their, antiquity was perhaps suggested 
 by the belief that certain colossal mahogany trees 
 
 1 Some of his remarks are worth quoting in detail, especially 
 in view of the time when they were written: “I repeat my 
 opinion that we are not warranted in going hack to any ancient 
 nation of the Old World for the builders of these cities ; that they 
 are not the work of people who have passed away and whose his- 
 tory is lost, hut that there are strong reasons to believe them the 
 creations of the same races who inhabited the country at the time 
 of the Spanish conquest, or some not very distant progenitors. 
 And I would remark that we began our exploration without any 
 theory to support. . • . Some are beyond doubt older than others ; 
 some are known to have been inhabited at the time of the Span- 
 ish conquest, and others, perhaps, were really in ruins before ; . . . 
 hut in regard to Uxmal, at least, we believe that it was an exist- 
 ing and inhabited city at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards.” 
 Stephens, Central America, etc., vol. ii. p. 455. 
 
136 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 growing between and over the ruins at Palenque 
 must be nearly 2,000 years old. But when M. de 
 Charnay visited Palenque in 1859 be bad the east- 
 ern side of the “palace” cleared of its dense 
 vegetation in order to get a good photograph; 
 and when he revisited the spot in 1881 he found 
 a sturdy growth of young mahogany the age of 
 which he knew did not exceed twenty-two years. 
 Instead of making a ring once a year, as in our 
 sluggish and temperate zone, these trees had made 
 rings at the rate of about one in a month ; their 
 trunks were already more than two feet in di- 
 ameter ; judging from this rate of growth the big- 
 gest giant on the place need not have been more 
 than 200 years old, if as much. 1 
 
 These edifices are not so durably constructed as 
 those which in Europe have stood for more than 
 a thousand years. They do not indicate a high 
 civilization on the part of their builders. They 
 do not, as Mr. Andrew Lang says, “ throw My- 
 cenae into the shade, and rival the re- 
 abiy^iwt older" mains of Cambodia.” 2 In pictures 
 
 t/hsm th6 _ i i j "TiiT i 
 
 twelfth cen- they may seem to do so, but M. de 
 Charnay, after close and repeated ex- 
 amination of these buildings, assures us that as 
 structures they “cannot be compared with those 
 at Cambodia, which belong to nearly the same 
 period, the twelfth century, and which, notwith- 
 standing their greater and more resisting propor- 
 tions, are found in the same dilapidated condi- 
 
 1 Charnay, The Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 260. 
 
 2 Lang, Myth, Ritual , and Religion, vol. ii. p. 348. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 137 
 
 tion.” 1 It seems to me that if Mr. Lang had 
 spoken of the Yucatan ruins as rivalling the re- 
 mains of Mycenae, instead of “ throwing them into 
 the shade,” he would have come nearer the mark. 
 The builders of Uxmal, like those of Mycenae, did 
 not understand the principle of the arch, but were 
 feeling their way toward it. 2 And here again we 
 are brought back, as seems to happen whatever 
 road we follow, to the middle status of barbarism. 
 The Yucatan architecture shows the marks of its 
 origin in the adobe and rubble-stone work of the 
 New Mexico pueblos. The inside of the wall “ is 
 a rude mixture of friable mortar and small irregu- 
 lar stones,” and under the pelting tropical rains 
 the dislocation of the outer facing is presently ef- 
 fected. The large blocks, cut with flint chisels, 
 are of a soft stone that is soon damaged by 
 weather ; and the cornices and lintels are beams 
 of a very hard wood, yet not so hard but that in- 
 sects bore into it. From such considerations it is 
 justly inferred that the highest probable antiquity 
 for most of the ruins in Yucatan or Central Amer- 
 ica is the twelfth or thirteenth century of our era. 3 
 Some, perhaps, may be no older than the ancient 
 city of Mexico, built a. d. 1325. 
 
 1 Charnay, op. cit. p. 209. “ I may remark that [the] virgin 
 
 forests [here] have no very old trees, being destroyed by insects, 
 moisture, lianas, etc. ; and old monteros tell me that mahogany 
 and cedar trees, which are most durable, do not live above 200 
 years,” id. p. 447. 
 
 2 The reader will find it suggestive to compare portions of 
 Schliemann’s Mycence and M. de Charnay’ s book, just cited, with 
 Morgan’s Houses and House-Life, chap. xi. 
 
 3 Charnay, op. cit. p. 411. Copan and Palenque may be two or 
 three centuries older, and had probably fallen into ruins before 
 the arrival of the Spaniards. 
 
138 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 But we are no longer restricted to purely ar- 
 chaeological evidence. One of the most impressive 
 of all these ruined cities is Chichen-Itza, which is 
 regarded as older than Uxmal, but not so old as 
 Izamal. Now in recent times sundry old Maya 
 Chronicle of documents have been discovered in 
 Chicxuiub. Yucatan, and among them is a brief 
 history of the Spanish conquest of that country, 
 written in the Roman character by a native chief, 
 Nakuk Pech, about 1562. It has been edited, 
 with an English translation, by that zealous and 
 indefatigable scholar, to whom American philol- 
 ogy owes such a debt of gratitude, — Dr. Daniel 
 Brinton. This chronicle tells us several things 
 that we did not know before, and, among others, 
 it refers most explicitly to Chichen-Itza and Iza- 
 mal as inhabited towns during the time that the 
 Spaniards were coming, from 1519 to 1542. If 
 there could have been any lingering doubt as to 
 the correctness of the views of Stephens, Morgan, 
 and Charnay, this contemporaneous documentary 
 testimony dispels it once for all. 1 
 
 1 Brinton, The Maya Chronicles , Philadelphia, 1882, “ Chron- 
 icle of Chicxuiub,’ ’ pp. 187-259. This book is of great impor- 
 tance, and for the ancient history of Guatemala Brinton’s Annals 
 of the Cakchiquels, Philadelphia, 1885, is of like value and in- 
 terest. 
 
 Half a century ago Mr. Stephens wrote in truly prophetic vein, 
 “ the convents are rich in manuscripts and documents written by 
 the early fathers, caciques, and Indians, who very soon acquired 
 the knowledge of Spanish and the art of writing. These have 
 never been examined with the slightest reference to this subject ; 
 and I cannot help thinking that some precious memorial is now 
 mouldering in the library of a neighbouring convent , which would 
 determine the history of some one of these ruined cities .” Vol. ii. p. 
 456. The italicizing, of course, is mine. 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 139 
 
 The Mexicans and Mayas believed themselves 
 to be akin to each other, they had several deities 
 and. a large stock of traditional lore in common, 
 and there was an essential similarity in culture 
 their modes of life; so that, since we 
 are now assured that such cities as Iza- Meilcan ' 
 mal and Chichen-Itza were contemporary with the 
 city of Mexico, we shall probably not go very far 
 astray if we assume that the elaborately carved and 
 bedizened ruins of the former may give us some 
 hint as to how things might have looked in the lat- 
 ter. Indeed this complicated and grotesque carv- 
 ing on walls, door-posts, and lintels was one of the 
 first things to attract the attention of the Spaniards 
 in Mexico. They regarded it with mingled indig- 
 nation and awe, for serpents, coiled or uncoiled, 
 with gaping mouths, were most conspicuous among 
 the objects represented. The visitors soon learned 
 that all this had a symbolic and religious meaning, 
 and with some show of reason they concluded that 
 this strange people worshipped the Devil. 
 
 We have now passed in review the various peo- 
 ples of North America, from the Arctic circle to 
 the neighbourhood of the isthmus of Darien, and 
 can form some sort of a mental picture of the con- 
 tinent at the time of its discovery by Europeans 
 in the fifteenth century. Much more might have 
 been said without going beyond the requirements 
 of an outline sketch, but quite as much has been 
 said as is consistent with the general plan of this 
 book. I have not undertaken at present to go be- 
 yond the isthmus of Darien, because this prelim- 
 
140 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 inary chapter is already disproportionately long, 
 and after this protracted discussion the reader’s 
 attention may he somewhat relieved by an entire 
 change of scene. Enough has been set forth to 
 explain the narrative that follows, and to justify 
 us henceforth in taking certain things for granted. 
 The outline description of Mexico will be completed 
 when we come to the story of its conquest by Span- 
 iards, and then we shall be ready to describe some 
 principal features of Peruvian society and to under- 
 stand how the Spaniards conquered that country. 
 
 There is, however, one conspicuous feature of 
 North American antiquity which has not yet re- 
 ceived our attention, and which calls for a few 
 words before we close this chapter. I refer to the 
 The “Mound- m ounds that are scattered over so large 
 Builders.” a p ar t of the soil of the United States, 
 and more particularly to those between the Mis- 
 sissippi river and the Alleghany mountains, which 
 have been the subject of so much theorizing, and 
 in late years of so much careful study . 1 Vague 
 
 1 For original researches in the mounds one cannot do better 
 than consult the following papers in the Reports of the Bureau of 
 Ethnology : — 1. by W. H. Holmes, “Art in Shell of the An- 
 cient Americans,” ii. 181-305; “The Ancient Pottery of the 
 Mississippi Valley,” iv. 365-436 ; “ Prehistoric Textile Fabrics 
 of the United States,” iii. 397-431 ; followed by an illustrated 
 catalogue of objects collected chiefly from mounds, iii. 433-515 ; 
 — 2. H. W. Henshaw, “ Animal Carvings from the Mounds of the 
 Mississippi Valley,” ii. 121-166 ; — 3. Cyrus Thomas, “ Burial 
 Mounds of the Northern Section of the United States,” v. 7-119 ; 
 also three of the Bureau’s “Bulletins” by Dr. Thomas, “The 
 Problem of the Ohio Mounds,” “ The Circular, Square, and Oc- 
 tagonal Earthworks of Ohio,” and “ Work in Mound Exploration 
 of the Bureau of Ethnology ; ” also two articles by Dr. Thomas 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 141 
 
 and wild were the speculations once rife about 
 the “ Mound-Builders ” and their wonderful civil- 
 ization. They were supposed to have been a race 
 quite different from the red men, with a culture 
 perhaps superior to our own, and more or less elo- 
 quence was wasted over the vanished “ empire” 
 of the mound-builders. There is no reason, how- 
 ever, for supposing that there ever was an empire 
 of any sort in ancient North America, and no relic 
 of the past has ever been seen at any spot on our 
 planet which indicates the former existence of a 
 vanished civilization even remotely approaching 
 our own. The sooner the student of history gets 
 his head cleared of all such rubbish, the better. 
 As for the mounds, which are scattered in such 
 profusion over the country west of the Allegha- 
 nies, there are some which have been built by In- 
 in the Magazine of American History : — “ The Houses of the 
 Mound-Builders,” xi. 110-115; “Indian Tribes in Prehistoric 
 Times,” xx. 193-201. See also Horatio Hale, “Indian Migra- 
 tions,” in American Antiquarian , v. 18-28, 108-124 ; M. F. Force, 
 To What Race did the Mound-Builders belong ? Cincinnati, 1875 ; 
 Lucien Carr, Mounds of the Mississippi Valley historically con- 
 sidered, 1883 ; Nadaillac’s Prehistoric America , ed. W. H. Dali, 
 chaps, iii., iv. The earliest work of fundamental importance on 
 the subject was Squier’s Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi 
 Valley , Philadelphia, 1848, being the first volume of the Smith- 
 sonian Contributions to Knowledge. — For statements of the 
 theory which presumes either a race connection or a similarity in 
 culture between the mound-builders and the pueblo Indians, see 
 Dawson, Fossil Men, p. 55 ; Foster, Prehistoric Races of the 
 United States, Chicago, 1873, chaps. iii.,v.-x. ; Sir Daniel Wilson, 
 Prehistoric Man, chap. x. The annual Smithsonian Reports for 
 thirty years past illustrate the growth of knowledge and progres- 
 sive changes of opinion on the subject. The bibliographical ac- 
 count in Winsor’s Narr. and Crit. Hist., i. 397-412, is full of 
 minute information. 
 
142 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 dians since the arrival of white men in America, 
 and which contain knives and trinkets of Euro- 
 pean manufacture. There are many others which 
 are much older, and in which the genuine remains 
 sometimes indicate a culture like that of Shawnees 
 or Senecas, and sometimes suggest something per- 
 haps a little higher. With the progress of re- 
 search the vast and vague notion of a distinct 
 race of “ Mound-Builders ” became narrowed and 
 The notion defined. It began to seem probable 
 like the Az- Gre that the builders of the more remark- 
 tecs; able mounds were tribes of Indians 
 
 who had advanced beyond the average level in 
 horticulture, and consequently in density of popu- 
 lation, and perhaps in political and priestly organ- 
 ization. Such a conclusion seemed to be supported 
 by the size of some of the “ ancient garden-beds,” 
 often covering more than a hundred acres, filled 
 with the low parallel ridges in which corn was 
 planted. The mound people were thus supposed 
 to be semi-civilized red men, like the Aztecs, and 
 some of their elevated earthworks were explained 
 as places for human sacrifice, like the pyramids of 
 Mexico and Central America. It was thought 
 that the 64 civilization ” of the Cordilleran peoples 
 might formerly have extended northward and east- 
 ward into the Mississippi valley, and might after 
 a while have been pushed back by powerful hordes 
 of more barbarous invaders. A further modification 
 and reduction of this theory likened the mound- 
 builders to the pueblo Indians of New Mexico. 
 Such was the opinion of Mr. Morgan, who of- 
 fered a very ingenious explanation of the extensive 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 143 
 
 earthworks at High Bank, in Ross county, Ohio, 
 as the fortified site of a pueblo . 1 Although there 
 is no reason for supposing that the mound-build- 
 ers practised irrigation (which would not be re- 
 quired in the Mississippi valley) or used adobe- 
 brick, yet Mr. Morgan was inclined to admit them 
 into his middle status of barbarism be- or Uke the 
 cause of the copper hatchets and chisels Zu2ifl ' 
 found in some of the mounds, and because of the 
 apparent superiority in horticulture and the in- 
 creased reliance upon it. He suggested that a 
 people somewhat like the Zunis might have mi- 
 grated eastward and modified their building hab- 
 its to suit the altered conditions of the Mississippi 
 valley, where they dwelt for several centuries, 
 until at last, for some unknown reason, they re- 
 tired to the Rocky Mountain region. It seems to 
 me that an opinion just the reverse of Mr. Mor- 
 gan’s would be more easily defensible, — namely, 
 that the ancestors of the pueblo Indians were a 
 people of building habits somewhat similar to the 
 Mandans, and that their habits became modified 
 in adaptation to a country which demanded care- 
 ful irrigation and supplied adobe-clay in abun- 
 dance. If ever they built any of the mounds in 
 the Mississippi valley, I should be disposed to 
 place their mound-building period before their 
 pueblo period. 
 
 Recent researches, however, make it more and 
 more improbable that the mound-builders were 
 nearly akin to such people as the Zunis or similar 
 to them in grade of culture. Of late years the ex- 
 
 1 Houses and House-Life , chap. ix. 
 
144 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 ploration of the mounds has been carried on with 
 increasing diligence. More than 2,000 mounds 
 have been opened, and at least 88,000 ancient 
 relics have been gathered from them : such as 
 quartzite arrow-heads and spades, greenstone axes 
 and hammers, mortars and pestles, tools for spin- 
 ning and weaving, and cloth, made of spun thread 
 and woven with warp and woof, somewhat like a 
 coarse sail-cloth. The water-jugs, kettles, pipes, 
 and sepulchral urns have been elaborately studied. 
 The net results of all this investigation, up to the 
 present time, have been concisely summed up by 
 Dr. Cyrus Thomas. 1 The momids were 
 
 were probably not all built by Olie people, but by dif- 
 ferent peoples ferent tribes as clearly distinguishable 
 
 in the lower _ .. ^ . 0 . 
 
 status of bar- irom one another as Algonqums are 
 distinguishable from Iroquois. These 
 mound-building tribes were not superior in cul- 
 ture to the Iroquois and many of the Algonquins 
 as first seen by white men. They are not to be 
 classified with Zunis, still less with Mexicans or 
 Mayas, in point of culture, but with Shawnees 
 and Cherokees. Nay more, — some of them were 
 Shawnees and Cherokees. The missionary Johann 
 Heckewelder long ago published the Lenape tradi- 
 tion of the Tallegwi or Allighewi people, who have 
 left their name upon the Alleghany river and 
 mountains. 2 The Tallegwi have been identified 
 
 1 Work in Mound Exploration of the Bureau of Ethnology , 
 Washington, 1887. For a sight of the thousands of objects 
 gathered from the mounds, one should visit the Peabody Mu- 
 seum at Cambridge and the Smithsonian Institution at Washing- 
 ton. 
 
 2 Heckewelder, History of the Indian Nations of Pennsylvania , 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 145 
 
 with the Cherokees, who are now reckoned among 
 the most intelligent and progressive of Indian 
 peoples . 1 The Cherokees were formerly classed 
 in the Muskoki group, along with the t _ , 
 
 ° \ ° by Cherokees ; 
 
 Creeks and Choctaws, but a closer study 
 of their language seems to show that they were a 
 somewhat remote offshoot of the Huron-Iroquois 
 stock. For a long time they occupied the coun- 
 try between the Ohio river and the Great Lakes, 
 and probably built the mounds that are still to be 
 seen there. Somewhere about the thirteenth or 
 fourteenth century they were gradually pushed 
 southward into the Muskoki region by repeated 
 attacks from the Lenape and Hurons. The Chero- 
 kees were probably also the builders of the mounds 
 of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. 
 They retained their mound-building habits some 
 time after the white men came upon the scene. 
 On the other hand the mounds and box-shaped 
 stone graves of Kentucky, Tennessee, db Sha 
 and northern Georgia were probably nees, and 
 
 i J other tribes. 
 
 the work ot Shawnees, and the stone 
 graves in the Delaware valley are to be ascribed 
 to the Lenape. There are many reasons for be- 
 lieving that the mounds of northern Mississippi 
 were constructed by Chickasaws, and the burial 
 tumuli and “ effigy mounds ” of Wisconsin by Win- 
 
 etc., Philadelphia, 1818; cf. Squier, Historical and Mythological 
 Traditions of the Algpnquins , a paper read before the New York 
 Historical Society in June, 1848 ; also Brinton, The Lenape and 
 their Legends , Philadelphia, 1885. 
 
 1 For a detailed account of their later history, see C. C. Boyce, 
 “The Cherokee Nation,” Reports of Bureau of Ethnology , v. 
 121-378. 
 
146 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 nebagos. The Minnitarees and Mandans were 
 also very likely at one time a mound-building peo- 
 ple. 
 
 If this view, which is steadily gaining ground, 
 be correct, our imaginary race of “ Mound-Build- 
 ers ” is broken up and vanishes, and henceforth 
 we may content ourselves with speaking of the 
 authors of the ancient earthworks as “ Indians.” 
 There were times in the career of sundry Indian 
 tribes when circumstances induced them to erect 
 mounds as sites for communal houses or council 
 houses, medicine-lodges or burial-places ; somewhat 
 as there was a period in the history of our own fore- 
 fathers in England when circumstances led them 
 to build moated castles, with drawbridge and port- 
 cullis ; and there is no more occasion for assum- 
 ing a mysterious race of “ Mound-Builders ” in 
 America than for assuming a mysterious race of 
 “ Castle-Builders ” in England. 
 
 Thus, at whatever point we touch the subject of 
 ancient America, we find scientific opinion tending 
 more and more steadily toward the conclusion that 
 its people and their culture were indigenous. One 
 of the most important lessons impressed upon us 
 Society in by a long study of comparative mythol- 
 “fe the °gy is that human minds in different 
 reaSYtages parts of the world, but under the influ- 
 stage^reached ence of similar circumstances, develop 
 Mediterranean similar ideas and clothe them in simi- 
 or sixty cep lar forms of expression. It is just the 
 tunes earlier. game w ^h political institutions, with 
 
 the development of the arts, with social customs, 
 
ANCIENT AMERICA. 
 
 147 
 
 with culture generally. To repeat the remark 
 already quoted from Sir J ohn Lubbock, — and it 
 is well worth repeating, — “ Different races in 
 similar stages of development often present more 
 features of resemblance to one another than the 
 same race does to itself in different stages of its 
 history.” When the zealous Abbe Brasseur found 
 things in the history of Mexico that reminded him 
 of ancient Egypt, he hastened to the conclusion 
 that Mexican culture was somehow “ derived ” 
 from that of Egypt. It was natural enough for 
 him to do so, but such methods of explanation are 
 now completely antiquated. Mexican culture was 
 no more Egyptian culture than a prickly-pear is a 
 lotus. It was an outgrowth of peculiar American 
 conditions acting upon the aboriginal American 
 mind, jtnd such of its features as remind us of an- 
 cient Egypt or prehistoric Greece show simply that 
 it was approaching, though it had not reached, 
 the standard attained in those Old World coun- 
 tries. From this point of view the resemblances 
 become invested with surpassing interest. An- 
 cient America, as we have seen, was a much more 
 archaic world than the world of Europe and Asia, 
 and presented in the time of Columbus forms of 
 society that on the shores of the Mediterranean 
 had been outgrown before the city of Rome was 
 built. Hence the intense and peculiar fascination 
 of American archaeology, and its profound impor- 
 tance to the student of general history. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 There is something solemn and impressive in 
 the spectacle of human life thus going on for count- 
 less ages in the Eastern and Western halves of our 
 planet, each all unknown to the other and uninflu- 
 enced by it. The contact between the two worlds 
 practically begins in 1492. 
 
 By this statement it is not meant to deny that 
 occasional visitors may have come and did come 
 before that famous date from the Old World to 
 the New. On the contrary I am inclined to sus- 
 pect that there may have been more such occa- 
 sional visits than we have been wont to suppose. 
 For the most part, however, the subject is shrouded 
 in the mists of obscure narrative and fantastic con- 
 jecture. When it is argued that in the fifth cen- 
 tury of the Christian era certain Buddhist mission- 
 Th oh* ar y P r i es ts came from China by way of 
 Kamtchatka and the Aleutian islands, 
 and kept on till they got to a country which they 
 called Fusang, and which was really Mexico, one 
 cannot reply that such a thing was necessarily and 
 absolutely impossible ; but when other critics as- 
 sure us that, after all, Fusang was really Japan, 
 perhaps one feels a slight sense of relief. 1 So of 
 
 1 This notion of the Chinese visiting Mexico was set forth by 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 149 
 
 the dim whispers of voyages to America under- 
 taken by the Irish, in the days when the cloisters of 
 sweet Innisfallen were a centre of piety and culture 
 for northwestern Europe , 1 we may say 
 
 _ i . „ _ . * ’ J J The Irish. 
 
 that this sort ot thing has not much to 
 do with history, or history with it. Irish ancho- 
 rites certainly went to Iceland in the seventh cen- 
 tury , 2 and in the course of this book we shall have 
 frequent occasion to observe that first and last 
 there has been on all seas a good deal of blowing 
 and drifting done. It is credibly reported that 
 Japanese junks have been driven ashore on the 
 
 the celebrated Deguignes in 1761, in the Memoir es de V Academic 
 des Inscriptions , tom. xxviii. pp. 506-525. Its absurdity was 
 shown by Klaproth, “Recherches sur le pays de Fou Sang,” 
 Nouvelles annales des voyages , Paris, 1831, 2e s^rie, tom. xxi. pp. 
 53-68 ; see also Klaproth’s introduction to Annales des empereurs 
 du Japon, Paris, 1834, pp. iv.-ix. ; Humboldt, Examen critique de 
 Vhistoire de la giographie du nouveau continent , Paris, 1837, tom. 
 ii. pp. 62-84. The fancy was revived by C. G. Leland (“ Hans 
 Breitmann”), in his Fusang , London, 1875, and was again demol- 
 ished by the missionary, S. W. Williams, in the Journal of the 
 American Oriental Society , vol. xi., New Haven, 1881. 
 
 1 On the noble work of the Irish church and its missionaries in 
 the sixth and seventh centuries, see Montalembert, Les moines 
 d* Occident, tom. ii. pp. 465-661 ; tom. iii. pp. 79-332 ; Burton’s 
 History of Scotland , vol. i. pp. 234-277 ; and the instructive map 
 in Miss Sophie Bryant’s Celtic Ireland, London, 1889, p. 60. The 
 notice of the subject in Milman’s Latin Christianity , vol. ii. 
 pp. 236-247, is entirely inadequate. 
 
 2 The passion for solitude led some of the disciples of St. Co- 
 lumba to make their way from Iona to the Hebrides, and thence 
 to the Orkneys, Shetlands, Faeroes, and Iceland, where a colony 
 of them remained until the arrival of the Northmen in 874. See 
 Dicuil, Liber de mensura Orbis Terrce (a. d. 825), Paris, 1807 ; 
 Innes, Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 101 ; Lanigan, Ecclesiasti- 
 cal History of Ireland, chap. iii. ; Maurer, Bextrdge zur Rechts- 
 geschichte des Germanischen Nordens, i. 35. For the legend of St. 
 Brandan, see Gaffarel, Les voyages de St. Brandan, Paris, 1881. 
 
150 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 coasts of Oregon and California ; 1 and there is a 
 cousin, of story that in 1488 a certain Jean Cousin, 
 Dieppe. 0 f Dieppe, while sailing down the west 
 coast of Africa, was caught in a storm and blown 
 across to Brazil. 2 This was certainly quite possible, 
 for it was not so very unlike what happened in 
 1500 to Pedro Alvarez de Cabral, as we shall here- 
 after see ; 3 nevertheless, the evidence adduced in 
 support of the story will hardly bear a critical ex- 
 amination. 4 
 
 It is not my purpose to weary the reader with a 
 general discussion of these and some other legends 
 or rumours of pre-Columbian visitors to America. 
 We may admit, at once, that “there is no good 
 reason why any one of them may not have done ” 
 what is claimed, but at the same time 
 are of little the proof that any one of them did do 
 it is very far from satisfactory. 6 More- 
 over the questions raised are often of small impor- 
 tance, and belong not so much to the serious work- 
 shop of history as to its limbo prepared for learned 
 trifles, whither we will hereby relegate them. 6 
 
 1 C. W. Brooks, of San Francisco, cited in Higginson, Larger 
 History of the United States, p. 24. 
 
 2 Desmarquets, Memoir es chronologiques pour servir a Vhistoire 
 de Dieppe, Paris, 1785, tom. i. pp. 91-98 ; Estancelin, Recherches 
 sur les voyages et dtcouvertes des navigateurs normands, etc., Paris, 
 1832, pp. 332-361. 
 
 3 See below, vol. ii. p. 96. 
 
 4 As Harrisse says, concerning the alleged voyages of Cousin and 
 others, “Quant aux voyages du Dieppois Jean Cousin en 1488, 
 de Joao Ramalho en 1490, et de Joao Yaz Cortereal en 1464 ou 
 1474, le lecteur nous pardonnera de les passer sous silence.” Chris - 
 tophe Colomh, Paris, 1884, tom. i. p. 307. 
 
 5 Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., i. 59. 
 
 6 Sufficiently full references may be found in Watson’s Bibli- 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 151 
 
 But when we come to the voyages of the North- 
 men in the tenth and eleventh centu- but thecae 
 ries, it is quite a different affair. Not men^fntSeiy 
 only is this a subject of much historic different ' 
 interest, but in dealing with it we stand for a great 
 part of the time upon firm historic ground. The 
 narratives which tell us of Vinland and of Leif 
 Ericsson are closely intertwined with the authentic 
 history of Norway and Iceland. In the ninth cen- 
 tury of our era there was a process of political 
 consolidation going on in Norway, somewhat as in 
 England under Egbert and his successors. After 
 a war of twelve years, King Harold Fairhair over- 
 threw the combined forces of the Jarls, or small 
 independent princes, in the decisive naval battle 
 of Hafursfiord in the year 8T2. This 
 
 _ . . TT ^ f, , , The Viking 
 
 resulted , m making Harold the feudal exodus from 
 landlord of Norway. Allodial tenures 
 were abolished, and the Jarls were required to be- 
 come his vassals. This consolidation of the king- 
 dom was probably beneficial in its main conse- 
 quences, but to many a proud spirit and crafty 
 brain it made life in Norway unendurable. These 
 bold J arls and their Viking 1 followers, to whom, 
 
 ography of the Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America , appended 
 to Anderson’s America not discovered by Columbus, 3d ed., Chi- 
 cago, 1883, pp. 121-164 ; and see the learned chapters by W. H. 
 Tillinghast on “The Geographical Knowledge of the Ancients 
 considered in relation to the Discovery of America,” and by Jus- 
 tin Winsor on “ Pre-Columbian Explorations,” in Narr. and Crit. 
 Hist., vol. i. 
 
 1 The proper division of this Old Norse word is not into vi -Icing, 
 but into vik-ing. The first syllable means a “bay” or “fiord,” 
 the second is a patronymic termination, so that “vikings” are 
 “sons of the fiord,” — an eminently appropriate and descriptive 
 
 name. 
 
152 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 as to the ancient Greeks, the sea was not a barrier, 
 but a highway , 1 had no mind to stay at home and 
 submit to unwonted thraldom. So they manned 
 their dragon-prowed keels, invoked the blessing of 
 Wodan, god of storms, upon their enterprise, and 
 sailed away. Some went to reinforce their kins- 
 men who were making it so hot for Alfred in Eng- 
 land 2 and for Charles the Bald in Gaul; some 
 had already visited Ireland and were establishing 
 themselves at Dublin and Limerick; others now 
 followed and found homes for themselves in the 
 Hebrides and all over Scotland north of glorious 
 Loch Linnhe and the Murray frith; some made 
 their way through the blue Mediterranean to 
 “ Micklegard,” the Great City of the Byzantine 
 Emperor, and in his service wielded their stout axes 
 against Magyar and Saracen ; 3 some found their 
 amphibious natures better satisfied upon the islands 
 of the Atlantic ridge, — the Orkneys, Shetlands, 
 
 1 Curtius ( Griechische Etymologie, p. 237) connects ttSvtos with 
 itoltos ; compare the Homeric expressions vypa /ceAeufla, lx^v6eura 
 iceAevda , etc. 
 
 2 The descendants of these Northmen formed a very large pro- 
 portion of the population of the East Anglian counties, and con- 
 sequently of the men who founded New England. The East An- 
 glian counties have been conspicuous for resistance to tyranny 
 and for freedom of thought. See my Beginnings of New Eng- 
 land, p. 62. 
 
 3 They were the Varangian guard at Constantinople, described 
 by Sir Walter Scott in Count Robert of Paris. About this same 
 time their kinsmen, the Russ, moving eastward from Sweden, 
 were subjecting Slavic tribes as far as Novgorod and Kief, and 
 laying the foundations of the power that has since, through many 
 and strange vicissitudes, developed into Russia. See Thomsen, 
 The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandinavia , Oxford, 
 
 1877. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 153 
 
 and Faeroes, and especially noble Iceland. There 
 an aristocratic republic soon grew up, 
 owning slight and indefinite allegiance Iceland, D . 
 to the kings of Norway. 1 The settle- 
 ment of Iceland was such a wholesale colonization 
 of communities of picked men as had not been 
 seen since ancient Greek times, and was not to be 
 seen again until Winthrop sailed into Massachu- 
 setts Bay. It was not long before the population 
 of Iceland exceeded 50,000 souls. Their sheep 
 and cattle flourished, hay crops were heavy, a lively 
 trade — with fish, oil, butter, skins, and wool, in 
 exchange for meal and malt — was kept up with 
 Norway, Denmark, and the British islands, polit- 
 ical freedom was unimpaired, 2 justice was (for 
 
 1 Fealty to Norway was not formally declared until 1262. 
 
 2 The settlement of Iceland is celebrated by Robert Lowe in 
 verses which show that, whatever his opinion may have been in 
 later years as to the use of a classical education, his own early 
 studies must always have been a source of comfort to him : — 
 
 * 
 
 XaZpe Kac ev ve<f>4\ai<ri naC ev vuf>a8e<r(rt {S ape Cats 
 Kai nvpl Kal aeianoZs vrjae <raXevop.4vy]' 
 
 ’EvOaSe yap f3aeri\.rjos vnepfitov vf3piv aAv£a? 
 
 Arjfios 'YnepfiopeaiV, koct/iou 4tt' etrxan^, 
 
 Avrapicri Plotov OeCmv r epe6C<rfiara M ovauv 
 Kal deap.QVi ayvijs evpev eAcvdepta?. 
 
 These verses are thus rendered by Sir Edmund Head ( Viga 
 
 Glums Saga, p. v.) : — 
 
 “ Hail, Isle ! with mist and snowstorms girt around, 
 
 Where fire and earthquake rend the shattered ground, — 
 
 Here once o’er furthest ocean’s icy path 
 The Northmen fled a tyrant monarch’s wrath : 
 
 Here, cheered by song and story, dwelt they free, 
 
 And held unscathed their laws and liberty.” 
 
 Laing ( HeimsJcringla , vol. i. p. 57) couples Iceland and New Eng- 
 land as the two modern colonies most distinctly “ founded on 
 principle and peopled at first from higher motives than want or 
 gain.” 
 
154 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 the Middle Ages) fairly well administered, naval 
 superiority kept all foes at a distance ; and under 
 such conditions the growth of the new community 
 in wealth 1 and culture was surprisingly rapid. In 
 the twelfth century, before literature had begun to 
 blossom in the modern speech of France or Spain 
 or Italy, there was a flourishing literature in prose 
 and verse in Iceland. Especial attention was paid 
 to history, and the “ Landnama-bok,” or statistical 
 and genealogical account of the early settlers, was 
 the most complete and careful work of the kind 
 which had ever been undertaken by any people 
 down to quite recent times. Few persons in our 
 day adequately realize the extent of the early 
 Icelandic literature or its richness. The poems, 
 legends, and histories earlier than the date when 
 Dante walked and mused in the streets of Flor- 
 ence survive for us now in some hundreds of works, 
 for the most part of rare and absorbing interest. 
 The “ Heimskringla,” or chronicle of Snorro Sturle- 
 son, written about 1215, is one of the greatest his- 
 tory books in the world. 2 
 
 1 Just what was then considered wealth, for an individual, may 
 best he understood by a concrete instance. The historian Snorro 
 Sturleson, born in 1178, was called a rich man. “ In one year, in 
 which fodder was scarce, he lost 120 head of oxen without being 1 
 seriously affected by it.” The fortune which he got with his first 
 wife Herdisa, in 1199, was equivalent nominally to $4,000, or, 
 according to the standard of to-day, about $80,000. Laing, 
 Heimskringla , vol. i. pp. 191, 193. 
 
 2 Laing’s excellent English translation of it was published in 
 London in 1844. The preliminary dissertation, in five chapters, 
 is of great value. A new edition, revised by Prof. Rasmus An- 
 derson, was published in London in 1889. Another charming 
 hook is Sir George Dasent’s Story of Burnt Njal, Edinburgh, 
 
PEE COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 155 
 
 Now from various Icelandic chronicles 1 we learn 
 that in 876, only two years after the island com- 
 
 1801, 2 vols., translated from the Njals Saga. Both the saga 
 itself and the translator’s learned introduction give an admirable 
 description of life in Iceland at the end of the tenth century, the 
 time when the voyages to America were made. It is a very in- 
 structive chapter in history. 
 
 The Icelanders of the present day retain the Old Norse lan- 
 guage, while on the Continent it has been modified into Swedish 
 and Norwegian-Danish. They are a well-educated people, and, 
 in proportion to their numbers, publish many books. 
 
 1 A full collection of these chronicles is given in Rafn’s Antiqui- 
 tates Americanos, Copenhagen, 1837, in the original Icelandic, 
 with Danish and Latin translations. This hook is of great value 
 for its full and careful reproduction of original texts ; although 
 the rash speculations and the want of critical discernment shown 
 in the editor’s efforts to determine the precise situation of Vin- 
 land have done much to discredit the whole subject in the eyes 
 of many scholars. That is, however, very apt to be the case 
 with first attempts, like Rafn’s, and the obvious defects of his 
 work should not he allowed to blind us to its merits. In the foot- 
 notes to the present chapter I shall cite it simply as “ Rafn ; ” as 
 the exact phraseology is often important, I shall usually cite the 
 original Icelandic, g,nd (for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with 
 that language) shall also give the Latin version, which has been 
 well made, and quite happily reflects the fresh and pithy vigour 
 of the original. An English translation of all the essential parts 
 may be found in De Costa, Pre-Columbian Discovery of America 
 by the Northmen , 2d ed., Albany, 1890; see also Slafter, Voyages 
 of the Northmen to America , Boston, 1877 (Prince Society). An 
 Icelandic version, interpolated in Peringskiold’s edition of the 
 Heimskringla, 1697, is translated in Laing, vol. iii. pp. 344-361. 
 
 The first modern writer to call attention to the Icelandic voy- 
 ages to Greenland and Vinland was Am grim Jdnsson, in his Cry- 
 mogcea , Hamburg, 1610, and more explicitly in his Specimen 
 Islandice historicum , Amsterdam, 1643. The voyages are also 
 mentioned by Campanius, in his Kort besbrifning om provincien 
 Nya Swerige uti America , Stockholm, 1702. The first, however, 
 to bring the subject prominently before European readers was 
 that judicious scholar Thormodus Torfseus, in his two books His- 
 toria Virdandice antiques , and Historia Gronlandice antiques , Co- 
 
156 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 monwealtli was founded, one of the settlers named 
 Gmmbiorn was driven by foul weather 
 
 Discovery of 0 . ,, , » « 
 
 Greenland, to some point on the coast of Green- 
 land, where he and his crew contrived 
 to pass the winter, their ship being locked in ice ; 
 
 penhagen, 1705 and 1706. Later writers have until very recently 
 added but little that is important to the work of Torfaeus. In 
 the voluminous literature of the subject the discussions chiefly 
 worthy of mention are Forster’s Geschichte der Entdeckungen und 
 Schiffahrten im Norden, Frankfort, 1784, pp. 44-88 ; and Hum- 
 boldt, Examen critique , etc. , Paris, 1837, tom. i. pp. 84-104 ; see, 
 also, Major, Select Letters of Columbus , London, 1847 (Hakluyt 
 Soc.) pp. xii.-xxi. The fifth chapter of Samuel Laing’s prelimi- 
 nary dissertation to the Heimskringla, which is devoted to this 
 subject, is full of good sense ; for the most part the shrewd Ork- 
 neyman gets at the core of the thing, though now and then a 
 little closer knowledge of America would have been useful to 
 him. The latest critical discussion of the sources, marking a 
 very decided advance since Rafn’j time, is the paper by Gustav 
 Storm, professor of history in the University of Christiania, 
 “ Studier over Vinlandsreiserne,” in Aarbfiger for Nordisk Old- 
 kyndighed og Historie , Copenhagen, 1887, pp. 293-372. 
 
 Since this chapter was written I have seen an English transla- 
 tion of the valuable paper just mentioned, “ Studies on the Vine- 
 land Voyages,” in Memoir es de la soctiU royale des antiquaires du 
 Nord, Copenhagen 1888, pp. 307-370. I have therefore in most 
 cases altered my footnote references below, making the page- 
 numbers refer to the English version (in which, by the way, 
 some parts of the Norwegian original are, for no very obvious rea- 
 son, omitted). By an odd coincidence there comes to me at the 
 same time a book fresh from the press, whose rare beauty of 
 mechanical workmanship is fully equalled by its intrinsic merit, 
 The Finding of Wineland the Good — the History of the Icelandic 
 Discovery of America , edited and translated from the earliest 
 records by Arthur Middleton Reeves, London, 1890. This 
 beautiful quarto contains phototype plates of the original Ice- 
 landic vellums in the Hauks-bdk, the MS. AM. 557, and the 
 Flateyar-bdk , together with the texts carefully edited, an admi- 
 rable English translation, and several chapters of critical discus- 
 sion decidedly better than anything that has gone before it. On 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 157 
 
 when the spring set them free, they returned to 
 Iceland. In the year 983 Eric the Red, a settler 
 upon Oxney (Ox-island) near the mouth of Brei- 
 dafiord, was outlawed for killing a man in a 
 brawl. Eric then determined to search for the 
 western land which Gunnbjom had discovered. 
 He set out with a few followers, and in the next 
 three years these bold sailors explored the coasts 
 of Greenland pretty thoroughly for a considerable 
 distance on each side of Cape Farewell. At 
 length they found a suitable place for a home, at 
 the head of Igaliko fiord, not far from the site of 
 the modern Julianeshaab. 1 It was fit work for 
 Vikings to penetrate so deep a fiord and find out 
 such a spot, hidden as it is by miles upon miles of 
 craggy and ice-covered headlands. They proved 
 their sagacity by pitching upon one of the pleasant- 
 est spots on the gaunt Greenland coast ; and there 
 upon a smooth grassy plain may still be seen the 
 ruins of seventeen houses built of rough blocks of 
 sandstone, their chinks caulked up with 
 clay and gravel. In contrast with most inOnaSaul 
 of its bleak surroundings the place 
 might well be called Greenland, and so Eric named 
 it, for, said he, it is well to have a pleasant name 
 if we would induce people to come hither. The 
 name thus given by Eric to this chosen spot has 
 
 reading it carefully through, it seems to me the best book we 
 have on the subject in English, or perhaps in any language. 
 
 Since the above was written, the news has come of the sudden 
 and dreadful death of Mr. Reeves, in the railroad disaster at Ha- 
 gerstown, Indiana, February 25, 1891. Mr. Reeves was an Amer- 
 ican scholar of most brilliant promise, only in his thirty-fifth year. 
 
 1 Rink, Danish Greenland , p. 6. 
 
158 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 been extended in modern usage to tbe whole of 
 the vast continental region north of Davis strait, 
 for the greater part of which it is a flagrant mis- 
 nomer. 1 In 986 Eric ventured back to Iceland, 
 and was so successful in enlisting settlers for 
 Greenland that on his return voyage he started 
 with five and twenty ships. The loss from foul 
 weather and icebergs was cruel. Eleven vessels 
 were lost ; the remaining fourteen, carrying prob- 
 ably from four to five hundred souls, arrived safely 
 at the head of Igaliko fiord, and began building 
 their houses at the place called Brattahlid. Their 
 settlement presently extended over the head of 
 Tunnudliorbik fiord, the next deep inlet to the 
 northwest ; they called it Ericsfiord. After a 
 while it extended westward as far as Immartinek, 
 and eastward as far as the site of Friedrichsthal ; 
 and another distinct settlement of less extent was 
 also made about four hundred miles to the north- 
 west, near the present site of Godthaab. The 
 older settlement, which began at Igaliko fiord, was 
 known as the East Bygd ; 2 the younger settlement, 
 near Godthaab, was called the West Bygd. 
 
 1 We thus see the treacherousness of one of the arguments 
 cited by the illustrious Arago to prove that the Greenland coast 
 must he colder now than in the tenth century. The Icelanders, 
 he thinks, called it “ a green land ” because of its verdure, and 
 therefore it must have been warmer than at present. But the 
 land which Eric called green was evidently nothing more than 
 the region about Julianeshaab, which still has plenty of verdure ; 
 and so the argument falls to the ground. See Arago, Sur Vetat 
 thermometrique du globe terrestre, in his (Euvres , tom. v. p. 243. 
 There are reasons, however, for believing that Greenland was 
 warmer in the tenth century than at present. See below, p. 176. 
 
 2 The map is reduced from Rafn’s Antiquitates Americance, tab. 
 xv. The ruins dotted here and there upon it have been known 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 159 
 
 This colonization of Greenland by the North- 
 men in the tenth century is as well established as 
 any event that occurred in the Middle Ages. For 
 four hundred years the fortunes of the Greenland 
 colony formed a part, albeit a very humble part, 
 of European history. Geographically speaking, 
 Greenland is reckoned as a part of America, of 
 
 ever since the last rediscovery of Greenland in 1721, but until 
 after 1831 they were generally supposed to he the ruins of the 
 West Bygd. After the fifteenth century, when the old colony 
 had perished, and its existence had become a mere literary 
 tradition, there grew up a notion that the names East Bygd 
 and West Bygd indicated that the two settlements must have 
 been respectively eastward and westward of Cape Farewell; 
 and after 1721 much time was wasted in looking for vestiges of 
 human habitations on the barren and ice-bound eastern coast. 
 At length, in 1828-31, the exploring expedition sent out by the 
 Danish government, under the very able and intelligent Captain 
 Graah, demonstrated that both settlements were west of Cape 
 Farewell; and that the ruins here indicated upon the map are the 
 ruins of the East Bygd. It now became apparent that a certain 
 description of Greenland by Ivar Bardsen — written in Greenland 
 in the fourteenth century, and generally accessible to European 
 scholars since the end of the sixteenth, hut not held in much 
 esteem before Captain Graah’s expedition — was quite accurate 
 and extremely valuable. From Bardsen’s description, about 
 which we shall have more to say hereafter, we can point out upon 
 the map the ancient sites with much confidence. Of those men- 
 tioned in the present work, the bishop's church, or “ cathedral ” 
 (a view of which is given below, p. 222), was at Kakortok. The 
 village of Gardar, which gave its name to the bishopric, was at 
 Kaksiarsuk, at the northeastern extremity of Igaliko fiord. Op- 
 posite Kaksiarsuk, on the western fork of the fiord, the reader will 
 observe a ruined church ; that marks the site of Brattahlid. The 
 fiord of Igaliko was called by the Northmen Einarsfiord ; and 
 that of Tunnudliorbik was their Ericsfiord. The monastery of St. 
 Olaus, visited by Nicolb Zeno (see below, p. 240), is supposed by 
 Mr. Major to have been situated near the Iisblink at the bottom 
 of Tessermiut fiord, between the east shore of the fiord and the 
 small lake indicated on the map. 
 
160 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 The East Bygd, or Eastern Settlement 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 161 
 
 of the Northmen in Greenland. 
 
162 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 the western hemisphere, and not of the eastern. 
 The Northmen who settled in Greenland had, there- 
 fore, in this sense found their way to America. 
 Nevertheless one rightly feels that in the history 
 of geographical discovery an arrival of Europeans 
 in Greenland is equivalent merely to reaching the 
 vestibule or ante-chamber of the western hemi- 
 sphere. It is an affair begun and ended outside 
 of the great world of the red men. 
 
 But the story does not end here. Into the world 
 of the red men the voyagers from Iceland did as- 
 suredly come, as indeed, after once getting a foot- 
 hold upon Greenland, they could hardly fail to do. 
 Let us pursue the remainder of the story as we 
 find it in our Icelandic sources of information, and 
 afterwards it will be proper to inquire into the 
 credibility of these sources. 
 
 One of the men who accompanied Eric to 
 Greenland was named Herjulf, whose son Bjarni, 
 after roving the seas for some years, came home to 
 Iceland in 986 to drink the Yuletide ale with his 
 father. Finding him gone, he weighed anchor 
 and started after him to Greenland, but encoun- 
 tered foggy weather, and sailed on for many days 
 by guess-work without seeing sun or 
 Bj£S e Her- stars. When at length he sighted land 
 juifson, 986. wag a without mountains, show- 
 
 ing only small heights covered with dense woods. 
 It was evidently not the land of fiords and glaciers 
 for which Bjarni was looking. So without stopping 
 to make explorations he turned his prow to the 
 north and kept on. The sky was now fair, and 
 after scudding nine or ten days with a brisk breeze 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 163 
 
 astern, Bjami saw the icy crags of Greenland 
 looming up before him, and after some further 
 searching found his way to his father’s new home. 1 
 On the route he more than once sighted land on 
 the larboard* 
 
 This adventure of Bj arm’s seems not to have 
 excited general curiosity or to have awakened 
 speculation. Indeed, in the dense geographical 
 ignorance of those times there is no reason why it 
 should have done so. About 994 Bjami was in 
 Norway, and one or two people expressed some 
 surprise that he did not take more pains to learn 
 something about the country he had seen ; but 
 nothing came of such talk till it reached the ears 
 of Leif, the famous son of Eric the Bed. This 
 wise and stately man 2 spent a year or two in Nor- 
 way about 998. Roman missionary priests were 
 then preaching up and down the land, conversion of 
 and had converted the king, Olaf Tryg- S' cSrt£n- n 
 gvesson, great-grandson of Harold Fair- lty ’ 
 hair. Leif became a Christian and was baptised, 
 and when he returned to Greenland he took priests 
 with him who converted many people, though old 
 Eric, it is said, preferred to go in the way of his 
 fathers, and deemed boisterous Valhalla, with its 
 cups of wassail, a place of better cheer than the 
 New Jerusalem, with its streets of gold. 
 
 1 In Herjulfsfiord, at the entrance to which the modern 
 Friedrichsthal is situated. Across the fiord from Friedrichsthal 
 a ruined church stands upon the cape formerly known as Her- 
 julfsness. See map. 
 
 2 “ Leifryar mikillmadhr ok sterkr, manna skoruligastr at sj4, 
 vitr madhr ok g<5dhr h<5fsmadhr um alia hluti,” i. e. “Leif 
 was a large man and strong, of noble aspect, prudent and mod- 
 erate in all things.” Rafn, p. 33. 
 
164 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Leif’s zeal for the conversion of his friends in 
 Greenland did not so far occupy his mind as to 
 prevent him from undertaking a voyage of dis- 
 covery. His curiosity had been stimulated by 
 what he had heard about Bjarni’s experiences, and 
 he made up his mind to go and see what the coasts 
 to the south of Greenland were like. He sailed 
 Leif Erics- from Brattahlid — probably in the sum- 
 1000 ! voyage ’ mer or early autumn of the year 1000 1 
 — with a crew of five and thirty men. Some 
 distance to the southward they came upon a barren 
 country covered with big flat stones, so that they 
 called it Helluland, or “ slate-land.” 
 
 Helluland. . 
 
 ihere is little room tor doubt that this 
 was the coast opposite Greenland, either west or 
 east of the strait of Bello Isle ; in other words, 
 it was either Labrador or the northern coast of 
 Newfoundland. Thence, keeping generally to the 
 southward, our explorers came after some days to 
 a thickly wooded coast, where they landed and 
 inspected the country. What chiefly impressed 
 them was the extent of the forest, so that they 
 called the place Markland, or “ wood-land.” Some 
 critics have supposed that this spot was 
 somewhere upon the eastern or southern 
 coast of Newfoundland, but the more general 
 
 1 The year seems to have been that in which Christianity was 
 definitely established by law in Iceland, viz., A. d. 1000. The 
 chronicle Thattr Eireks Raudha is careful about verifying its dates 
 by checking one against another. See Rafn, p. 15. The most 
 masterly work on the conversion of the Scandinavian people is 
 Maurer’s Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stammes zum Chris- 
 tenthume, Munich, 1855 ; for an account of the missionary work 
 in Iceland and Greenland, see vol. i. pp. 191-242, 443-452. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 165 
 
 opinion places it somewhere upon the coast of 
 Cape Breton island or Nova Scotia. From this 
 Markland our voyagers stood out to sea, and run- 
 ning briskly before a stiff northeaster it was more 
 than two days before they came in sight of land. 
 Then, after following the coast for a while, they 
 went ashore at a place where a river, issuing from 
 a lake, fell into the sea. They brought their ship 
 up into the lake and cast anchor. The water 
 abounded in excellent fish, and the country seemed 
 so pleasant that Leif decided to pass the winter 
 there, and accordingly his men put up some com- 
 fortable wooden huts or booths. One day one of 
 the party, a “ south country ” man, whose name 
 was Tyrker , 1 came in from a ramble in the neigh- 
 bourhood making grimaces and talking to himself 
 in his .own language (probably Ger- ^ ^ 
 man), which his comrades did not under- 
 stand. On being interrogated as to the cause of his 
 
 1 The name means “ Turk,” and has served as a touchstone for 
 the dullness of commentators. To the Northmen a “ Southman ” 
 would naturally be a German, and why should a German be called 
 a Turk ? or how should these Northmen happen to have had a 
 Turk in their company ? Mr. Laing suggests that he may have 
 been a Magyar. Yes ; or he may have visited the Eastern Empire 
 and taken part in a fight against Turks, and so have got a soubri- 
 quet, just as Thorhall Gamlason, after returning from Vinland 
 to Iceland, was ever afterward known as “ the Vinlander.” That 
 did not mean that he was an American redskin. See below, p. 203. 
 From Tyrker’s grimaces one commentator sagely infers that he 
 had been eating grapes and got drunk ; and another (even Mr. 
 Laing ! ) thinks it necessary to remind us that all the grape-juice 
 in Vinland would not fuddle a man unless it had been fermented, 
 — and then goes on to ascribe the absurdity to our innocent chron- 
 icle, instead of the stupid annotator. See Heimskringla, vol. i. p. 
 168. 
 
166 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 excitement, he replied that he had discovered vines 
 loaded with grapes, and was much pleased at the 
 sight inasmuch as he had been brought up in a 
 vine country. Wild grapes, indeed, abounded in 
 this autumn season, and Leif accordingly called the 
 country Vinland. The winter seems to have passed 
 off very comfortably. Even the weather seemed 
 mild to these visitors from high latitudes, and they 
 did not fail to comment on the unusual length of 
 the winter day. Their language on this point has 
 been so construed as to make the length of the 
 shortest winter day exactly nine hours, which 
 would place their Vinland in about the latitude of 
 Boston. But their expressions do not admit of 
 any such precise construction ; and when we re- 
 member that they had no accurate instruments for 
 measuring time, and that a difference of about 
 fourteen minutes between sunrise and sunset on 
 the shortest winter day would make all the differ- 
 ence between Boston and Halifax, we see how idle 
 it is to look for the requisite precision in narratives’ 
 of this sort, and to treat them as one would treat 
 the reports of a modern scientific exploring expe- 
 dition. 
 
 In the spring of 1001 Leif returned to Green- 
 land with a cargo of timber. 1 The voyage made 
 much talk. Leif’s brother Thorvald caught the 
 
 1 On the homeward voyage he rescued some shipwrecked sail- 
 ors near the coast of Greenland, and was thenceforward called 
 Leif the Lucky (et postea cognominatus est Leivus Fortunatus). 
 The pleasant reports from the newly found country gave it the 
 name of “ Vinland the Good.” In the course of the winter fol- 
 lowing Leif’s return his father died. 
 
PRE-COL UMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 167 
 
 ,c" 
 
 inspiration, 1 and, borrowing Leif’s ship, sailed in 
 1002, and succeeded in finding Vinland and Leif’s 
 huts, where his v men spent two winters. In the 
 intervening summer they went on an y oyagegof 
 exploring expedition along the coast, Kl^in, and 
 fell in with some savages in canoes, and 1002 * ~ 05 - 
 got into a fight in which Thorvald was killed by 
 an arrow. In the spring of 1004 the ship re- 
 turned to Brattahlid. Next year the third brother, 
 Thorstein Ericsson, set out in the same ship, with 
 his wife Gudrid and a crew of thirty-five men ; 
 but they were sore bestead with foul weather, got 
 nowhere, and accomplished nothing. Thorstein 
 died on the voyage, and his widow returned to 
 Greenland. 
 
 In the course of the next summer, 1006, there 
 came to Brattahlid from Iceland a notable person- 
 age, a man of craft and resource, wealthy withal 
 and well born, with the blood of many kinglets 
 or jarls flowing in his veins. This man, Thor- 
 finn Karlsefni, straightway fell in love with the 
 young and beautiful widow Gudrid, and in the 
 course of the winter there was a merry wedding at 
 Brattahlid. Persuaded by his adventurous bride, 
 whose spirit had been roused by the re- 
 
 A J Thorfinn 
 
 ports from Yinland and by her former Karisefni, and 
 
 x J his unsuccess- 
 
 unsuccessful attempt to find it, Thor- attempt to 
 
 found a colony 
 
 finn now undertook to visit that country j^5o and ’ 
 in force sufficient for founding a col- 
 ony there. Accordingly in the spring of 1007 he 
 
 1 “Jam crebri de Leivi in Vinlandiam profectione sermones 
 
 serebantur, Thorvaldus vero, frater ejus, nimis pauca terrae loca 
 
 explorata fuisse judicavit.” Rafn, p. 39. 
 
168 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 started with three or four ships , 1 carrying one hun- 
 dred and sixty men, several women, and quite a 
 cargo of cattle. In the course of that year his son 
 Snorro was born in Vinland , 2 and our chronicle 
 tells us that this child was three years old before 
 the disappointed company turned their backs upon 
 that land of promise and were fain to make their 
 way homeward to the fiords of Greenland. It 
 was the hostility of the natives that compelled 
 Thorfinn to abandon his enterprise. At first they 
 traded with him, bartering valuable furs for little 
 strips of scarlet cloth which they sought most 
 eagerly ; and they were as terribly frightened by 
 his cattle as the Aztecs were in later days by the 
 Spanish horses . 3 The chance bellowing of a bull 
 sent them squalling to the woods, and they did 
 not show themselves again for three weeks. After 
 a while quarrels arose, the natives attacked in 
 
 1 Three is the number usually given, but at least four of their 
 ships would be needed for so large a company ; and besides 
 Thorfinn himself, three other captains are mentioned, — Snorro 
 Thorbrandsson, Bjarni Grimolfsson, and Thorhall Gamlason. 
 The narrative gives a picturesque account of this Thorhall, who 
 was a pagan and fond of deriding his comrades for their belief in 
 the new-fangled Christian notions. He seems to have left his 
 comrades and returned to Europe before they had abandoned 
 their enterprise. A further reference to him will be made below, 
 p. 203. 
 
 2 To this boy Snorro many eminent men have traced their an- 
 cestry, — bishops, university professors, governors of Iceland, 
 and ministers of state in Norway and Denmark. The learned 
 antiquarian Finn Magnusson and the celebrated sculptor Thor- 
 waldsen regarded themselves as thus descended from Thorfinn 
 Karlsefni. 
 
 3 Compare the alarm of the Wampanoag Indians in 1603 at 
 the sight of Martin Pring’s mastiff. Winsor, Narr. and Crit. 
 Hist., iii. 174. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 169 
 
 great numbers, many Northmen were killed, and 
 in 1010 the survivors returned to Greenland with 
 a cargo of timber and peltries. On the way 
 thither the ships seem to have separated, and one 
 of them, commanded by Bjami Grimolfsson, found 
 itself bored by worms (the teredo ) and sank, with 
 its commander and half the crew. 1 
 
 Among Karlsefni’s companions on this mem- 
 orable expedition was one Thorvard, with his wife 
 Freydis, a natural daughter of Eric the Red. 
 About the time of their return to Greenland in 
 the summer of 1010, a ship arrived from Norway, 
 commanded by two brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi. 
 
 1 The fate of Bjami was pathetic and noble. It was decided 
 that as many as possible should save themselves in the stern boat- 
 4 ' Then Bjami ordered that the men should go in the boat by lot, 
 and not according to rank. As it would not hold all, they ac- 
 cepted the saying, and when the lots were drawn, the men went 
 out of the ship into the boat. The lot was that Bjami should 
 go down from the ship to the boat with one half of the men. 
 Then those to whom the lot fell went down from the ship to the 
 boat. When they had come into the boat, a young Icelander, 
 who was the companion of Bjami, said : ‘ Now thus do you in- 
 tend to leave me, Bjami ? ’ Bjami replied, * That now seems 
 necessary.’ He replied with these words : ‘ Thou art not true to 
 the promise made when I left my father’s house in Iceland.’ 
 Bjarni replied : ‘ In this thing I do not see any other way ’ ; con- 
 tinuing, ‘ What course can you suggest ? * He said : ‘ I see this, 
 that we change places and thou come up here and I go down 
 there.’ Bjarni replied : ‘ Let it be so, since I see that you 
 are so anxious to live, and are frightened by the prospect of 
 death.’ Then they changed places, and he descended into the 
 boat with the men, and Bjarni went up into the ship. It is re- 
 lated that Bjarni and the sailors with him in the ship perished in 
 the worm sea. Those who went in the boat went on their course 
 until they came to land, where they told all these things.” De 
 Costa’s version from Saga Thorfinns Karlsefnis , Rafn, pp. 184- 
 186. 
 
170 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 During the winter a new expedition was planned, 
 Freydis, and an< ^ * n the summer of 1011 two ships 
 ?nViniLd e , edS S0 t sa il f° r Vinland, one with Freydis, 
 1011 - 12 . Thorvard, and a crew of 30 men, the 
 other with Helgi and Finnbogi, and a crew of 
 35 men. There were also a number of women. 
 The purpose was not to found a colony but to cut 
 timber. The brothers arrived first at Leif’s huts 
 and had begun carrying in their provisions and 
 tools, when Freydis, arriving soon afterward, or- 
 dered them off the premises. They had no right, 
 she said, to occupy her brother’s houses. So they 
 went out and built other huts for their party a 
 little farther from the shore. Before their business 
 was accomplished “ winter set in, and the brothers 
 proposed to have some games for amusement to 
 pass the time. So it was done for a time, till dis- 
 cord came among them, and the games were given 
 up, and none went from one house to the other ; 
 and things went on so during a great part of the 
 winter.” At length came the catastrophe. Frey- 
 dis one night complained to her husband that the 
 brothers had given her evil words and struck her, 
 and insisted that he should forthwith avenge the 
 affront. Presently Thorvard, unable to bear her 
 taunts, was aroused to a deed of blood. With his 
 followers he made a night attack upon the huts of 
 Helgi and Finnbogi, seized and bound all the 
 occupants, and killed the men one after another in 
 cold blood. Five women were left whom Thorvard 
 would have spared; as none of his men would 
 raise a hand against them, Freydis herself took an 
 axe and brained them one and all. In the spring 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 171 
 
 of 1012 the party sailed for Brattahlid in the ship 
 of the murdered brothers, which was the larger 
 and better of the two. Freydis pretended that 
 they had exchanged ships and left the other party 
 in Yinland. With gifts to her men, and dire 
 threats for any who should dare tell what had been 
 done, she hoped to keep them silent. Words were 
 let drop, however, which came to Leif’s ears, and 
 led him to arrest three of the men and put them 
 to the torture until they told the whole story. 
 44 4 1 have not the heart,’ said Leif, 4 to treat my 
 wicked sister as she deserves ; but this I will fore- 
 tell them [Freydis and Thorvard] that their pos- 
 terity will never thrive.’ So it went that nobody 
 thought anything of them save evil from that time.” 
 With this grewsome tale ends all account of 
 Norse attempts at exploring or colonizing Yinland, 
 though references to Yinland by no means end 
 here. 1 Taking the narrative as a whole, it seems 
 to me a sober, straightforward, and eminently prob- 
 able story. We may not be able to say 
 with confidence exactly where such ry is eminently 
 places as Markland and Yinland were, probable * 
 but it is clear that the coasts visited on these 
 southerly and southwesterly voyages from Brat- 
 tahlid must have been parts of the coast of North 
 America, unless the whole story is to be dismissed 
 as a figment of somebody’s imagination. But for 
 a figment of the imagination, and of European 
 
 1 The stories of Gudleif Gudlaugsson and Ari Marsson, with 
 the fanciful speculations about ‘ ‘ Hvitramannaland ” and “ Irland 
 it Mikla,” do not seem worthy of notice in this connection. They 
 may be found in De Costa, op. cit. pp. 159-177 ; and see Reeves, 
 The Finding of Wineland the Good , chap. v. 
 
172 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 imagination withal, it has far too many points of 
 verisimilitude, as I shall presently show. 
 
 In the first place, it is an extremely probable 
 story from the time that Eric once gets settled in 
 Brattahlid. The founding of the Greenland col- 
 ony is the only strange or improbable part of the 
 narrative, but that is corroborated in so many other 
 ways that we know it to be true ; as already 
 observed, no fact in mediaeval history is better 
 established. When I speak of the settlement of 
 Greenland as strange, I do not mean that there is 
 anything strange in the Northmen’s accomplishing 
 the voyage thither from Iceland. That island 
 is nearer to Greenland than to Norway, and we 
 know, moreover, that Norse sailors achieved more 
 difficult things than penetrating the fiords of 
 southern Greenland. Upon the island of Kingi- 
 torsook in Baffin’s Bay (72° 55' N., 56° 5' W.) 
 
 near Upernavik, in a region supposed to 
 
 Voyage .into r ,, 
 
 Baffin’s Bay, have been un visited by man before the 
 
 1135 . * 
 
 modern age of Arctic exploration, there 
 were found in 1824 some small artificial mounds 
 with an inscription upon stone : — “ Erling Sigh- 
 vatson and Bjarni Thordharson and Eindrid Odd- 
 son raised these marks and cleared ground on Sat- 
 urday before Ascension Week, 1135.”* That is 
 to say, they took symbolic possession of the land. 1 
 
 In order to appreciate how such daring voyages 
 were practicable, we must bear in mind that the 
 Viking “ ships ” were probably stronger and more 
 seaworthy, and certainly much swifter, than the 
 Spanish vessels of the time of Columbus. One 
 
 1 Laing-, Heimskringla, i. 152. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 173 
 
 was unearthed a few years ago at Sandefiord in 
 Norway, and may be seen at the museum A Viking Bhip 
 in Christiania. Its pagan owner had 
 been buried in it, and his bones were Norway> 
 found amidships, along with the bones of a dog 
 and a peacock, a few iron fish-hooks and other 
 articles. Bones of horses and dogs, probably 
 sacrificed at the funeral according to the ancient 
 Norse custom, lay scattered about. This craft has 
 been so well described by Colonel Higginson , 1 that 
 I may as well quote the passage in full : — 
 
 She “was seventy-seven feet eleven inches at 
 the greatest length, and sixteen feet eleven inches 
 at the greatest width, and from the top of the 
 keel to the gunwale amidships she was five feet 
 nine inches deep. She had twenty ribs, and would 
 draw less than four feet of water. She was clinker- 
 built ; that is, had plates slightly overlapped, like 
 the shingles on the side of a house. The planks 
 and timbers of , the frame were fastened together 
 with withes made of roots, but the oaken boards of 
 the side were united by iron rivets firmly clinched. 
 The bow and stern were similar in shape, and must 
 have risen high out of water, but were so broken 
 that it was impossible to tell how they originally 
 ended. The keel was deep and made of Description 
 thick oak beams, and there was no trace 01 the Bhip ' 
 of any metallic sheathing ; but an iron anchor was 
 found almost rusted to pieces. There was no deck 
 and the seats for rowers had been taken out. The 
 oars were twenty feet long, and the oar-holes, six- 
 teen on each side, had slits sloping towards the 
 1 See his Larger History of the United States, pp. 32-34. 
 
174 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 stern to allow the blades of the oars to be put 
 through from inside. The most peculiar thing 
 about the ship was the rudder, which was on the 
 starboard or right side, this side being originally- 
 called 4 steerboard ’ from this circumstance. The 
 rudder was like a large oar, with long blade and 
 short handle, and was attached, not to the side of 
 the boat, but to the end of a conical piece of wood 
 which projected almost a foot from the side of the 
 vessel, and almost two feet from the stern. This 
 piece of wood was bored down its length, and no 
 doubt a rope passing through it secured the rudder 
 to the ship’s side. It was steered by a tiller at- 
 tached to the handle, and perhaps also by a rope 
 fastened to the blade. As a whole, this disinterred 
 vessel proved to be anything but the rude and 
 primitive craft which might have been expected ; 
 it was neatly built and well preserved, constructed 
 on what a sailor would call beautiful lines, and 
 eminently fitted for sea service. Many such vessels 
 may be found depicted on the celebrated Bayeux 
 tapestry ; and the peculiar position of the rudder 
 explains the treaty mentioned in the Heimskringla, 
 giving to Norway all lands lying west of Scotland 
 between which and the mainland a vessel could 
 pass with her rudder shipped. . . . This was not 
 one of the very largest ships, for some of them 
 had thirty oars on each side, and vessels carrying 
 from twenty to twenty-five were not uncommon. 
 The largest of these were called Dragons, and 
 other sizes were known as Serpents or Cranes. 
 The ship itself was often so built as to represent 
 the name it bore : the dragon, for instance, was a 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 175 
 
 long low vessel, with the gilded head of a dragon 
 at the bow, and the gilded tail at the stern ; the 
 moving oars at the side might represent the legs 
 of the imaginary creature, the row of shining red 
 and white shields that were hung over the gun- 
 wale looked like the monster’s scales, and the 
 sails striped with red and blue might suggest his 
 wings. The ship preserved at Christiania is de- 
 scribed as having had but a single mast, set into 
 a block of wood so large that it is said no such 
 block could now be cut in Norway. Probably the 
 sail was much like those still carried by large open 
 boats in that country, — a single square on a mast 
 forty feet long . 1 These masts have no standing 
 rigging, and are taken down when not in use ; and 
 this was probably the practice of the Vikings.” 
 
 In such vessels, well stocked with food and 
 weapons, the Northmen were accustomed to spend 
 many weeks together on the sea, now and then 
 touching land. In such vessels they made their 
 way to Algiers and Constantinople, to the White 
 Sea, to Baffin’s Bay. It is not, therefore, their 
 voyage to Greenland that seems strange, but it 
 is their success in founding a colony which could 
 last for more than four centuries in that in- 
 hospitable climate. The question is sometimes 
 asked whether the climate of Greenland The climate o{ 
 may not have undergone some change Greenland - 
 within the last thousand years . 2 If there has been 
 
 1 Perhaps it may have been a square-headed lug, like those of 
 the Deal galley-punts; see Leslie’s Old Sea Wings, Ways, and 
 Words , in the Days of Oak and Hemp, London, 1890, p. 21. 
 
 2 Some people must have queer notions about the lapse of past 
 
176 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 any change, it must have been very slight ; such 
 as, perhaps, a small variation in the flow of ocean 
 currents might occasion. I am inclined to be- 
 lieve that there may have been such a change, 
 from the testimony of Ivar Bardsen, steward of 
 the Gardar bishopric in the latter half of the four- 
 teenth century, or about halfway between the time 
 of Eric the Red and our own time. According to 
 Bardsen there had long been a downward drifting 
 of ice from the north and a consequent accumula- 
 tion of bergs and floes upon the eastern coast of 
 Greenland, insomuch that the customary route 
 formerly followed by ships coming from Iceland 
 was no longer safe, and a more southerly route 
 had been generally adopted . 1 This slow southward 
 extension of the polar ice-sheet upon the east of 
 Greenland seems still to be going on at the present 
 day . 2 It is therefore not at all improbable, but on 
 the contrary quite probable, that a thousand years 
 ago the mean annual temperature of the tip end of 
 Greenland, at Cape Farewell, was a few degrees 
 
 time. I have more than once had this question put to me in such 
 a way as to show that what the querist really had in mind was 
 some vague impression of the time when oaks and chestnuts, vines 
 and magnolias, grew luxuriantly over a great part of Greenland ! 
 But that was in the Miocene period, probably not less than a 
 million years ago, and has no obvious bearing upon the deeds of 
 Eric the Red. 
 
 1 Bardsen, Descriptio Grcenlandice , appended to Major’s Voyages 
 of the Venetian Brothers , etc., pp. 40, 41 ; and see below, p. 242. 
 
 2 Zahrtmann, Journal of Royal Geographical Society , London, 
 1836, vol. v. p. 102. On this general subject see J. D. Whitney, 
 “ The Climate Changes of Later Geological Times,” in Memoirs 
 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College , Cam- 
 bridge, 1882, vol. vii. According to Professor Whitney there has 
 also been a deterioration in the climate of Iceland. 
 
PRE-COL XJMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 177 
 
 higher than now. 1 But a slight difference of this 
 sort might have an important bearing upon the 
 fortunes of a colony planted there. For example, 
 it would directly affect the extent of the hay crop. 
 Grass grows very well now in the neighbourhood 
 of Julianeshaab. In summer it is still a “green 
 land,” with good pasturage for cattle, but there is 
 difficulty in getting hay enough to last through the 
 nine months of winter. In 1855 “ there were in 
 Greenland 80 to 40 head of horned cattle, about 
 100 goats, and 20 sheep ; ” but in the ancient col- 
 ony, with a population not exceeding 6,000 per- 
 sons, “ herds of cattle were kept which even yielded 
 produce for exportation to Europe.” 2 So strong 
 a contrast seems to indicate a much more plentiful 
 grass crop than to-day, although some hay might 
 perhaps have been imported from Iceland in ex- 
 change for Greenland exports, which were chiefly 
 whale oil, eider-down, and skins of seals, foxes, 
 and white bears. 
 
 When once the Northmen had found their way 
 to Cape Farewell, it would have been marvellous 
 if such active sailors could long have avoided 
 stumbling upon the continent of North America. 
 Without compass or astrolabe these daring men 
 were accustomed to traverse long stretches of open 
 
 1 One must not too hastily infer that the mean temperature of 
 points on the American coast south of Davis strait would be 
 affected in the same way. The relation between the phenomena 
 is not quite so simple. For example, a warm early spring on the 
 coast of Greenland increases the discharge of icebergs from its 
 fiords to wander down the Atlantic ocean ; and this increase of 
 floating ice tends to chill and dampen the summers at least as far 
 south as Long Island, if not farther. 
 
 2 Rink’s Danish Greenland , pp. 27, 96, 97. 
 
178 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 sea, trusting to the stars; and it needed only 
 a stiff northeasterly breeze, with per- 
 Northmen sistent clouds and fog, to land a west- 
 
 once in Green- ■, , ■, ,, , » 
 
 land, the dis- ward bound “ dragon anywhere trom 
 American the Cape Race to Cape Cod. This is what 
 
 continent was . ■. , i i -r»* • 
 
 almost inev- appears to have happened to 15 j arm 
 Herjulfsson in 986, and something quite 
 like it happened to Henry Hudson in 16 09. 1 Cu- 
 riosity is a motive quite sufficient to explain 
 Leif’s making the easy summer voyage to find out 
 what sort of country Bjarni had seen. He found 
 it thickly wooded, and as there was a dearth of 
 good timber both in Greenland and in Iceland, it 
 would naturally occur to Leif’s friends that voy- 
 ages for timber, to be used at home and also to be 
 exported to Iceland, might turn out to be profit- 
 Voyagesfor ^le. 2 As Laing says, “ to go in quest 
 timber. 0 f the WO oded countries to the south- 
 west, from whence driftwood came to their shores, 
 was a reasonable, intelligible motive for making a 
 voyage in search of the lands from whence it came, 
 and where this valuable material could be got for 
 nothing.” 3 
 
 If now we look at the details of the story we 
 shall find many ear-marks of truth in it. We 
 must not look for absolute accuracy in a narra- 
 tive which — as we have it — is not the work of 
 
 1 See Read’s Historical Inquiry concerning Henry Hudson , Al- 
 bany, 1866, p. 160. 
 
 2 “ Nil tekst umrsedha at n£ju um V Inlandsf erdh, thviat sii 
 ferdh thikir bsedhi g<5dh til fjdr ok virdhlngar, ’ ’ i. e. “Now they 
 began to talk again about a voyage to Vinland, for the voyage 
 thither was both gainful and honourable.” Rafn, p. 65. 
 
 8 Heimskringla , i. 168. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 179 
 
 Leif or Thorfinn or any of their comrades, but 
 of compilers or copyists, honest and careful as it 
 seems to me, but liable to misplace details and to 
 call by wrong names things which they had never 
 seen. Starting with these modest expectations we 
 shall find the points of verisimilitude 
 numerous. To begin with the least sig- truth in the 
 nificant, somewhere on our northeast- narrative ‘ 
 ern coast the voyagers found many foxes . 1 These 
 animals, to be sure, are found in a great many coun- 
 tries, but the point for us is that in a southerly and 
 southwesterly course from Cape Farewell these 
 sailors are said to have found them. If our narra- 
 tors had been drawing upon their imaginations or 
 dealing with semi-mythical materials, they would as 
 likely as not have lugged into the story elephants 
 from Africa or hippogriffs from Dreamland ; medi- 
 aeval writers were blissfully ignorant of all canons 
 of probability in such matters . 2 But our narrators 
 simply mention an animal which has for ages 
 abounded on our northeastern coasts. One such 
 instance is enough to suggest that they were fol- 
 lowing reports or documents which emanated ulti- 
 mately from eye-witnesses and told the plain truth. 
 A dozen such instances, if not neutralized by 
 counter-instances, are enough to make this view 
 extremely probable ; and then one or two instances 
 
 1 “Fjoldi var thar melrakka,” i. e. “ibi vulpium magnus 
 numerus erat,” Rafn, p. 138. 
 
 2 It is extremely difficult for an impostor to concoct a narra- 
 tive without making blunders that can easily be detected by a 
 critical scholar. For example, the Book of Mormon, in the pas- 
 sage cited (see above, p. 3), in supremely blissful ignorance intro- 
 duces oxen, sheep, and silk-worms, as well as the knowledge of 
 smelting iron, into pre-Columbian America. 
 
180 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 which could not have originated in the imagination 
 of a European writer will suffice to prove it. 
 
 Let us observe, then, that on coming to Mark- 
 land they “ slew a bear ; ” 1 the river and lake 
 (or bay) in Yinland abounded with salmon bigger 
 than Leif’s people had ever seen ; 2 on the coast 
 they caught halibut ; 3 they came to an island 
 where there were so many eider ducks breeding 
 that they could hardly avoid treading on their 
 eggs ; 4 and, as already observed, it was because 
 of the abundance of wild grapes that Leif named 
 the southernmost country he visited Yinland. 
 
 1 “Thar i drdpu their einn bjorn,” i. e. “in qua ursum inter- 
 fecerunt,” id. p. 138. 
 
 2 “ Hvorki skorti thar lax i dnni n& i vatninu, ok stserra lax 
 enn their hefdhi fyrr s&dh,” i. e. “ ibi neque in fluvio neque in 
 lacu deerat salmonum eopia, et quidem majoris corporis quam 
 antea vidissent, ” id. p. 32. 
 
 3 “Helgir fiskar,” i. e. “sacri pisces,” id. p. 148. The Dan- 
 ish phrase is “helleflyndre,” i. e. “holy flounder.” The Eng- 
 lish halibut is hali = holy -f- but — flounder. This word but is 
 classed as Middle English, but may still be heard in the north of 
 England. The fish may have been so called “ from being eaten 
 particularly on holy days ” ( Century Diet. s. v.) ; or possibly from a 
 pagan superstition that water abounding in flat fishes is especially 
 safe for mariners (Pliny, Hist. Nat. ix. 10) ; or possibly from some 
 lost folk-tale about St. Peter (Maurer, Islandische Volkssagen 
 der Gegenwart , Leipsic, 1860, p. 195). 
 
 4 “ Sva; var morg sedhr i eynni, at varla mdtti gdnga fyri egg- 
 jum,” i. e. “tantus in insula anatum mollissimarum numerus 
 erat, ut prse ovis transiri fere non posset,” id. p. 141. Eider ducks 
 breed on our northeastern coasts as far south as Portland, and are 
 sometimes in winter seen as far south as Delaware. They also 
 abound in Greenland and Iceland, and, as Wilson observes, “ their 
 nests are crowded so close together that a person can scarcely 
 walk without treading on them. . . . The Icelanders have for 
 ages known the value of eider down, and have done an extensive 
 business in it.” See Wilson’s American Ornithology , vol. iii. 
 
 p. 50. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 181 
 
 From the profusion of grapes — such that the 
 ship’s stem boat is said on one occasion to have 
 been filled with them 1 — we get a clue, though less 
 decisive than could be wished, to the location of 
 Vinland. The extreme northern limit 
 of the vine in Canada is 47°, the paral- limit of the 
 lei which cuts across the tops of Prince 
 Edward and Cape Breton islands on the map . 2 
 Near this northern limit, however, wild grapes are 
 by no means plenty ; so that the coast upon which 
 Leif wintered must apparently have been south of 
 Cape Breton. Dr. Storm, who holds that Vinland 
 was on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, has 
 collected some interesting testimony as to the 
 growth of wild grapes in that region, but on the 
 whole the abundance of this fruit seems rather to 
 point to £he shores of Massachusetts Bay . 3 
 
 We may now observe that, while it is idle to 
 attempt to determine accurately the length of the 
 winter day, as given in our chronicles, Length of the 
 nevertheless since that length attracted wmt€r day ' 
 the attention of the voyagers, as something re- 
 
 1 ( “Sva er sag-t at eptirMtr theirra var fylldr af vln- 
 ( So it-is-said that afterboat their was filled of vine- 
 
 berjum.”l Eafn p gg 
 berries. ) 
 
 2 Storm, “Studies on the Vinland Voyages,” Mtmoires de la 
 sociitt royale des antiquaires du Nord , Copenhagen, 1888, p. 351. 
 The limit of the vine at this latitude is some distance inland ; near 
 the shore the limit is a little farther south, and in Newfoundland 
 it does not grow at all. Id. p. 308. 
 
 8 The attempt of Dr. Kohl ( Maine Hist. Soc. , New Series, vol. 
 i.) to connect the voyage of Thorfinn with the coast of Maine 
 seems to he successfully refuted by De Costa, Northmen in Maine , 
 etc., Albany, 1870. 
 
182 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 markable, it may fairly be supposed to indicate a 
 latitude lower than they were accustomed to reach 
 in their trading voyages in Europe. Such a lati- 
 tude as that of Dublin, which lies opposite Labra- 
 dor, would have presented no novelty to them, for 
 voyages of Icelanders to their kinsmen in Dub- 
 lin, and in Rouen as well, were common enough. 
 Halifax lies about opposite Bordeaux, and Boston 
 a little south of opposite Cape Finisterre, in Spain, 
 so that either of these latitudes would satisfy the 
 conditions of the case ; either would show a longer 
 winter day than Rouen, which was about the south- 
 ern limit of ordinary trading voyages from Ice- 
 land. At all events, the length of day indicates 
 for Yinland a latitude south of Cape Breton. 
 
 The next point to be observed is the mention of 
 “ self-sown wheat-fields.’ 1 This is not only an 
 important ear-mark of truth in the narrative, but 
 it helps us somewhat further in determining the 
 position of Yinland. The “ self-sown ” cereal, 
 which these Icelanders called “ wheat,” was in all 
 probability what the English settlers six hundred 
 
 years afterward called “corn,” in each 
 
 Indian corn. ^ 1 , 
 
 case applying to a new and nameless 
 thing the most serviceable name at hand. In 
 England “ corn ” means either wheat, barley, rye, 
 and oats collectively, or more specifically wheat ; 
 in Scotland it generally means oats ; in America it 
 means maize, the “ Indian corn,” the cereal pecul- 
 iar to the western hemisphere. The beautiful wav- 
 ing plant, with its exquisitely tasselled ears, which 
 
 1 ( “Sj&lfs&na hveitiakra 
 ( Self-sown wheat-acres 
 
 [ Rafn, p. 147. 
 
 i ) 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 183 
 
 was one of the first things to attract Champlain’s 
 attention, could not have escaped the notice of 
 such keen observers as we are beginning to find 
 Leif and Thorfinn to have been. A cereal like 
 this, requiring so little cultivation that without 
 much latitude of speech it might be described as 
 growing wild, would be interesting to Europeans 
 visiting the American coast ; but it would hardly 
 occur to European fancy to invent such a thing. 
 The mention of it is therefore a very significant 
 ear-mark of the truth of the narrative. As re- 
 gards the position of Vinland, the presence of 
 maize seems to indicate a somewhat lower lati- 
 tude than Nova Scotia. Maize requires intensely 
 hot summers, and even under the most careful 
 European cultivation does not flourish north of 
 the Alps. In the sixteenth century its northern- 
 most limit on the American coast seems to have 
 been at the mouth of the Kennebec (44°), though 
 farther inland it was found by Cartier at Hoche- 
 laga, on the site of Montreal (45° 30'). A pre- 
 sumption is thus raised in favour of the opinion 
 that Yinland was not farther north than Massa- 
 chusetts Bay. 1 
 
 This presumption is supported by what is said 
 about the climate of Yinland, though it must be 
 borne in mind that general statements about cli- 
 mate are apt to be very loose and misleading. W e 
 
 1 Dr. Storm makes perhaps too much of this presumption. He 
 treats it as decisive against his own opinion that Vinland was the 
 southern coast of Nova Scotia, and accordingly he tries to prove 
 that the self-sown corn was not maize, but “wild rice ” ( Zizania 
 aquatica). Memoir es, etc., p. 356. But his argument is weakened 
 by excess of ingenuity. 
 
184 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 are told that it seemed to Leif’s people that cattle 
 would he able to pass the winter out of doors there, 
 for there was no frost and the grass was 
 
 Winter - ~ ° 
 
 weather in not much withered. 1 On the other 
 
 hand, Thorfinn’s people found the win- 
 ter severe, and suffered from cold and hunger. 2 
 Taken in connection with each other, these two 
 statements would apply very well to-day to our 
 variable winters on the coast southward from Cape 
 Ann. The winter of 1889-90 in Cambridge, for 
 example, might very naturally have been described 
 by visitors from higher latitudes as a winter with- 
 out frost and with grass scarcely withered. In- 
 deed, we might have described it so ourselves. 
 On Narragansett and Buzzard’s bays such soft 
 winter weather is still more common ; north of 
 Cape Ann it is much less common. The severe 
 winter ( magno Mems) is of course familiar enough 
 anywhere along the northeastern coast of America. 
 
 On the whole, we may say with some confidence 
 that the place described by our chroni- 
 
 Probable situ- , TT . , , , , - 
 
 ation of vin- clers as V inland was situated somewhere 
 between Point Judith and Cape Bre- 
 ton ; possibly we may narrow our limits and say 
 
 1 “ Thar var sva godhr landskostr at thvi er theim s^ndist, at 
 thar mundi eingi f&nadhr f<5dhr thurfa d vetrum ; thar kvomu 
 eingi frost & vetrum, ok litt r^nudhu thargros,” i. e. “ tanta autem 
 erat terrae bonitas, ut inde intelligere esset, pecora hieme pabulo 
 non indigere posse, nullis incidentibus algoribus hiemalibus, et 
 graminibus parum flaeeescentibus.” Rafn, p- 32. 
 
 2 “ Thar voru their um vetrinn; ok gjordhist vetr mikill, en 
 ekki fyri unnit ok gjordhist flit til matarins, ok tokust af vei- 
 dhirnar,” i. e. “ hichiemarunt ; cum vero magna incideret hiems, 
 nullumque provisum esset alimentum, cibus coepit deficere captu- 
 raque cessabat. ’ ’ Id. p. 174. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 185 
 
 that it was somewhere between Cape Cod and 
 Cape Ann. But the latter conclusion is much less 
 secure than the former. In such a case as this, 
 the more we narrow our limits the greater our 
 liability to error . 1 While by such narrowing, 
 moreover, the question may acquire more interest 
 as a bone of contention among local antiquarians, 
 its value for the general historian is not increased. 
 
 But we have not yet done with the points of veri- 
 similitude in our story. We have now to cite two 
 or three details that are far more striking than any 
 as yet mentioned, — details that could never have 
 been conjured up by the fancy of any mediaeval 
 European. We must bear in mind that “ sav- 
 ages,” whether true savages or people in „ Savage8 « 
 the lower status of barbarism, were prac- 
 tically unknown to Europeans before Eur °P ea “* 
 the fifteenth century. There were no such people 
 in Europe or in any part of Asia or Africa visited 
 by Europeans before the great voyages of the 
 Portuguese. Mediaeval Europeans knew nothing 
 whatever about people who would show surprise at 
 the sight of an iron tool 2 or frantic terror at the 
 
 1 A favourite method of determining the exact spots visited by 
 the Northmen has been to compare their statements regarding 
 the shape and trend of the coasts, their bays, headlands, etc., 
 with various well-known points on the New England coast. It is 
 a tempting method, but unfortunately treacherous, because the 
 same general description will often apply well enough to several 
 different places. It is like summer boarders in the country strug- 
 gling to tell one another where they have been to drive, — past a 
 school-house, down a steep hill, through some woods, and by a 
 saw-mill, etc. 
 
 2 It is not meant that stone implements did not continue to be 
 used in some parts of Europe far into the Middle Ages. But 
 
186 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 voice of a bull, or who would eagerly trade off 
 valuable property for worthless trinkets. Their 
 imagination might be up to inventing hobgoblins 
 and people with heads under their shoulders , 1 but 
 it was not up to inventing such simple touches of 
 nature as these. Bearing this in mind, let us 
 observe that Thorfinn found the natives of Yin- 
 land eager to give valuable furs 2 in exchange for 
 
 this was not because iron was not perfectly well known, but be- 
 cause in many backward regions it was difficult to obtain or to 
 work, so that stone continued in use. As my friend, Mr. T. S. 
 Perry, reminds me, Helbig says that stone-pointed spears were 
 used by some of the English at the battle of Hastings, and stone 
 battle-axes by some of the Scots under William Wallace at the 
 end of the thirteenth century. Die Italiker in der Poebene, Leip- 
 sic, 1879, p. 42. Helbig’s statement as to Hastings is confirmed 
 by Freeman, Norman Conquest of England , vol. iii. p. 478. 
 
 1 My use of the word “ inventing ” is, in this connection, a slip 
 of the pen. Of course the tales of “ men whose heads do grow 
 beneath their shoulders,” the Sciopedse, etc., as told by Sir John 
 Mandeville, were not invented by the mediaeval imagination, but 
 copied from ancient authors. They may be found in Pliny, Hist. 
 Nat., lib. vii., and were mentioned before his time by Ktesias, as 
 well as by Hecataeus, according to Stephanus of Byzantium. Cf. 
 Aristophanes, Aves, 1558 ; Julius Solinus, Polyhistor, ed. Salma- 
 sius, cap. 240. Just as these sheets are going to press there comes 
 to me Mr. Perry’s acute and learned History of Greek Literature , 
 New York, 1890, in which this subject is mentioned in connec- 
 tion with the mendacious and medical Ktesias : — These stories 
 have probably acquired a literary currency “ by exercise of the 
 habit, not unknown even to students of science, of indiscriminate 
 copying from one’s predecessors, so that in reading Mandeville 
 we have the ghosts of the lies of Ktesias, almost sanctified by 
 the authority of Pliny, who quoted them and thereby made 
 them a part of mediaeval folk-lore — and from folk-lore, proba- 
 bly, they took their remote start ” (p. 522). 
 
 2 “ En that var grdvara ok safvali ok allskonar skinnavara” 
 (Rafn, p. 59), — i. e. gray fur and sable and all sorts of skin- 
 wares ; in another account, ‘ ‘ skinnavoru ok algrd. skinn,” which 
 in the Danish version is “ skindvarer og segte graaskind” (id. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 187 
 
 little strips of scarlet cloth to bind about their 
 heads. When the Northmen found the cloth grow- 
 ing scarce they cut it into extremely narrow strips, 
 but the desire of the natives was so great that 
 they would still give a whole skin for the smallest 
 strip. They wanted also to buy weap- ^ nativetl ^ 
 ons, but Thorfinn forbade his men to v,nlan<L 
 sell them. One of the natives picked up an 
 iron hatchet and cut wood with it ; one after an- 
 other tried and admired it ; at length one tried it 
 on a stone and broke its edge, and then they scorn- 
 fully threw it down . 1 One day while they were 
 trading, Thorfinn’s bull ran out before them and 
 bellowed, whereupon the whole company was in- 
 stantly scattered in headlong flight. After this, 
 when threatened with an attack by the natives, 
 Thorfinn drew up his men for a fight and put the 
 bull in front, very much as Pyrrhus used elephants 
 — at first with success — to frighten the Romans 
 and their horses . 2 
 
 p. 150), — i. e. skinwares and genuine gray furs. Cartier in Can- 
 ada and the Puritans in Massachusetts were not long in Ending 
 that the natives had good furs to sell. 
 
 1 Rafn, p. 156. 
 
 2 Much curious information respecting the use of elephants in 
 war may he found in the learned work of the Chevalier Armandi, 
 Histoire militaire des iltphants , Paris, 1843. As regards Thor- 
 finn’s hull, Mr. Laing makes the kind of blunder that our Brit- 
 ish cousins are sometimes known to make when they get the 
 Rocky Mountains within sight of Bunker Hill monument. “ A 
 continental people in that part of America,” says Mr. Laing, 
 “ could not he strangers to the much more formidable bison.” 
 Heimskringla , p. 169. Bisons on the Atlantic coast, Mr. Laing ? ! 
 And then his comparison quite misses the point ; a bison, if the 
 natives had been familiar with him, would not have been at all 
 formidable as compared to the hull which they had never before 
 
188 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 These incidents are of surpassing interest, for 
 they were attendant upon the first meeting (in all 
 probability) that ever took place between civilized 
 Europeans and any people below the upper status 
 of barbarism . 1 Who were these natives encoun- 
 tered by Thorfinn? The Northmen called them 
 “ Skraelings,” a name which one is at first sight 
 strongly tempted to derive from the Icelandic verb 
 sJcrceTcja , identical with the English screech. A 
 crowd of excited Indians might most appropri- 
 ately be termed Screechers . 2 This derivation, 
 however, is not correct. The word skrceling sur- 
 vives in modern Norwegian, and means a feeble 
 M . of or puny or insignificant person. Dr. 
 ^SkSngs ” Storm’s suggestion is in all probability 
 correct, that the name “ Skraelings,” as 
 applied to the natives of America, had no ethno- 
 logical significance, but simply meant “inferior 
 people ; ” it gave concise expression to the white 
 man’s opinion that they were “a bad lot.” In 
 Icelandic literature the name is usually applied to 
 the Eskimos, and hence it has been rashly inferred 
 that Thorfinn found Eskimos in Yinland. Such 
 was Rafn’s opinion, and since his time the corn- 
 
 seen. A horse is much less formidable than a cougar, hut Aztec 
 warriors who did not mind a cougar were paralyzed with terror at 
 the sight of men on horseback. It is the unknown that frightens 
 in such cases. Thorfinn’s natives were probably familiar with 
 such large animals as moose and deer, hut a deer is n’t a bull. 
 
 1 The Phoenicians, however (who in this connection may he 
 classed with Europeans), must have met with some such people in 
 the course of their voyages upon the coasts of Africa. I shall 
 treat of this more fully below, p. 327. 
 
 2 As for Indians, says Cieza de Leon, they are all noisy (alhara- 
 quientos). Segunda Parte de la Crdnica del Peru , cap. xxiii. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 189 
 
 mentators have gone off upon a wrong trail and 
 much ingenuity has been wasted . 1 It would be 
 well to remember, however, that the Europeans of 
 the eleventh century were not ethnologists ; in 
 meeting these inferior peoples for the first time they 
 were more likely to be impressed with the broad 
 fact of their inferiority than to be nice in making 
 distinctions. When we call both Australians and 
 Fuegians “ savages,” we do not assert identity or 
 relationship between them ; and so when the 
 Northmen called Eskimos and Indians by the 
 same disparaging epithet, they doubtless simply 
 meant to call them savages. 
 
 Our chronicle describes the Skraelings of Vin- 
 land as swarthy in hue, ferocious in aspect, with 
 ugly hair, big eyes, and broad cheeks . 2 This will 
 do very well for Indians, except as to 
 
 i ^ T1T _ r _ . _ Personal 
 
 the eyes. We are accustomed to think JPP*™ c ® of 
 of Indian eyes as small ; but in this 
 connection it is, worthy of note that a very keen 
 
 1 For example, Dr. De Costa refers to Dr. Abbott’s discoveries 
 as indicating “that the Indian was preceded by a people like the 
 Eskimos, whose stone implements are found in the Trenton 
 gravel.” Pre-Columbian Discovery , p. 132. Quite so ; but that 
 was in the Glacial Period (! !), and when the edge of the ice-sheet 
 slowly retreated northward, the Eskimo, who is emphatically an 
 Arctic creature, doubtless retreated with it, just as he retreated 
 from Europe. See above, p. 18. There is not the slightest rea- 
 son for supposing that there were any Eskimos south of Labrador 
 so lately as nine hundred years ago. 
 
 2 “ Their voru svartir menn ok illiligir, ok havdhu flit hdr 4 
 hofdhi. Their voru mjok eygdhir ok breidhir 1 kinnum,” i. e. 
 “Hi homines erant nigri, truculenti specie, fcedam in capite 
 comam habentes, oculis magnis et genis latis.” Rafn, p. 149. The 
 Icelandic svartr is more precisely rendered by the identical Eng- 
 lish swarthy than by the Latin niger. 
 
190 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 observer, Marc Lescarbot, in his minute and elab- 
 orate description of the physical appearance of the 
 Micmacs of Acadia, speaks with some emphasis of 
 their large eyes. 1 Dr. Storm quite reasonably 
 suggests that the Norse expression may refer to 
 the size not of the eye-ball, but of the eye-socket, 
 which in the Indian face is apt to be large ; and 
 very likely this is what the Frenchman also had 
 in mind. 
 
 These Skrselings were clad in skins, and their 
 weapons were bows and arrows, slings, and stone 
 hatchets. In the latter we may now, I think, be 
 allowed to recognize the familiar tomahawk ; and 
 when we read that, in a sharp fight with the na- 
 tives, Thorbrand, son of the commander Snorro, 
 was slain, and the woman Freydis afterward found 
 his corpse in the woods, with a flat stone sticking 
 in the head, and his naked sword lying on the 
 ground beside him, we seem to see how it all hap- 
 The Skrse- pened. 2 We seem to see the stealthy 
 Swerlin- Indian suddenly dealing the death-blow, 
 i1ke n iyAig V o e n- y and then obliged for his own safety to 
 qum8, dart away among the trees without re- 
 
 covering his tomahawk or seizing the sword. The 
 Skrselings came up the river or lake in a swarm of 
 
 1 ‘ ‘ Mais quat k noz Sauvages, pour ce qui regarde les i'eux ilz 
 ne les out ni bleuz, ni verds, mais noirs pour la pluspart, ainsi que 
 les cheveux ; & neantmoins ne sont petits, come ceux des anciens 
 Scythes, mais d’une grandeur bien agreable.” Lescarbot, His- 
 toire de la Nouvelle France , Paris, 1612, tom. ii. p. 714. 
 
 2 “ Hain fann fyrir s6r mann daudhan, thar var Thorbrandr 
 Snorrason, ok stodh hellusteinn f hofdhi honum ; sverdhit 14 bert 
 i hjd honum,” i. e. “ Ilia incidit in mortuum hominem, Thorbran- 
 dum Snorrii filium, cujus eapiti lapis planus impactus stetit ; nu- 
 dus juxta eum gladius jacuit.” Rafn, p. 154. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 191 
 
 canoes, all yelling at the top of their voices ( et 
 illi omnes valde acutum ululabant ), and, leaping 
 ashore, began a formidable attack with slings and 
 arrows. The narrative calls these canoes “skin- 
 boats ” ( hudhkeipar ), whence it has been inferred 
 that the writer had in mind the kayaks and umialcs 
 of the Eskimos . 1 I suspect that the writer did 
 have such boats in mind, and accordingly used a 
 word not strictly accurate. Very likely his author- 
 ities failed to specify a distinction between bark- 
 boats and skin-boats, and simply used the handiest 
 word for designating canoes as contrasted with 
 their own keeled boats . 2 
 
 One other point which must be noticed here in 
 connection with the Skraelings is a singular ma- 
 noeuvre which they are said to have practised in 
 the course of the fight. They raised upon the end 
 of a pole a big ball, not unlike a sheep’s paunch, 
 and of .a bluish colour ; this ball they swung from 
 the pole over the heads of the white men, and 
 it fell to the ground with a horrid noise . 3 Now, 
 
 1 These Eskimo skin -boats are described in Rink’s Danish 
 Greenland , pp. 113, 179. 
 
 2 Cf. Storm, op. cit. pp. 366, 367. 
 
 8 “ That s& their Karlsefni at Skrselfngar fserdbu upp & stong 
 knott stundar mykinn thvi naer til at jafna sem saudharvomb, ok 
 helzt bl&n at lit, ok fleygdhu af stonginni upp & landit yfir lidh 
 theirra Karlsefnis, ok 16t illilega vidhr, thar sem nidhr kom. 
 Vidh thetta sl6 6tta myklum & Karlsefni ok allt lidh bans, sva at 
 thd fysti engis annars enn flyja, ok halda undan upp medh dnni, 
 tbviat tbeim th<5tti lidh Skraellnga drifa at s6r allum megin, ok 
 16tta eigi, fyrr enn their koma til hamra nokkurra, ok veittu thar 
 vidhrtoku hardha,” i. e. “Viderunt Karlsefniani quod Skraelingi 
 longurio sustulerunt globum ingentem, ventri ovillo baud absi- 
 milem, colore fere caeruleo ; hunc ex longurio in terram super 
 manum Karlsefnianorum contorserunt, qui ut decidit, dirum so- 
 
192 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 according to Mr. Schoolcraft, this was a mode of 
 fighting formerly common among the Algonquins, 
 in New England and elsewhere. This big ball was 
 what Mr. Schoolcraft calls the “balista,” or what 
 the Indians themselves call the “demon’s head.” 
 It was a large round boulder, sewed up in a new 
 skin and attached to a pole. As the skin dried it 
 enwrapped the stone tightly ; and then it was 
 daubed with grotesque devices in various colours. 
 “ It was borne by several warriors who acted as 
 balisteers. Plunged upon a boat or canoe, it was 
 capable of sinking it. Brought down upon a 
 group of men on a sudden, it produced consterna- 
 tion and death .” 1 This is a most remarkable 
 feature in the narrative, for it shows us the Ice- 
 landic writer (here manifestly controlled by some 
 authoritative source of information) describing a 
 very strange mode of fighting, which we know 
 to have been characteristic of the Algonquins. 
 Karlsefni’s men do not seem to have relished this 
 outlandish style of fighting ; they retreated along 
 the river bank until they came to a favourable situ- 
 ation among some rocks, where they made a stand 
 and beat off their swarming assailants. The lat- 
 ter, as soon as they found themselves losing many 
 warriors without gaining their point, suddenly 
 
 uuit. Hac re terrore perculsus est Karlsefnius suique omnes, ut 
 nihil aliud cuperent quam fugere et gradum referre sursum secun- 
 dum fluvium : credebant enim se ab Skraelingis undique circum- 
 veniri. Hinc non gradum stitere, priusquam ad rupes quasdam 
 pervenissent, ubi acriter resistebant.” Rafn, p. 153. 
 
 1 Schoolcraft, Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge , Philadelphia, 
 1860, 6 vols. 4to, vol. i. p. 89 ; a figure of this weapon is given in 
 the same volume, plate xv. fig. 2, from a careful description 
 by Chingwauk, an Algonquin chief. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 193 
 
 turned and fled to their canoes, and paddled away 
 with astonishing celerity. Throughout the account 
 it seems to me perfectly clear that we are dealing 
 with Indians. 
 
 The coexistence of so many unmistakable marks 
 of truth in our narratives may fairly be said to 
 amount to a demonstration that they must be de- 
 rived, through some eminently trustworthy chan- 
 nel, from the statements of intelligent eye-wit- 
 nesses who took part in the events related. Here 
 and there, no doubt, we come upon some improb- 
 able incident or a touch of superstition, such as 
 we need not go back to the eleventh 
 century to rind very common among sea- 
 men’s narratives ; but the remarkable thing in the 
 present case is that there are so few such features. 
 One fabulous creature is mentioned. Thorfinn and 
 his men saw from their vessel a glittering speck 
 upon the shore at an opening in the woods. They 
 hailed it, whereupon the creature proceeded to per- 
 form the quite human act of shooting an arrow, 
 which killed the man at the helm. The narrator 
 calls it a “uniped,” or some sort of one-footed 
 goblin , 1 but that is hardly reasonable, for after the 
 shooting it went on to perform the further quite 
 human and eminently Indian-like act of running 
 away . 2 Evidently this discreet “ uniped ” was im- 
 pressed with the desirableness of living to fight 
 
 1 Rafn, p. 160 ; De Costa, p. 134 ; Storm, p. 330. 
 
 2 Here the narrator seems determined to give 118 a genuine 
 smack of the marvellous, for when the fleeing uniped comes to a 
 place where his retreat seems cut off by an arm of the sea, he 
 runs (glides, or hops ?) across the water without sinking. In 
 Vigfusson’s version, however, the marvellous is eliminated, and 
 
194 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 another day. In a narrative otherwise character- 
 ized by sobriety, such an instance of fancy, even 
 supposing it to have come down from the original 
 sources, counts for as much or as little as Henry 
 Hudson’s description of a mermaid . 1 
 
 It is now time for a few words upon the charac- 
 ter of the records upon which our story is based. 
 And first, let us remark upon a possible source of 
 misapprehension due to the associations with which 
 a certain Norse word has been clothed. The old 
 Norse narrative - writings are called “sagas,” a 
 word which we are in the habit of using in Eng- 
 lish as equivalent to legendary or semi-mythical 
 Misleading narratives. To cite a “ saga ” as author- 
 wTth Ci th?word ity for a statement seems, therefore, to 
 “saga.” some people as inadmissible as to cite a 
 fairy-tale ; and I cannot help suspecting that to 
 some such misleading association of ideas is due 
 the particular form of the opinion expressed some 
 time ago by a committee of the Massachusetts 
 Historical Society, — “ that there is the same sort 
 of reason for believing in the existence of Leif 
 Ericsson that there is for believing in the exist- 
 ence of Agamemnon. They are both traditions 
 
 the creature simply runs over the stubble and disappears. The 
 incident is evidently an instance where the narrative has been 
 ‘ ‘ embellished ’ ’ by introducing a feature from ancient classical 
 writers. The “Monocoli,” or one-legged people, are mentioned 
 by Pliny, Hist. Nat., vii. 2 : “ Item hominum genus qui Monocoli 
 voearentur, singulis cruribus, mirse pernicitatis ad saltum.” Cf. 
 Aulus Gellius, Nodes Atticce, viii. 4. 
 
 1 Between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, June 15, 1608. For 
 the description, with its droll details, see Purchas his Pil grimes, 
 iii. 575. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 195 
 
 accepted by later writers, and there is no more 
 
 reason for regarding as true the details 
 
 related about the discoveries of the for- comparaon 
 
 . , * i • p , • i . between Leif 
 
 mer than there is tor accepting as his- Ericsson and 
 toric truth the narrative contained in Agarnemnon 
 the Homeric poems.” The report goes on to ob- 
 serve that “it is antecedently probable that the 
 Northmen discovered America in the early part of 
 the eleventh century ; and this discovery is con- 
 firmed by the same sort of historical tradition, not 
 strong enough to be called evidence, upon which 
 our belief in many of the accepted facts of history 
 rests.” 1 The second of these statements is char- 
 acterized by critical moderation, and expresses the 
 inevitable and wholesome reaction against the rash 
 enthusiasm of Professor Rafn half a century ago, 
 and the vagaries of many an uninstructed or un- 
 critical writer since his time. But the first state- 
 ment is singularly unfortunate. It would be diffi- 
 cult to find a comparison more inappropriate than 
 that between Agamemnon and Leif, between the 
 Iliad and the Saga of Eric the Red. The story of 
 the Trojan War and its heroes, as we have it in 
 Homer and the Athenian dramatists, is pure folk- 
 lore as regards form, and chiefly folk- 
 lore as regards contents. It is in a 
 high degree probable that this mass of hive it* k 6 
 folk-lore surrounds a kernel of plain pure folk ' lore - 
 fact, that in times long before the first Olympiad 
 an actual “ king of men ” at Mycenae conducted an 
 expedition against the great city by the Simois, 
 that the Agamemnon of the poet stands in some 
 1 Proceedings Mass. Hist. Soc., December, 1887. 
 
196 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 such relation toward this chieftain as that in which 
 the Charlemagne of mediaeval romance stands to- 
 ward the mighty Emperor of the West . 1 Never- 
 theless the story, as we have it, is simply folk-lore. 
 If the Iliad and Odyssey contain faint reminis- 
 cences of actual events, these events are so inex- 
 tricably wrapped up with mythical phraseology 
 that by no cunning of the scholar can they be con- 
 strued into history. The motives and capabilities 
 of the actors and the conditions under which they 
 accomplish their destinies are such as exist only in 
 fairy-tales. Their world is as remote from that 
 in which we live as the world of Sindbad and Ca- 
 maralzaman ; and this is not essentially altered by 
 the fact that Homer introduces us to definite local- 
 ities and familiar customs as often as the Irish 
 legends of Finn M’Cumhail . 2 
 
 It would be hard to find anything more unlike 
 such writings than the class of Icelandic sagas to 
 which that of Eric the Ked belongs. Here we 
 have quiet and sober narrative, not in 
 
 The Saga of . 
 
 Eric the Red is the least like a fairy-tale, but often much 
 like a ship s log. Whatever such nar- 
 rative may be, it is not folk-lore. In act and 
 motive, in its conditions and laws, its world is the 
 every-day world in which we live. If now and 
 then a “ uniped ” happens to stray into it, the in- 
 
 1 I used this argument twenty years ago in qualification of the 
 over-zealous solarizing views of Sir G. W. Cox and others. See 
 my Myths and MythmaJcers, pp. 191-202 ; and cf. Freeman on 
 “ The Mythical and Romantic Elements in Early English History, ’ ’ 
 in his Historical Essays, i. 1-39. 
 
 2 Curtin, Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, pp. 12, 204, 303 ; 
 Kennedy, Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts, pp. 203-311. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 197 
 
 congruity is as conspicuous as in the case of Hud- 
 son’s mermaid, or a ghost in a modem country 
 inn ; whereas in the Homeric fabric the super- 
 natural is warp and woof. To assert a likeness 
 between two kinds of literature so utterly different 
 is to go very far astray. 
 
 As already observed, I suspect that misleading 
 associations with the word “ saga ” may have 
 exerted an unconscious influence in producing this 
 particular kind of blunder, — for it is nothing less 
 than a blunder. Resemblance is tacitly assumed 
 between the Iliad and an Icelandic saga. Well, 
 between the Iliad and some Icelandic sagas there 
 is a real and strong resemblance. In truth these 
 sagas are divisible into two well marked and 
 sharply contrasted classes. In the one class be- 
 long the Eddie Lays, and the mythical sagas , such 
 as the Volsunga, the stories of Ragnar, Mythical and 
 Frithiof, and others ; and along with historical 
 these, though totally different in source, 
 we may for our present purpose group the roman- 
 tic sagas , such as Parceval, Remund, Karlamag- 
 nus, and others brought from southern Europe. 
 These are alike in being composed of legendary 
 and mythical materials ; they belong essentially to 
 the literature of folk-lore. In the other class 
 come the historical sagas , such as those of Njal 
 and Egil, the Sturlunga, and many others, with 
 the numerous biographies and annals . 1 These 
 
 1 Nowhere can you find a more masterly critical account of 
 Icelandic literature than in Vigfusson’s “ Prolegomena ” to his 
 edition of Sturlunga Saga, Oxford, 1878, vol. i. pp. ix.-ccxiv. 
 There is a good hut very brief account in Horn’s History of the 
 
198 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 writings give us history, and often very good his- 
 tory indeed. “ Saga ” meant simply any kind of 
 literature in narrative form; the good people of 
 Iceland did not happen to have such a handy 
 word as “ history,” which they could keep entire 
 when they meant it in sober earnest and chop 
 down into “ story” when they meant it otherwise. 
 It is very much as if we were to apply the same 
 word to the Arthur legends and to William of 
 Malmesbury’s judicious and accurate chronicles, 
 and call them alike “ stories.” 
 
 The narrative upon which our account of the 
 Yinland voyages is chiefly based belongs to the 
 class of historical sagas. It is the Saga of Eric 
 the Red, and it exists in two different versions, of 
 which one seems to have been made in the north, 
 the other in the west, of Iceland. The western 
 version is the earlier and in some respects the 
 The western or k e tt er * It is found in two vellums, that 
 versk)n b of k Eric great collection known as Hauks- 
 
 the Red’s saga, (AM. 544), and that which is 
 simply known as AM. 557 from its catalogue 
 number in Arni Magnusson’s collection. Of these 
 the former, which is the best preserved, was writ- 
 ten in a beautiful hand by Hauk Erlendsson, 
 between 1805 and 1884, the year of his death. 
 This western version is the one which has generally 
 been printed under the title, “ Saga of Thorfinn 
 Karlsefni.” It is the one to which I have most 
 frequently referred in the present chapter. 1 
 
 Literature of the Scandinavian North, transl. by R. B. Anderson, 
 Chicago, 1884, pp. 50-70. 
 
 1 It is printed in Rafn, pp. 84-187, and in Gronlands historiske 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 199 
 
 The northern version is that which was made 
 about the year 1387 by the priest Jon Thordhar- 
 son, and contained in the famous compilation 
 known as the Flateyar-boh , or “ Flat Island 
 Book.” 1 This priest was editing the _ 
 
 F ° . The northern 
 
 saga of King Olaf Tryggvesson, which or F^yar- 
 is contained in that compilation, and 
 inasmuch as Leif Ericsson’s presence at King 
 Olaf’s court was connected both with the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity into Greenland and with the 
 discovery of Vinland, Jon paused, after the man- 
 ner of mediaeval chroniclers, and inserted then and 
 there what he knew about Eric and Leif and Thor- 
 finn. In doing this, he used parts of the original 
 saga of Eric the Red (as we find it reproduced in 
 the western version), and added thereunto a con- 
 siderable amount of material concerning the Vin- 
 land voyages derived from other sources. Jon’s 
 version thus made has generally been printed under 
 the title, “ Saga of Eric the Red.” 2 
 
 Now the older version, written at the begin- 
 ning of the fourteenth century, gives an account 
 of things which happened three centuries before it 
 was written. A cautious scholar will, as a rule, be 
 slow to consider any historical narrative as quite 
 
 Mindesmcerker , i. 352-443. The most essential part of it may 
 now be found, under its own name, in Vigfusson’s Icelandic Prose 
 Reader , pp. 123-140. 
 
 1 It belonged to a man who lived on Flat Island, in one of the 
 Iceland fiords. 
 
 2 It is printed in Rafn, pp. 1-76, under the title “ Thaettir af 
 Eireki Rauda ok Graenlendlngum.” For a critical account of 
 these versions, see Storm, op. cit. pp. 319-325 ; I do not, in all re- 
 spects, follow him in his depreciation of the Flateyar-b6k version. 
 
200 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 satisfactory authority, even when it contains no im- 
 Presumption probable statements, unless it is nearly 
 sources not contemporary with the events which it 
 contemporary. recorc [ s< Such was the rule laid down 
 by the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis, and it 
 is a very good rule ; the proper application of it 
 has disencumbered history of much rubbish. At 
 the same time, like all rules, it should be used with 
 judicious caution and not allowed to run away with 
 us. As applied by Lewis to Eoman history it 
 would have swept away in one great cataclysm not 
 only kings and decemvirs, but Brennus and his 
 Gauls to boot, and left us with nothing to swear 
 by until the invasion of Pyrrhus . 1 Subsequent re- 
 search has shown that this was going altogether too 
 far. The mere fact of distance in time between a 
 document and the events which it records is only 
 negative testimony against its value, for it may be 
 a faithful transcript of some earlier document or 
 documents since lost. It is so difficult to prove 
 a negative that the mere lapse of time simply 
 raises a presumption the weight of which should 
 be estimated by a careful survey of all the prob- 
 abilities in the case. Among the many Icelandic 
 vellums that are known to have perished 2 there 
 
 1 Lewis’s Inquiry into the Credibility of the Early Roman His- 
 tory , 2 vols., London, 1855. 
 
 2 And notably in that terrible fire of October, 1728, which 
 consumed the University Library at Copenhagen, and broke the 
 heart of the noble collector of manuscripts, Arni Magnusson. The 
 great eruption of Hecla in 1390 overwhelmed two famous home- 
 steads in the immediate neighbourhood. From the local history 
 of these homesteads and their inmates, Vigfusson thinks it not 
 unlikely that some records may still be there ‘ 1 awaiting the spade 
 and pickaxe of a new Schliemann.” Sturlunga Saga , p. cliv. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 201 
 
 may well have been earlier copies of Eric the 
 Red’s Saga. 
 
 Hauk Erlendsson reckoned himself a direct de- 
 scendant, in the eighth generation, from Snorro, 
 son of Thorfinn and Gudrid, bom in Vinland. 
 He was an important personage in Iceland, a man 
 of erudition, author of a brief book of contempo- 
 rary annals and a treatise on arithmetic in which 
 he introduced the Arabic numerals into Iceland. 
 In those days the lover of books, if he 
 would add them to his library, might sod and bis 
 
 , i , • . . , manuscripts. 
 
 now and then obtain an original manu- 
 script, but usually he had to copy them or have 
 them copied by hand. The Hauks-bok, with its 
 200 skins, one of the most extensive Icelandic vel- 
 lums now in existence, is really Hauk’s private 
 library, or what there is left of it, and it shows that 
 he was a man who knew how to make a good 
 choice of books. He did a good deal of his copy- 
 ing himself, and also employed two clerks in the 
 same kind of work. 1 
 
 Now I do not suppose it will occur to any 
 rational being to suggest that Hauk may have 
 written down his version of Eric the Red’s Saga 
 from an oral tradition nearly three centuries old. 
 The narrative could not have been so long pre- 
 served in its integrity, with so little extravagance 
 of statement and so many marks of truthfulness in 
 details foreign to ordinary Icelandic experience, if 
 
 1 An excellent facsimile of Hauk’s handwriting is given in 
 Rafn, tab. iii., lower part ; tab. iv. and the upper part of tab. 
 iii. are in the hands of his two amanuenses. See Vigfusson, 
 op. cit. p. clxi. 
 
202 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 it had been entrusted to oral tradition alone. One 
 might as well try to imagine Drake’s 
 not likely to “World Encompassed” handed down 
 sjpvedTo pre * by oral tradition from the days of Queen 
 by oral tradi- Elizabeth to the days of Queen Victoria. 
 
 Such transmission is possible enough 
 with heroic poems and folk-tales, which deal with 
 a few dramatic situations and a stock of mythical 
 conceptions familiar at every fireside ; but in a 
 simple matter-of-fact record of sailors’ observa- 
 tions and experiences on a strange coast, oral 
 tradition would not be long in distorting and 
 jumbling the details into a result quite undecipher- 
 able. The story of the Zeno brothers, presently to 
 be cited, shows what strange perversions occur, 
 even in written tradition^ when the copyist, instead 
 of faithfully copying records of unfamiliar events, 
 tries to edit and amend them. One cannot reason- 
 ably doubt that Hauk’s vellum of Eric the Red’s 
 Saga, with its many ear-marks of truth above men- 
 tioned, was copied by him — and quite carefully 
 and faithfully withal — from some older vellum 
 not now forthcoming. 
 
 As we have no clue, however, beyond the inter- 
 nal evidence, to the age or character of the sources 
 from which Hauk copied, there is nothing left for 
 Allusions to us to do but to look into other Icelandic 
 
 othS n docu- documents, to see if anywhere they be- 
 
 ments. tray a knowledge of Vinland and the 
 
 voyages thither. Incidental references to Vinland, 
 in narratives concerned with other matters, are of 
 great significance in this connection ; for they im- 
 ply on the part of the narrator a presumption that 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 203 
 
 his readers understand such references, and that it 
 is not necessary to interrupt his story in order to 
 explain them. Such incidental references imply 
 the existence, during the interval between the 
 Vinland voyages and Hauk’s manuscript, of many 
 intermediate links of sound testimony that have 
 since dropped out of sight ; and therefore they go 
 far toward removing whatever presumption may 
 be alleged against Hauk’s manuscript because of 
 its distance from the events. 
 
 Now the Eyrbyggja Saga, written between 1230 
 and 1260, is largely devoted to the settlement of 
 Iceland, and is full of valuable notices of the hear 
 then institutions and customs of the tenth cen- 
 tury. The Eyrbyggja, having occasion Eyrtmja 
 to speak of Thorbrand Snorrason, ob- 8aga - 
 serves incidentally that he went from Greenland 
 to Vinland with Karlsefni and was killed; in a bat- 
 tle with the Skrselings. 1 We have already men- 
 tioned the death of this Thorbrand, and how Frey- 
 dis found his body in the woods. 
 
 Three Icelandic tracts on geography, between 
 the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, mention Hel- 
 luland and Vinland, and in two of these accounts 
 Markland is interposed between Helluland and 
 Vinland. 2 One of these tracts mentions the voy- 
 ages of Leif, and Thorfinn. It forms part of an 
 essay called “ Guide to the Holy Land,” by Nik- 
 
 1 Vigfusson, Eyrbyggja Saga , pp. 91, 92. Another of Karlsef- 
 ni’s comrades, Thorhall Gamlason, is mentioned in Grettis Saga , 
 Copenhagen, 1859, pp. 22, 70 ; he went hack to Iceland, settled 
 on a farm there, and was known for the rest of his life as “ the 
 Vinlander.” See above, pp. 165, 168. 
 
 2 Werlauf, Symbolce ad Geogr. Medii jEvi, Copenhagen, 1820. 
 
204 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 ulas Saemundsson, abbot of Thvera, in the north 
 The abbot Iceland, who died 1159. This Nik- 
 Nikuias, etc. u i as was cur i 0 us in matters of geogra- 
 phy, and had travelled extensively. 
 
 With the celebrated Ari Thorgilsson, usually 
 known as Frodhi, “ the learned,’’ we come to tes- 
 timony nearly contemporaneous in time and ex- 
 tremely valuable in character. This erudite priest, 
 born in 1067, was the founder of historical writing 
 in Iceland. He was the principal author of the 
 “ Landnama-bok,” already mentioned as a work 
 of thorough and painstaking research 
 unequalled in mediaeval literature. His 
 other principal works were the “ Konunga-bok,” 
 or chronicle of the kings of Norway, and the 
 “ Islendinga-bok,” or description of Iceland. 1 Ari’s 
 books, written not in monkish Latin, but in a good 
 vigorous vernacular, were a mine of information 
 from which all subsequent Icelandic historians 
 were accustomed to draw such treasures as they 
 needed. To his diligence and acumen they were 
 all, from Snorro Sturlason down, very much in- 
 debted. He may be said to have given the tone 
 to history-writing in Iceland, and it was a high 
 tone. 
 
 Unfortunately Ari’s Islendinga-bok has per- 
 ished. One cannot help suspecting that it may 
 have contained the contemporary materials from 
 which Eric the Red’s Saga in the Hauks-bok was 
 
 1 For a critical estimate of Ari’s literary activity and the ex- 
 tent of his work, the reader is referred to Mobius, Are's Islander- 
 buck , , Leipsic, 1869; Maurer, “Uber Ari Thorgilsson und sein 
 Islanderbuch,” in Germania, xv. ; Olsen, Ari Thorgilsson hinn 
 Frddhi, Reykjavik, 1889, pp. 214-240. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES . 
 
 205 
 
 ultimately drawn. For Ari made an abridgment 
 or epitome of bis great book, and this epitome, 
 commonly known as “ Libellus Islandorum,” still 
 survives. In it Ari makes brief mention of Green- 
 land, and refers to his paternal uncle, Thorkell 
 Gellison, as authority for his statements. This 
 Thorkell Gellison, of Helgafell, a man of high 
 consideration who flourished about the 
 middle of the eleventh century, had vis- 
 ited Greenland and talked with one of to VlDland ' 
 the men who accompanied Eric when he went to 
 settle in Brattahlid in 986. From this source Ari 
 gives us the interesting information that Eric’s 
 party found in Greenland “ traces of human habi- 
 tations, fragments of boats, and stone implements ; 
 so from this one might conclude that people of the 
 kind who inhabited Vinland and were known by 
 the (Norse) Greenlanders as Skrselings must have 
 roamed about there.” 1 Observe the force of this 
 allusion. The settlers in Greenland did not at 
 first (nor for a long time) meet with barbarous or 
 savage natives there, but only with the vestiges of 
 their former presence. But when Ari wrote the 
 above passage, the memory of Viniand and its 
 fierce Skrselings was still fresh, and Ari very prop- 
 erly inferred from the archaeological remains in 
 
 1 Their “ fundo thar manna vister bsethi austr ok vestr d landi 
 ok kaeiplabrot ok steinsmlthi, that es af thvi md scilja, at thar 
 hafdhi thessconar thjdth farith es Vinland hefer bygt, ok Grsen- 
 lendlnger calla Skrellnga,” i. e. “ invenerunt ibi, tam in orientali 
 quam occidentali terras parte, humanse habitation is vestigia, navi- 
 cularum fragmenta et opera fabrilia ex lapide, ex quo intelligi 
 potest, ibi versatum esse nationem quae Vinlandiam incoluit quam- 
 que Greenlandi Skraelingos appellant.” Rain, p. 207- 
 
206 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Greenland that a people similar (in point of bar- 
 barism) to the Skraelings must have been there. 
 Unless Ari and his readers had a distinct recollec- 
 tion of the accounts of Yinland, such a reference 
 would have been only an attempt to explain the 
 less obscure by the more obscure. It is to be re- 
 gretted that we have in this book no more allusions 
 to Yinland; but if Ari could only leave us one 
 such allusion, he surely could not have made that 
 one more pointed. 
 
 But this is not quite the only reference that Ari 
 makes to Yinland. There are three others that 
 must in all probability be assigned to him. Two 
 occur in the Landnama-bok, the first in a pas- 
 sage where mention is made of Ari Marsson’s voy- 
 age to a place in the western ocean near Yin- 
 land ; 1 the only point in this allusion which need 
 here concern us is that Yinland is tacitly assumed 
 other refer- t° a known geographical situation to 
 
 ences. which others may be referred. The sec- 
 
 ond reference occurs in one of those elaborate and 
 minutely specific genealogies in the Landnama- 
 bok : “ Their son was Thordhr Hest-hofdhi, fa- 
 ther of Karlsefni, who found Yinland the Good, 
 Snorri’s father,” etc. 2 The third reference occurs 
 in the Kristni Saga, a kind of supplement to the 
 Landnama-bok, giving an account of the intro- 
 duction of Christianity into Iceland ; here it is re- 
 lated how Leif Ericsson came to be called “ Leif 
 the Lucky,” 1. from having rescued a shipwrecked 
 crew off the coast of Greenland, 2. from having 
 
 1 Landnama-bdJc , part ii. chap. xxii. 
 
 2 Id. part iii. chap. x. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 207 
 
 discovered “ Yinland the Good.” 1 From these 
 brief allusions, and from the general relation in 
 which Ari Frodhi stood to later writers, I suspect 
 that if the greater Islendinga-bok had survived 
 to our time we should have found in it more about 
 Yinland and its discoverers. At any rate, as to 
 the existence of a definite and continuous tradition 
 all the way from Ari down to Hauk Erlendsson, 
 there can be no question whatever . 2 
 
 1 Kristni Saga, apud Biskupa Sogur , Copenhagen, 1858, vol. i. 
 
 p. 20. 
 
 2 Indeed, the parallel existence of the Flateyar-b<5k version of 
 Eric the Red’s Saga, alongside of the Hauks-b<5k version, is pretty 
 good proof of the existence of a written account older than Hank’s 
 time. The discrepancies between the two versions are such as to 
 show that J<5n Thordharson did not copy from Hauk, but followed 
 some other version not now forthcoming. J<5n mentions six voy- 
 ages in connection with Vinland : 1. Bjami Herjulfsson ; 2. Leif ; 
 3. Thorvald ; 4. Thorstein and Gudrid ; 5. Thorfinn Karlsefni ; 
 6. Freydis. Hauk, on the other hand, mentions only the two 
 principal voyages, those of Leif and Thorfinn ; ignoring Bjarni, 
 he accredits his adventures to Leif on his return voyage from 
 Norway in 999, and he makes Thorvald a comrade of Thorfinn, 
 and mixes his adventures with the events of Thorfinn’s voyage. 
 Dr. Storm considers Hauk’s account intrinsically the more prob- 
 able, and thinks that in the Flateyar-b<5k we have a later amplifi- 
 cation of the tradition. But while I agree with Dr. Storm as to 
 the general superiority of the Hauk version, I am not convinced 
 by his arguments on this point. It seems to me likely that the 
 Flateyar-b<5k here preserves more faithfully the details of an older 
 tradition too summarily epitomized in the Hauks-b<5k. As the 
 point in no way affects the general conclusions of the present 
 chapter, it is hardly worth arguing here. The main thing for us 
 is that the divergencies between the two versions, when coupled 
 with their agreement in the most important features, indicate 
 that both writers were working upon the basis of an antecedent 
 written tradition, like the authors of the first and third synoptic 
 gospels. Only here, of course, there are in the divergencies no 
 symptoms of what the Tubingen school would call “ tendenz ,” 
 impairing and obscuring to an indeterminate extent the general 
 
208 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 The testimony of Adam of Bremen brings us yet 
 one generation nearer to the Yinland voyages, and 
 Adam of Bre- is very significant. Adam was much 
 interested in the missionary work in 
 the north of Europe, and in 1078, the same year 
 that Hildebrand was elected to the papacy, he pub- 
 lished his famous “ Historia Ecclesiastical ’ in 
 which he gave an account of the conversion of the 
 northern nations from the time of Leo III. to that 
 of Hildebrand’s predecessor. In prosecuting his 
 studies, Adam made a visit to the court of Swend 
 Estridhsen, king of Denmark, nephew of Cnut the 
 Great, king of Denmark and England. Swend’s 
 reign began in 1047, so that Adam’s visit must 
 have occurred between that date and 1073. The 
 voyage of Leif and Thorfinn would at that time 
 have been within the memory of living men, and 
 would be likely to be known in Denmark, because 
 the intercourse between the several parts of the 
 Scandinavian world was incessant ; there was con- 
 tinual coming and going. Adam learned what he 
 could of Scandinavian geography, and when he 
 published his history, he did just what a modern 
 writer would do under similar circumstances; he 
 appended to his book some notes on the geography 
 of those remote countries, then so little known to 
 his readers in central and southern Europe. After 
 giving some account of Denmark, Sweden, and 
 Norway, he describes the colony in Iceland, and 
 
 trustworthiness of the narratives. On the whole, it is pretty clear 
 that Hauks-b(5k and Flateyar-b<$k were independent of each other, 
 and collated, each in its own way, earlier documents that have 
 probably since perished. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 209 
 
 then the further colony in Greenland, and con- 
 cludes by saying that out in that ocean there is an- 
 other country, or island, which has been visited by 
 many persons, and is called Vinland because of 
 wild grapes that grow there, out of which a very 
 good wine can be made. Either rumour had exag- 
 gerated the virtues of fox-grape juice, or the 
 Northmen were not such good judges of wine as of 
 ale. Adam goes on to say that corn, likewise, 
 grows in Vinland without cultivation ; and as such 
 a statement to European readers must needs have 
 a smack of falsehood, he adds that it is based not 
 upon fable and guess-work, but upon “trustworthy 
 reports ( certa relatione) of the Danes.” 
 
 Scanty as it is, this single item of strictly con- 
 temporary testimony is very important, because 
 quite incidentally it gives to the later accounts such 
 confirmation as to show that they rest upon a solid 
 basis of continuous tradition and not upon mere 
 unintelligent hearsay . 1 The unvarying character 
 of the tradition, in its essential details, indicates 
 that it must have been committed to writing at a 
 very early period, probably not later than the time 
 of Ari’s uncle Thorkell, who was contemporary 
 with Adam of Bremen. If, however, we read the 
 
 1 It is further interesting as the only undoubted reference to 
 Vinland in a mediaeval book written beyond the limits of the 
 Scandinavian world. There is also, however, a passage in Orderi- 
 cus Vitalis ( Historia Ecclesiastica, iv. 29), in which Finland and 
 the Orkneys, along with Greenland and Iceland, are loosely de- 
 scribed as forming part of the dominions of the kings of Norway. 
 This Finland does not appear to refer to the country of the Finns, 
 east of the Baltic, and it has been supposed that it may have been 
 meant for Vinland. The book of Ordericus was written about 
 1140. 
 
210 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 whole passage in which Adam’s mention of Yinland 
 occurs, it is clear from the context that his own 
 information was not derived from an inspection of 
 Icelandic documents. He got it, as he tells us, by 
 talking with King Swend ; and all that he got, or 
 all that he thought worth telling, was this curious 
 fact about vines and self-sown corn growing so 
 
 near to Greenland; for Adam quite 
 
 Adam’s mis- . . . 
 
 conception of misconceived the situation of Yinland, 
 
 the situation. . . . 
 
 and imagined it far up m the frozen 
 North. After his mention of Yinland, the conti- 
 nental character of which he evidently did not sus- 
 pect, he goes on immediately to say, “After this 
 island nothing inhabitable is to be found in that 
 ocean, all being covered with unendurable ice and 
 boundless darkness.” That most accomplished 
 king, Harold Hardrada, says Adam, tried not 
 long since to ascertain how far the northern ocean 
 extended, and plunged along through this darkness 
 until he actually reached the end of the world, and 
 came near tumbling off ! 1 Thus the worthy Adam, 
 
 1 The passage irom Adam of Bremen deserves to be quoted in 
 full : “ Praeterea unam adhue insulam [regionam] recitavit [i. e. 
 Svendus rex] a multis in eo repertam oceano, quae dicitur Yin- 
 land, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum bonum gerentes 
 [ferentes] ; nam et fruges ibi non seminatas abundare, non fabu- 
 losa opinione, sed certa comperimus relatione Danorum. Post 
 quam insulam terra nulla invenitur habitabilis in illo oceano, sed 
 omnia quae ultra sunt glacie intolerabili ac caligine immensa 
 plena sunt ; cujus rei Marcianus ita meminit : ultra Thyle, in- 
 quiens, navigare unius diei mare concretum est. Tentavit hoc 
 nuper experientissimus Nordmannorum princeps Haroldus, qui 
 latitudinem septentrionalis oceani perscrutatus navibus, tandem 
 caligantibus ante ora deficientis mundi finibus, immane abyssi 
 baratrum, retroactis vestigiis, vix salvus evasit.’' Descriptio in - 
 sularum aquilonis , cap. 38, apud Hist. Ecclesiastica, iv. ed. Lin- 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 211 
 
 while telling the truth about fox-grapes and maize 
 as well as he knew how, spoiled the effect of his 
 story by putting Vinland in the Arctic regions. 
 The juxtaposition of icebergs and vines was a little 
 too close even for the mediaeval mind so hospitable 
 to strange yarns. Adam’s readers generally dis- 
 believed the “trustworthy reports of the Danes,” 
 and when they thought of Vinland at all, doubt- 
 less thought of it as somewhere near the North 
 Pole . 1 We shall do well to bear this in mind when 
 we come to consider the possibility of Columbus 
 having obtained from Adam of Bremen any hint 
 in the least likely to be of use in his own enter- 
 prise . 2 
 
 To sum up the argument : — we have in Eric the 
 Red’s Saga, as copied by Hauk Erlends- summary of 
 son, a document for the existence of the ar & ument - 
 which we are required to account. That document 
 
 denbrog, Leyden, 1595. No such voyage is known to have been 
 undertaken by Harold of Norway, nor is it likely. Adam was 
 probably thinking of an Arctic voyage undertaken by one Thorir 
 under the auspices of King Harold ; one of the company brought 
 back a polar bear and gave it to King Swend, who was much 
 pleased with it. See Rafn, 339. “ Regionam ” and “ ferentes ” 
 
 in the above extract are variant readings found in some editions. 
 
 1 “ Det har imidlertid ikke forhindret de senere forfattere, der 
 benyttede Adam, fra at blive mistaenksomme, og saalaenge Adams 
 beretning stod alene, har man i regelen vsegret sig for at tro den. 
 Endog den norske forfatter, der skrev ‘ Historia Norvegiae ’ og 
 somforuden Adam vel ogsaa har kjendt de hjemlige sagn om Vin- 
 land, maa have anseet beretningen for fabelagtig og derfor for- 
 bigaaet den ; han kjendte altf or godt Gr0nland som et nordligt 
 isfyldt Polarland til at ville tro paa, at i naerheden fandtes et 
 Vinland.” Storm, in Aarbpger for NordisJc Oldkyndighed, etc., 
 Copenhagen, 1887, p. 300. 
 
 2 See below, p. 386. 
 
212 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 contains unmistakable knowledge of some things 
 which mediaeval Europeans could by no human 
 possibility have learned, except through a visit to 
 some part of the coast of North America further 
 south than Labrador or Newfoundland. It tells 
 an eminently probable story in a simple, straight- 
 forward way, agreeing in its details with what we 
 know of the North American coast between Point 
 Judith and Cape Breton. Its general accuracy 
 in the statement and grouping of so many remote 
 details is proof that its statements were controlled 
 by an exceedingly strong and steady tradition, — 
 altogether too strong and steady, in my opinion, to 
 have been maintained simply by word of mouth. 
 These Icelanders were people so much given to 
 writing that their historic records during the Mid- 
 dle Ages were, as the late Sir Richard Burton 
 truly observed, more complete than those of any 
 other country in Europe . 1 It is probable that the 
 facts mentioned in Hauk’s document rested upon 
 some kind of a written basis as early as the elev- 
 enth century; and it seems quite clear that the 
 constant tradition, by which all the allusions to 
 V inland and the Skrselings are controlled, had be- 
 come established by that time. The data are more 
 scanty than we could wish, but they all point in 
 the same direction as surely as straws blown by a 
 steady wind, and their cumulative force is so great 
 as to fall but little short of demonstration. For 
 these reasons it seems to me that the Saga of Eric 
 the Red should be accepted as history; and there 
 is another reason which might not have counted 
 1 Burton, Ultima Thule , London, 1875, i. 237. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 213 
 
 for much at the beginning of this discussion, but 
 at the end seems quite solid and worthy of respect. 
 The narrative begins with the colonization of 
 Greenland and goes on with the visits to Vinland. 
 It is unquestionably sound history for the first 
 part; why should it be anything else for the second 
 part? What shall be said of a style of criticism 
 which, in dealing with one and the same document, 
 arbitrarily cuts it in two in the middle and calls 
 the first half history and the last half legend? 
 which accepts its statements as serious so long as 
 they keep to the north of the sixtieth parallel, and 
 dismisses them as idle as soon as they pass to the 
 south of it ? Quite contrary to common sense, I 
 should say. 
 
 The only discredit which has been thrown upon 
 the story of the Yinland voyages, in the eyes either 
 of scholars or of the general public, has arisen 
 from the eager credulity with which ingenious an- 
 tiquarians have now and then tried to A b8urd gpecu- 
 prove more than facts will warrant. It 
 is peculiarly a case in which the ju- 
 dicious historian has had frequent occasion to 
 exclaim, Save me from my friends ! The only 
 fit criticism upon the wonderful argument from 
 the Dighton inscription is a reference to the 
 equally wonderful discovery made by Mr. Pick- 
 wick at Cobham ; 1 and when it was attempted, 
 
 1 See Pickwick Papers , chap. xi. I am indebted to Mr. Til- 
 linghast, of Harvard University Library, for calling my attention 
 to a letter from Rev. John Lathrop, of Boston, to Hon. John 
 Davis, August 10, 1809, containing George Washington's opinion 
 of the Dighton inscription. When President Washington visited 
 
214 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 some sixty years ago, to prove that Governor 
 
 Cambridge in the fall of 1789, he was shown about the college 
 buildings by the president and fellows of the university. While 
 in the museum he was observed to “ fix his eye ” upon a full-size 
 copy of the Dighton inscription made by the librarian, James 
 Winthrop. Dr. Lathrop, who happened to be standing near 
 Washington, “ ventured to give the opinion which several learned 
 men had entertained with respect to the origin of the inscription. ” 
 Inasmuch as some of the characters were thought to resemble 
 “oriental” characters, and inasmuch as the ancient Phoenicians 
 had sailed outside of the Pillars of Hercules, it was “ conjec- 
 tured ’ ’ that some Phoenician vessels had sailed into Narragansett 
 bay and up the Taunton river. “ While detained by winds, or 
 other causes now unknown, the people, it has been conjectured, 
 made the inscription, now to be seen on the face of the rock, and 
 which we may suppose to be a record of their fortunes or of their 
 fate.” 
 
 “ After I had given the above account, the President smiled 
 and said he believed the learned gentlemen whom I had men- 
 tioned were mistaken ; and added that in the younger part of his 
 life his business called him to be very much in the wilderness of 
 Virginia, which gave him an opportunity to become acquainted 
 with many of the customs and practices of the Indians. The 
 Indians, he said, had a way of writing and recording their trans- 
 actions, either in war or hunting. When they wished to make 
 any such record, or leave an account of their exploits to any who 
 might come after them, they scraped off the outer bark of a 
 tree, and with a vegetable ink, or a little paint which they car- 
 ried with them, on the smooth surface they wrote in a way that 
 was generally understood by the people of their respective tribes. 
 As he had so often examined the rude way of writing practised 
 by the Indians of Virginia, and observed many of the characters 
 on the inscription then before him so nearly resembled the char- 
 acters used by the Indians, he had no doubt the inscription was 
 made long ago by some natives of America.” Proceedings of 
 Massachusetts Historical Society , vol. x. p. 115. This pleasant an- 
 ecdote shows in a new light Washington’ s accuracy of observa- 
 tion and unfailing common-sense. Such inscriptions have been 
 found by the thousand, scattered over all parts of the United 
 States ; for a learned study of them see Garrick Mallery, “ Pic- 
 tographs of the North American Indians,” Reports of Bureau of 
 Ethnology , iv. 13-256. “ The voluminous discussion upon the 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 215 
 
 Arnold’s old stone windmill at Newport 1 was a 
 tower built by the Northmen, no wonder if the 
 exposure of this rather laughable notion should 
 have led many people to suppose that the story of 
 Leif and Thorfinn had thereby been deprived of 
 some part of its support. But the story never 
 rested upon any such evidence, and does not call 
 for evidence of such sort. There is nothing in the 
 story to indicate that the Northmen ever founded 
 
 Dighton rock inscription,” says Colonel Mallery, “ renders it im- 
 possible wholly to neglect it. ... It is merely a type of Algon- 
 quin rock-carving, not so interesting as many others. ... It is 
 of purely Indian origin, and is executed in the peculiar symbolic 
 character of the Kekeewin,” p. 20. The characters observed 
 by Washington in the Virginia forests would very probably have 
 been of the same type. Judge Davis, to whom Dr. Lathrop’s 
 letter was addressed, published in 1809 a paper maintaining the 
 Indian origin of the Dighton inscription. 
 
 A popular error, once started on its career, is as hard to kill as 
 a cat. Otherwise it would be surprising to find, in so meritorious 
 a book as Oscar Peschel’s Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckun- 
 gen , Stuttgart, 1877, p. 82, an unsuspecting reliance upon Rafn’s 
 ridiculous interpretation of this Algonquin pictograph. In an 
 American writer as well equipped as Peschel, this particular 
 kind of blunder would of course be impossible ; and one is re- 
 minded of Humboldt’s remark, “II est des recherches qui ne 
 peuvent s’ex^euter que pr6s des sources memes.” Examen crit- 
 ique , etc., tom. ii. p. 102. 
 
 In old times, I may add, such vagaries were usually saddled 
 upon the Phoenicians, until since Rafn’s time the Northmen have 
 taken their place as the pack-horses for all sorts of antiquarian 
 “conjecture.” 
 
 1 See Palfrey’s History of New England , vol. i. pp. 57-69 ; 
 Mason’s Reminiscences of Newport , pp. 392-407. Laing ( Heims - 
 kringla, pp. 182-185) thinks the Yankees must have intended to 
 fool Professor Rafn and the Royal Society of Antiquaries at 
 Copenhagen ; “ Those sly rogues of Americans,” says he, “ dearly 
 love a quiet hoax ; ” and he can almost hear them chuckling over 
 their joke in their club-room at Newport. I am afraid these Yan- 
 kees were less rogues and more fools than Mr. Laing makes out. 
 
216 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 forthmen 
 founded a 
 colony in Vin- 
 
 colony in Vinland, or built durable buildings 
 there. The distinction implicitly drawn 
 by Adam of Bremen, who narrates 
 the colonization of Iceland and Green- 
 land, and then goes on to speak of 
 Vinland, not as colonized, but simply 
 as discovered, is a distinction amply borne out by 
 our chronicles. Nowhere is there the slightest hint 
 of a colony or settlement established in Yinland. 
 On the contrary, our plain, business-like narrative 
 tells us that Thorfinn Karlsefni tried to found a 
 colony and failed; and it tells us why he failed. 
 The Indians were too many for him. The North- 
 men of the eleventh century, without firearms, 
 were in much less favourable condition for with- 
 standing the Indians than the Englishmen of the 
 seventeenth ; and at the former period there existed 
 no cause for emigration from Norway and Iceland 
 at all comparable to the economic, political, and 
 religious circumstances which, in a later age, sent 
 thousands of Englishmen to Virginia and New 
 England. The founding of colonies in America 
 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was no 
 pastime ; it was a tale of drudgery, starvation, and 
 bloodshed, that curdles one’s blood to read; more 
 attempts failed than succeeded. Assuredly Thor- 
 finn gave proof of the good sense ascribed to him 
 when he turned his back upon Yinland. But if 
 he or any other Northman had ever succeeded in 
 establishing a colony there, can anybody explain 
 why it should not have stamped the fact of its 
 existence either upon the soil, or upon history, or 
 both, as unmistakably as the colony of Green- 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 217 
 
 land? Archaeological remains of the Northmen 
 abound in Greenland, all the way from Immarti- 
 nek to near Cape Farewell; the existence of one 
 such relic on the North American continent has 
 never yet been proved. Not a single No arch*oio- 
 vestige of the Northmen’s presence here, SKJnJJS! 
 at all worthy of credence, has ever been ^dsoutho! 
 found. The writers who have, from Btrait 
 time to time, mistaken other things for such ves- 
 tiges, have been led astray because they have failed 
 to distinguish between the different conditions of 
 proof in Greenland and in Vinland. As Mr. 
 Laing forcibly put the case, nearly half a century 
 ago, “Greenland was a colony with communica- 
 tions, trade, civil and ecclesiastical establishments, 
 and a considerable population,” for more than four 
 centuries. “Vinland was only visited by flying 
 parties of woodcutters, remaining at the utmost 
 two or three winters, but never settling there per- 
 manently. ... To expect here, as in Greenland, 
 material proofs to corroborate the documentary 
 proofs, is weakening the latter by linking them to 
 a sort of evidence which, from the very nature of 
 the case, — the temporary visits of a ship’s crew, 
 — cannot exist in Vinland, and, as in the case of 
 Greenland, come in to support them .” 1 
 
 The most convincing proof that the Northmen 
 never founded a colony in America, south of 
 Davis strait, is furnished by the total absence of 
 horses, cattle, and other domestic animals from 
 the soil of North America until they were brought 
 hither by the Spanish, French, and English set- 
 1 Laing-, Heimskringla , vol. i. p. 181. 
 
218 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 tiers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 If the Northmen had ever settled in 
 
 If the North- 
 
 men had V inland, they would have brought cat- 
 
 founded a sue- •i-i _ . _ _ . i 
 
 cessfui colony, tie with them, and if their colony had 
 
 they would . i t t . 
 
 have intro- been SUCCeSSIul, it would have intro- 
 duced domes- . _ 
 
 tic cattle into duced such cattle permanently into the 
 
 the North " 
 
 American fauna of the country. Indeed, our nar- 
 rative tells us that Karlsefni’s people 
 “had with them all kinds of cattle, having the 
 intention to settle in the land if they could.” 1 
 Naturally the two things are coupled in the nar- 
 rator’s mind. So the Portuguese carried live- 
 stock in their earliest expeditions to the Atlantic 
 islands ; 2 Columbus brought horses and cows, with 
 vines and all kinds of grain, on his second voyage 
 to the West Indies; 3 when the French, under 
 Baron Lery, made a disastrous attempt to found a 
 colony on or about Cape Breton in 1518, they left 
 behind them, upon Sable island, a goodly stock 
 of cows and pigs, which throve and multiplied 
 long after their owners had gone ; 4 the Pilgrims at 
 Plymouth had cattle, goats, and swine as early as 
 1623. 5 In fact, it would be difficult to imagine a 
 
 1 “ Their hofdhu medh s&r allskonar f&nadh, thviat their setlo- 
 dhu at byg'g'ja landit, ef their msetti that,” i. e., “ illi omne pecu- 
 dum genus secum habuerunt, nam terram, si lieeret, coloniis 
 frequentare cogitarunt.” Rafn, p. 57. 
 
 54 Major, Prince Henry the Navigator , p. 241. 
 
 3 Irving’s Life of Columbus , New York, 1828, vol. i. p. 293. 
 
 4 Histoire chronologique de la Nouvelle France , pp. 40, 58 ; this 
 work, written in 1689 by the Recollet friar Sixte le Tac, has at 
 length been published (Paris, 1888) with notes and other original 
 documents by Eugene R^veillaud. See, also, Laet, Novus Orbis , 
 39. 
 
 8 John Smith, Generali Historic , 247. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 219 
 
 community of Europeans subsisting anywhere for 
 any length of time without domestic animals. We 
 have seen that the Northmen took pains to raise 
 cattle in Greenland, and were quick to comment 
 upon the climate of Yinland as favourable for pas- 
 turage. To suppose that these men ever founded 
 a colony in North America, but did not bring do- 
 mestic animals thither, would be absurd. But it 
 would be scarcely less absurd to suppose that such 
 animals, having been once fairly introduced into 
 the fauna of North America, would afterward have 
 vanished without leaving a vestige of and roch ^ 
 their presence. As for the few cattle ITve c ™n?«h£i 
 for which Thorfinn could find room in ti^of “their 
 his three or four dragon-ships, we may exMeDCe ' 
 easily believe that his people ate them up before 
 leaving the country, especially since we are told 
 they were threatened with famine. But that do- 
 mestic cattle, after being supported on American 
 soil during the length of time involved in the es- 
 tablishment of a successful colony (say, for fifty or 
 a hundred years), should have disappeared without 
 leaving abundant traces of themselves, is simply 
 incredible. Horses and kine are not dependent 
 upon man for their existence ; when left to them- 
 selves, in almost any part of the world, they run 
 wild and flourish in what naturalists call a “feral” 
 state. Thus we find feral horned cattle in the 
 Falkland and in the Ladrone islands, as well as in 
 the ancient Chillingham Park, in Northumber- 
 land; we find feral pigs in Jamaica; feral Euro- 
 pean dogs in La Plata ; feral horses in Turkestan, 
 and also in Mexico, descended from Spanish 
 
220 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 horses . 1 If the Northmen had ever founded a 
 colony in Vinland, how did it happen that the 
 English and French in the seventeenth century, 
 and from that day to this, have never set eyes upon 
 a wild horse, or wild cattle, pigs, or hounds, or 
 any such indication whatever of the former pre- 
 sence of civilized Europeans? I do not recollect 
 ever seeing this argument used before, but it 
 seems to me conclusive. It raises against the hy- 
 pothesis of a Norse colonization in Vinland a pre- 
 sumption extremely difficult if not impossible to 
 overcome . 2 
 
 1 Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication , London, 
 1868, vol. i. pp. 27, 77, 84. 
 
 2 The views of Professor Horsford as to the geographical situ- 
 ation of Vinland and its supposed colonization by Northmen are 
 set forth in his four monographs, Discovery of America by North- 
 men — address at the unveiling of the statue of Leif EriJcsen, etc., 
 Boston, 1888 ,* The Problem of the Northmen , Cambridge, 1889 ; 
 The Discovery of the Ancient City of Norumbega, Boston, 1890 ; 
 The Defences of Norumbega , Boston, 1891. Among Professor 
 Horsford’s conclusions the two principal are: 1. that the “river 
 flowing through a lake into the sea ” (Rafn, p. 147) is Charles 
 river, and that Leif’s booths were erected near the site of the 
 present Cambridge hospital ; 2. that “ Norumbega ” — a word 
 loosely applied by some early explorers to some region or re- 
 gions somewhere between the New Jersey coast and the Bay of 
 Fundy — was the Indian utterance of “ Norbega” or “ Norway ; ” 
 and that certain stone walls and dams at and near Watertown are 
 vestiges of an ancient “ city of Norumbega,” which was founded 
 and peopled by Northmen and carried on a more or less extensive 
 trade with Europe for more than three centuries. 
 
 With regard to the first of these conclusions, it is perhaps as 
 likely that Leif’s booths were within the present limits of Cam- 
 bridge as in any of the numerous places which different writers 
 have confidently assigned for them, all the way from Point Judith 
 to Cape Breton. A judicious scholar will object not so much to 
 the conclusion as to the character of the arguments by which it is 
 reached. Too much weight is attached to hypothetical etymolo- 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 221 
 
 As for the colony in Greenland, while its popu- 
 lation seems never to have exceeded 5,000 or 
 6,000 souls, it maintained its existence Furtherfor . 
 and its intercourse with Europe unin- 
 terruptedly from its settlement in 986, ony * 
 by Eric the Red, for more than four hundred 
 years. Early in the fourteenth century the West 
 Bygd, or western settlement, near Godthaab, 
 seems to have contained ninety farmsteads and 
 four churches; while the East Bygd, or eastern 
 settlement, near Julianeshaab, contained one hun- 
 dred and ninety farmsteads, with one cathedral 
 and eleven smaller churches, two villages, and 
 three or four monasteries. 1 Between Tunnudlior- 
 bik and Igaliko fiords, and about thirty miles from 
 the ruined stone houses of Brattahlid, there now 
 stands, imposing in its decay, the simple but mas- 
 sive structure of Kakortok church, once the 
 “cathedral ” church of the Gardar bishopric, where 
 the Credo was intoned and censers swung, while 
 not less than ten generations lived and died. 
 About the beginning of the twelfth century there 
 was a movement at Rome for establishing new 
 dioceses in “the islands of the ocean; ” in 1106 a 
 
 With regard to the Norse colony alleged to have flourished for 
 three centuries, it is pertinent to ask, what became of its cattle 
 and horses ? Why do we find no vestiges of the burial-places of 
 these Europeans? or of iron tools and weapons of mediaeval 
 workmanship ? Why is there no documentary mention, in Scan- 
 dinavia or elsewhere in Europe, of this transatlantic trade ? etc., 
 etc. Until such points as these are disposed of, any further con- 
 sideration of the hypothesis may properly he postponed. 
 
 1 Laing, Heimskringla, i. 141. A description of the ruins may 
 be found in two papers in Meddelelser om Gronland , Copenhagen, 
 1883 and 1889. 
 
222 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 bishop’s see was erected in the north of Iceland, 
 and one at about the same time in the Faeroes. 
 In 1112, Eric Gnupsson, 1 having been appointed 
 by Pope Paschal II. “bishop of Greenland and 
 
 Ruins of the church at Kakortok. 
 
 Yinland in partibus infidelium ,” went from Ice- 
 land to organize his new diocese in Greenland. 
 It is mentioned in at least six different vellums 
 Bishop Eric’s that in 1121 Bishop Eric “went in 
 searc!f o” vin- search of Yinland.” 2 It is nowhere 
 land, ii 2 i. mentioned that he found it, and Dr. 
 
 Storm thinks it probable that he perished in the 
 enterprise, for, within the next year or next but 
 one, the Greenlanders asked for a new bishop, 
 
 1 Sometimes called Erie Uppsi ; he is mentioned in the Land- 
 ndma-b<5k as a native of Iceland. 
 
 2 Storm, Islandske Annaler, Christiania, 1888 ; Reeves, T'he 
 Finding of Wineland the Good , London, 1890, pp. 79-81. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 223 
 
 and Eric’s successor, Bishop Arnold, was con- 
 secrated in 1124. 1 After Eric there was a regu- 
 lar succession of bishops appointed by the papal 
 court, down at least to 1409, and seventeen of 
 these bishops are mentioned by name. We do 
 not learn that any of them ever repeated Eric’s 
 experiment of searching for Yinland. So far as 
 existing Icelandic vellums know, there was no voy- 
 age to Yinland after 1121. Yery likely, however, 
 there may have been occasional voyages for timber 
 from Greenland to the coast of the American con- 
 tinent, which did not attract attention or call for 
 comment in Iceland. This is rendered somewhat 
 probable from an entry in the “Elder Skalholt 
 Annals,” a vellum written about 1362. This in- 
 forms us that in 1347 “there came a 
 ship from Greenland, less in size than MarkiSdI rom 
 small Icelandic trading-vessels. It was 
 without an anchor. There were seventeen men on 
 board, and they had sailed to Markland, but had 
 afterwards been driven hither by storms at sea.” 2 
 
 1 Storm, in Aarbfger for NordisJc Oldkyndighed , 1887, p. 319. 
 
 2 Reeves, op. cit. p. 83. In another vellum it is mentioned that 
 in 1347 “ a ship came from Greenland, which had sailed to Mark- 
 land, and there were eighteen men on hoard.” As Mr. Reeves 
 well observes : “ The nature of the information indicates that the 
 knowledge of the discovery had not altogether faded from the 
 memories of the Icelanders settled in Greenland. It seems fur- 
 ther to lend a measure of plausibility to a theory that people 
 from the Greenland colony may from time to time have visited 
 the coast to the southwest of their home for supplies of wood, or 
 for some kindred purpose. The visitors in this case had evidently 
 intended to return directly from Markland to Greenland, and 
 had they not been driven out of their course to Iceland, the prob- 
 ability is that this voyage would nevei have found mention in 
 Icelandic chronicles, and all knowledge of it must have vanished 
 
224 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 This is the latest mention of any voyage to or 
 from the countries beyond Greenland. 
 
 If the reader is inclined to wonder why a colony 
 could be maintained in southern Greenland more 
 easily than on the coasts of Nova Scotia or Massa- 
 chusetts, or even why the Northmen did not at 
 once abandon their fiords at Brattahlid and come 
 in a flock to these pleasanter places, he must call 
 to mind two important circumstances. First, the 
 settlers in southern Greenland did not meet with 
 barbarous natives, but only with vestiges of their 
 former presence. It was not until the twelfth 
 century that, in roaming the icy deserts of the far 
 north in quest of seals and bearskins, the Norse 
 hunters encountered tribes of Eskimo using stone 
 knives and whalebone arrow-heads; 1 and it was 
 not until the fourteenth century that we hear of 
 The Greenland their getting into a war with these 
 tacked by people. In 1349 the West Bygd was 
 attacked and destroyed by Eskimos; 
 in 1379 they invaded the East Bygd and wrought 
 sad havoc ; and it is generally believed that some 
 time after 1409 they completed the destruction of 
 the colony. 
 
 Secondly, the relative proximity of Greenland 
 to the mother country, Iceland, made it much eas- 
 ier to sustain a colony there than in the more dis- 
 tant Yinland. In colonizing, as in campaigning, 
 distance from one’s base is sometimes the supreme 
 circumstance. This is illustrated by the fact that 
 
 as completely as did the colony to which the Markland visitors 
 belonged.’ ’ 
 
 1 Storm, Monumenta historica Norvegice, p. 77. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 225 
 
 the very existence of the Greenland colony itself 
 depended upon perpetual and untrammelled ex- 
 change of commodities with Iceland; and when 
 once the source of supply was cut off, the colony 
 soon languished. In 1880 and 1887 the crowns 
 of Norway and Denmark descended upon Queen 
 Margaret, and soon she made her precious contri- 
 bution to the innumerable swarm of instances that 
 show with how little wisdom the world is ruled. 
 She made the trade to Greenland, Iceland, and 
 the Faeroe isles “a royal monopoly which _ 
 
 J J Queen Margsu* 
 
 could only be carried on in ships belong- [y t ’® n “f t “ opo ' 
 ing to, or licensed by, the sovereign. ^ c “g fule£ ‘ 
 
 . . . Under the monopoly of trade the 
 Icelanders could have no vessels, and no object for 
 sailing to Greenland ; and the vessels fitted out by 
 government, or its lessees, would only be ready to 
 leave Denmark or Bergen for Iceland at the season 
 they ought to have been ready to leave Iceland to 
 go to Greenland. The colony gradually fell into 
 oblivion.” 1 When this prohibitory management 
 was abandoned after 1584 by Christian III., it was 
 altogether too late. Starved by the miserable pol- 
 icy of governmental interference with freedom of 
 trade, the little Greenland colony soon became too 
 weak to sustain itself against the natives whose 
 hostility had, for half a century, been growing 
 more and more dangerous. Precisely when or how 
 
 1 Laing, HeimsJcringla , i. 147. It has been supposed that the 
 Black Death, by which all Europe was ravaged in the middle 
 part of the fourteenth century, may have crossed to Greenland, 
 and fatally weakened the colony there ; hut Yigfusson says that 
 the Black Death never touched Iceland ( Sturlunga Saga , vol. i. 
 p. cxxix.), so that it is not so likely to have reached Greenland. 
 
226 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 it perished we do not know. The latest notice we 
 have of the colony is of a marriage ceremony per- 
 formed (probably in the Kakortok church), in 
 1409, by Endrede Andreasson, the last bishop. 1 
 When, after three centuries, the great missionary, 
 Hans Egede, visited Greenland, in 1721, he found 
 the ruins of farmsteads and villages, the popula- 
 tion of which had vanished. 
 
 Our account of pre-Columbian voyages to 
 America would be very incomplete without some 
 mention of the latest voyage said to have been 
 made by European vessels to the ancient settle- 
 ment of the East Bygd. I refer to the famous nar- 
 . , rative of the Zeno brothers, which has 
 
 brothers tian finished so many subjects of conten- 
 tion for geographers that a hundred 
 years ago John Pinkerton called it “one of the 
 most puzzling in the whole circle of literature.” 2 
 Nevertheless a great deal has been done, chiefly 
 through the acute researches of Mr. Bichard 
 Henry Major and Baron Nordenskjold, toward 
 clearing up this mystery, so that certain points in 
 the Zeno narrative may now be regarded as es- 
 tablished ; 3 and from these essential points we may 
 
 1 Laing, op. cit. i. 142. 
 
 2 Yet this learned historian was quite correct in his own inter- 
 pretation of Zeno’s story, for in the same place he says, “ If real, 
 his Frisland is the Ferro islands, and his Zichmni is Sinclair.” 
 Pinkerton’s History of Scotland , London, 1791, vol. i. p. 261. 
 
 3 Major, The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers , Nicolo and 
 Antonio Zeno , to the Northern Seas in the XIVth Century , London, 
 1873 (Hakluyt Society) ; cf. Nordenskjold, Om broderna Zenos 
 resor och de aldsta kartor ofner Norden, Stockholm, 1883. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 227 
 
 form an opinion as to the character of sundry 
 questionable details. 
 
 The Zeno family was one of the oldest and most 
 distinguished in Venice. Among its members in 
 the thirteenth and fourteenth centu- TheZenofam- 
 ries we find a doge, several senators and lly ’ 
 members of the Council of Ten, and military com- 
 manders of high repute. Of these, Pietro Dracone 
 Zeno, about 1350, was captain-general of the 
 Christian league for withstanding the Turks ; and 
 his son Carlo achieved such success in the war 
 against Genoa that he was called the Lion of St. 
 Mark, and his services to Venice were compared 
 with those of Camillus to Rome. Now this Carlo 
 had two brothers, — Nicolo, known as “the Chev- 
 alier,” and Antonio. After the close of the Gen- 
 oese war the Chevalier Nicolo was seized with a 
 desire to see the world, 1 and more particularly 
 England and Flanders. So about 1390 he fitted 
 up a ship at his own expense, and, passing out 
 from the strait of Gibraltar, sailed northward 
 upon the Atlantic. After some days of fair 
 weather, he was caught in a storm and 
 
 ° Nicolo Zeno 
 
 blown along tor many days more, until wrecked upon 
 at length the ship was cast ashore on Faeroe islands, 
 one of the Faeroe islands and wrecked, 
 though most of the crew and goods were rescued. 
 
 1 “ Or M. Nicolb il Caualiere . . . entrb in grandissimo deside- 
 rio di ueder il mondo, e peregrinare, e farsi capace di varij cos- 
 tumi e di lingue de gli huomini, accib che con le occasioni poi 
 potesse meglio far seruigio alia sua patria ed k se acquistar fama 
 e onore.” The narrative gives 1380 as the date of the voyage, but 
 Mr. Major has shown that it must have been a mistake for 1390 
 (op. cit. xlii.-xlviii.). 
 
228 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 According to the barbarous custom of the Middle 
 Ages, some of the natives of the island (Scandina- 
 vians) came swarming about the unfortunate stran- 
 gers to kill and rob them, but a great chieftain, 
 with a force of knights and men-at-arms, arrived 
 upon the spot in time to prevent such an outrage. 
 This chief was Henry Sinclair of Koslyn, who in 
 1379 had been invested by King Hacon VI. , of 
 Norway, with the earldom of the Orkneys and 
 Caithness. On learning Zeno’s rank and impor- 
 tance, Sinclair treated him with much courtesy, and 
 presently a friendship sprang up between the two. 
 Sinclair was then engaged with a fleet of thirteen 
 vessels in conquering and annexing to his earldom 
 the Faeroe islands, and on several occasions prof- 
 ited by the military and nautical skill of the Vene- 
 tian captain. Nicolo seems to have enjoyed this 
 stirring life, for he presently sent to his brother 
 Antonio in Venice an account of it, which induced 
 the latter to come and join him in the Faeroe islands. 
 Antonio arrived in the course of 1391, and remained 
 in the service of Sinclair fourteen years, returning 
 to Venice in time to die there in 1406. After An- 
 tonio’s arrival, his brother Nicolo was appointed 
 to the chief command of Sinclair’s little fleet, and 
 assisted him in taking possession of the Shetland 
 islands, which were properly comprised within his 
 earldom. In the course of these adventures, 
 Nicolo seems to have had his interest aroused in 
 reports about Greenland. It was not more than 
 four or five years since Queen Margaret had un- 
 dertaken to make a royal monopoly of the Green- 
 land trade in furs and whale oil, and this would 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 229 
 
 be a natural topic of conversation in the Faeroes. 
 In July, 1393, or 1394, Nicolo Zeno sailed to 
 Greenland with three ships, and visited 
 
 _ A Nicol6’s voy- 
 
 the East Bygd. Alter spending some age to Green- 
 
 land, cir. loot. 
 
 time there, not being accustomed to such 
 a climate, he caught cold, and died soon after his 
 return to the Faeroes, probably in 1395. His 
 brother Antonio succeeded to his office and such 
 emoluments as pertained to it ; and after a while, 
 at Earl Sinclair’s instigation, he undertook a voy- 
 age of discovery in the Atlantic ocean, in order 
 to verify some fishermen’s reports of the existence 
 of land a thousand miles or more to the west. 
 One of these fishermen was to serve as guide to 
 the expedition, but unfortunately he died three 
 days before the ships were ready to sail. Never- 
 theless, the expedition started, with Sinclair him- 
 self on board, and encountered vicissi- 
 
 Voyage of Earl 
 
 tudes of weather and fortune. In fog Sinclair and 
 
 ^ Antonio Zeno. 
 
 and storm they lost all reckoning of 
 position, and. found themselves at length on the 
 western coast of a country which, in the Italian 
 narrative, is called “Icaria,” but which has been 
 supposed, with some probability, to have been 
 Kerry, in Ireland. Here, as they went ashore for 
 fresh water, they were attacked by the natives and 
 several of their number were slain. From this 
 point they sailed out into the broad Atlantic again, 
 and reached a place supposed to be Greenland, but 
 which is so vaguely described that the identifica- 
 tion is very difficult. 1 Our narrative here ends 
 
 1 It appears on the Zeno map as “Trin pmontor,” about the 
 site of Cape Farewell ; but how could six days’ sail W. from 
 
230 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 somewhat confusedly. We are told that Sinclair 
 remained in this place, “and explored the whole 
 of the country with great diligence, as well as the 
 coasts on both sides of Greenland.” Antonio 
 Zeno, on the other hand, returned with part of 
 the fleet to the Faeroe islands, where he arrived 
 after sailing eastward for about a month, during 
 five and twenty days of which he saw no land. 
 After relating these things and paying a word of 
 affectionate tribute to the virtues of Earl Sinclair, 
 “a prince as worthy of immortal memory as any 
 that ever lived for his great bravery and remark- 
 able goodness,” Antonio closes his letter abruptly: 
 “But of this I will say no more in this letter, and 
 hope to be with you very shortly, and to satisfy 
 your curiosity on other subjects by word of 
 mouth .” 1 
 
 The person thus addressed by Antonio was his 
 brother, the illustrious Carlo Zeno. Soon after 
 reaching home, after this long and eventful ab- 
 sence, Antonio died. Besides his letters he had 
 written a more detailed account of the affairs in 
 the northern seas. These papers remained for 
 more than a century in the palace of the family at 
 Venice, until one of the children, in his mischiev- 
 ous play, got hold of them and tore them up. 
 
 Kerry, followed by four days’ sail N. E. , reach any such point ? 
 and how does this short outward sail consist with the return voy- 
 age, twenty days E. and eight days S. E., to the Faeroes ? The 
 place is also said to have had “ a fertile soil ” and “ good rivers,” 
 a description in nowise answering to Greenland. 
 
 1 “ Pero non ui diro altro in questa lettera, sperando tosto di 
 essere con uoi, e di sodisfarui di molte altre cose con la uiua uoce.” 
 Major, p. 34. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 231 
 
 This child was Antonio’s great-great-great-grand- 
 son, Nicolo, born in 1515. When this young Ni- 
 colo had come to middle age, and was a member of 
 the Council of Ten, he happened to come across 
 some remnants of these documents, and then all at 
 once he remembered with grief how he had, in his 
 boyhood, pulled them to pieces. 1 In the light of 
 the rapid progress in geographical discovery since 
 1492, this story of distant voyages had Publication 
 now for Nicolo an interest such as it 
 
 the remains of 
 the documents 
 
 could not have had for his immediate 55SS 3 SS |eP 
 ancestors. Searching the palace he 
 found a few grimy old letters and a map or sailing 
 chart, rotten with age, which had been made or at 
 any rate brought home by his ancestor Antonio. 
 Nicolo drew a fresh copy of this map, and pieced 
 together the letters as best he could, with more or 
 less explanatory text of his own, and the result 
 was the little book which he published in 1558. 2 
 
 Unfortunately young Nicolo, with the laudable 
 purpose of making it all as clear as he could, 
 
 1 “ All these letters were written by Messire Antonio to Messire 
 Carlo, his brother ; and I am grieved that the hook and many 
 other writings on these subjects have, I don’t know how, come 
 sadly to ruin ; for, being but a child when they fell into my 
 hands, I, not knowing what they were, tore them in pieces, as 
 children will do, and sent them all to ruin : a circumstance which 
 I cannot now recall without the greatest sorrow. Nevertheless, 
 in order that such an important memorial should not be lost, I 
 have put the whole in order, as well as I could, in the above nar- 
 rative.” Major, p. 35. 
 
 2 Nicolb Zeno, Bello scoprimento delV i sole Frislanda , Eslanda, 
 Engronelanda , Estotilanda, 8f Icaria, fatto per due fratdli Zeni , 
 M. Nicolo il Caualiere, 8? M. Antonio. Libro Fno, col disegno di 
 dette Isole. Venice, 1558. Mr. Major’s book contains the entire 
 text, with an English translation. 
 
232 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 233 
 
 Zeno Map, cir. 1400 — eastern half. 
 
284 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 thought it necessary not simply to reproduce the 
 old weather-beaten map, but to amend it by put- 
 ting on here and there such places and names as 
 his diligent perusal of the manuscript led him to 
 deem wanting to its completeness . 1 Under the 
 most favourable circumstances that is a very diffi- 
 cult sort of thing to do, but in this case the cir- 
 cumstances were far from favourable. Of course 
 Nicolo got these names and places into absurd 
 
 1 The map is taken from Winsor’s Narr. and Crit. Hist., i. 127, 
 where it is reduced from Nordenskjold’s Studien ok Forskningar. 
 A better because larger copy may be found in Major’s Voyages 
 of the Venetian Brothers. The original map measures 12 X 15£ 
 inches. In the legend at the top the date is given as m ccc lxxx. 
 but evidently one x has been omitted, for it should be 1390, and 
 is correctly so given by Marco Barbaro, in his Genealogie dei nohili 
 Veneti; of Antonio Zeno he says, “ Scrisse con il fratello Ni- 
 col6 Kav. li viaggi dell’ Isole sctto il polo artico, e di quei sco- 
 primente del 1390, e che per ordine di Zicno, re di Frislanda, si 
 portb nel continente d’ Estotilanda nell’ America settentrionale e 
 che si fermb 14 anni in Frislanda, ciob 4 con suo fratello Nicolb 
 e 10 solo.” (This valuable work has never been published. The 
 original MS., in Barbaro’s own handwriting, is preserved in the 
 Biblioteca di San Marco at Venice. There is a seventeenth cen- 
 tury copy of it among the Egerton MSS. in the British Mu- 
 seum.) — Nicolb did not leave Italy until after December 14, 
 1388 (Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores , tom. xxii. p. 779). 
 The map can hardly have been made before Antonio’s voyage, 
 about 1400. The places on the map are wildly out of position, as 
 was common enough in old maps. Greenland is attached to Nor- 
 way according to the general belief in the Middle Ages. In his 
 confusion between the names “ Estland ” and “Islanda,” young 
 Nicolb has tried to reproduce the Shetland group, or something like 
 it, and attach it to Iceland. “ Icaria,” probably Kerry, in Ireland, 
 has been made into an island and carried far out into the Atlantic. 
 The queerest of young Nicolb’s mistakes was in placing the mon- 
 astery of St. Olaus (“St. Thomas”). He should have placed it 
 on the southwest coast of Greenland, near his “ Af gmontor ; ” 
 but he has got it on the extreme northeast, just about where 
 Greenland is joined to Europe. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 235 
 
 positions, thus perplexing the map and damaging 
 its reputation. With regard to names, there was 
 obscurity enough, to begin with. In the first 
 place, they were Icelandic names falling upon 
 the Italian ears of old Nicolo and Antonio, and 
 spelled by them according to their own 
 
 r i , Queer trana- 
 
 notions ; in the second place, these out- formations of 
 landish names, blurred and defaced 
 withal in the weather-stained manuscript, were a 
 puzzle to the eye of young Nicolo, who could but 
 decipher them according to his notions. The havoc 
 that can be wrought upon winged words, subjected 
 to such processes, is sometimes marvellous . 1 Per- 
 haps the slightest sufferer, in this case, was the 
 name of the group of islands upon one of which the 
 shipwrecked Nicolo was rescued by Sinclair. The 
 
 1 “ Combien de coquilles typographiques ou de lecturer d4fec- 
 tueuses ont cr£6 de noms boiteux, qu’il est ensuite bien difficile, 
 quelquefois impossible de redresser ! l’histoire et la g^ographie 
 en sont pleines.” Avezac, Martin Waltzemiiller, p. 9. 
 
 It is interesting to see how thoroughly words can be disguised 
 by an unfamiliar phonetic spelling. I have seen people hope- 
 lessly puzzled by the following bill, supposed to have been made 
 out by an illiterate stable-keeper somewhere in England : — 
 
 Osafada 7s 6d 
 
 Takinonimome 4d 
 
 7s lOd 
 
 Some years ago Professor Huxley told me of a letter from 
 France which came to the London post-office thus addressed : — 
 
 Sromfr^d^vi, 
 
 Piqu4 du lait, 
 
 Londres, 
 
 Angleterre. 
 
 This letter, after exciting at first helpless bewilderment and 
 then busy speculation, was at length delivdted to the right per- 
 son, Sir Humphry Davy , in his rooms at the Royal Institution on 
 Albemarle street, just off from Piccadilly ! 
 
236 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 name Fceroislander sounded to Italian ears as 
 Frislanda , and was uniformly so written. 1 Then 
 the pronunciation of Shetland was helped by pre- 
 fixing a vowel sound, as is common in Italian, and 
 so it came to be Estland and Fsland. This led 
 young Nicolo’s eye in two or three places to con- 
 found it with Islanda , or Iceland , and probably 
 in one place with Irlanda , or Ireland . Where 
 old Nicolo meant to say that the island upon which 
 he was living with Earl Sinclair was somewhat 
 larger than Shetland, young Nicolo understood 
 him as saying that it was somewhat larger than 
 
 Ireland ; and so upon the amended map 
 
 “Frislanda.” r . \ 
 
 “hnslanda appears as one great island 
 surrounded by tiny islands. 2 After the publica- 
 tion of this map, in 1558, sundry details were cop- 
 ied from it by the new maps of that day, so that 
 even far down into the seventeenth century it was 
 common to depict a big “Frislanda” somewhere 
 in mid-ocean. When at length it was proved that 
 no such island exists, the reputation of the Zeno 
 narrative was seriously damaged. The nadir of 
 reaction against it was reached when it was de- 
 clared to be a tissue of lies invented by the younger 
 Nicolo, 3 apparently for the purpose of setting up 
 a Venetian claim to the discovery of America. 
 
 1 Columbus, on his journey to Iceland in 1477, also heard the 
 name Fceroislander as Frislanda , and so wrote it in the letter pre- 
 served for us in his biography by his son Ferdinand, hereafter to 
 be especially noticed. See Major’s remarks on this, op. cit. p. xix. 
 
 2 Perhaps in the old worn-out map the archipelago may have 
 been blurred so as to be mistaken for one island. This would aid 
 in misleading young Nicolo. 
 
 8 See the elaborate paper by Admiral Zahrtmann, in Nordisk 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 237 
 
 The narrative, however, not only sets up no such 
 claim, but nowhere betrays a consciousness that its 
 incidents entitle it to make such a claim. ^ narrative 
 It had evidently not occurred to young makefa claim 
 Nicolo to institute any comparison be- 
 tween his ancestors’ voyages to Green- America ” 
 land and the voyages of Columbus to the western 
 hemisphere, of which we now hnou y Greenland to 
 be a part. The knowledge of the North Amer- 
 ican coast, and of the bearing of one fact upon 
 another fact in relation to it, was still, in 1558, in 
 an extremely vague and rudimentary condition. 
 In the mind of the Zeno brothers, as the map 
 shows, Greenland was a European peninsula ; 
 such was the idea common among mediaeval North- 
 men, as is nowhere better illustrated than in this 
 map. Neither in his references to Greenland, nor 
 to Estotiland and Drogio, presently to be consid- 
 ered, does young Nicolo appear in "the light of a 
 man urging or suggesting a “claim.” He ap- 
 pears simply as a modest and conscientious editor, 
 interested in the deeds of his ancestors and im- 
 pressed with the fact that he has got hold of im- 
 portant documents, but intent only upon giving 
 his material as correctly as possible, and refrain- 
 ing from all sort of comment except such as now 
 
 Tidsshrift for OldJcyndighed, Copenhagen, 1834, vol. i., and the 
 English translation of it in Journal of Royal Geographical 
 Society , London, 1836, vol. v. All that human ingenuity is ever 
 likely to devise against the honesty of Zeno’s narrative is pre- 
 sented in this erudite essay, which has been so completely de- 
 molished under Mr. Major’s heavy strokes that there is not 
 enough of it left to pick up. As to this part of the question, we 
 may now safely cry, “ finis, laus Deo ! ” 
 
238 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 and then seems needful to explain the text as he 
 himself understands it. 
 
 The identification of “Frislanda” with the 
 Faeroe islands was put beyond doubt by the dis- 
 covery that the “Zichmni” of the narrative means 
 
 Henry Sinclair; and, in order to make 
 
 Earl Sinclair. . . 7 
 
 this discovery, it was only necessary to 
 know something about the history of the Orkneys ; 
 hence old Pinkerton, as above remarked, got it 
 right. The name “Zichmni ” is, no doubt, a fear- 
 ful and wonderful bejugglement; but Henry Sin- 
 clair is a personage well known to history in that 
 corner of the world, and the deeds of “ Zichmni, ” 
 as recounted in the narrative, are neither more nor 
 less than the deeds of Sinclair. Doubtless Anto- 
 nio spelled the name in some queer way of his 
 own, and then young Nicolo, unable to read his 
 ancestor’s pot-hooks where — as in the case of 
 proper names — there was no clue to guide him, 
 contrived to make it still queerer. Here we have 
 strong proof of the genuineness of the narrative. 
 If Nicolo had been concocting a story in which 
 Earl Sinclair was made to figure, he would have 
 obtained his knowledge from literary sources, and 
 thus would have got his names right; the earl 
 might have appeared as Enrico de Santo Claro, 
 but not as “Zichmni.” It is not at all likely, 
 however, that any literary knowledge of Sinclair 
 and his doings was obtainable in Italy in the six- 
 teenth century. The Zeno narrative, moreover, 
 in its references to Greenland in connection with 
 the Chevalier Nicolo’s visit to the East Bygd, 
 shows a topographical knowledge that was other- 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 239 
 
 wise quite inaccessible to the younger Nicolo. 
 Late in the fourteenth century Ivar Bardsen, 
 steward to the Gardar bishopric, wrote a descrip- 
 tion of Greenland, with sailing direc- Bardsen’a 
 tions for reaching it, which modem re- of D C- tlon 
 search has proved to have been accurate land ’’ 
 in every particular. Bardsen’ s details and those 
 of the Zeno narrative mutually corroborate each 
 other. But Bardsen’ s book did not make its way 
 down into Europe until the very end of the six- 
 teenth century, 1 and then amid the dense igno- 
 rance prevalent concerning Greenland its details 
 were not understood until actual exploration within 
 the last seventy years has at length revealed their 
 meaning. The genuineness of the Zeno narrative 
 is thus conclusively proved by its knowledge of 
 Arctic geography, such as could have been obtained 
 only by a visit to the far North at a time before 
 the Greenland colony had finally lost touch with 
 its mother country. 
 
 The visit of the Chevalier Nicolo, therefore, 
 about 1394, has a peculiar interest as the last dis- 
 tinct glimpse afforded us of the colony founded by 
 Eric the Red before its melancholy disappearance 
 from history. Already the West Bygd had ceased 
 to exist. Five and forty years before that time it 
 
 1 It was translated into Dutch by the famous Arctic explorer, 
 William Barentz, whose voyages are so graphically described in 
 Motley’s United Netherlands , vol. iii. pp. 552-576. An English 
 translation was made for Henry Hudson. A very old Danish 
 version may be found in Rafn’s Antiquitates Americanos, pp. 300- 
 318; Danish, Latin, and English versions in Major’s Voyages of 
 the Venetian Brothers , etc., pp. 39-54; and an English version in 
 De Costa’s Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson , Albany, 1869, 
 pp. 61-96. 
 
240 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 had been laid waste and its people massacred by 
 Eskimos, and trusty Xvar Bardsen, tardily sent 
 with a small force to the rescue, found nothing left 
 alive but a few cattle and sheep running wild . 1 
 Nicolo Zeno, arriving in the East Bygd, found 
 Themonas- there a monastery dedicated to St. 
 oiaus and its Olaus, a name which in the narrative 
 hot spring. k as become St. Thomas. To this mon- 
 astery came friars from Norway and other coun- 
 tries, but for the most part from Iceland . 2 It 
 stood “hard by a hill which vomited fire like Vesu- 
 vius and Etna.” There was also in the neighbour- 
 hood a spring of hot water which the ingenious 
 friars conducted in pipes into their monastery and 
 church, thereby keeping themselves comfortable in 
 the coldest weather. This water, as it came into 
 the kitchen, was hot enough to boil meats and veg- 
 etables. The monks even made use of it in warm- 
 ing covered gardens or hot-beds in which they 
 raised sundry fruits and herbs that in milder cli- 
 mates grow out of doors . 3 “Hither in summer- 
 
 1 So he tells us himself : “Quo cum venissent, nullum homi- 
 nem, neque christianum neque paganum, invenerunt, tantummodo 
 fera pecora et oves deprehenderunt, ex quibus quantum naves 
 ferre poterant in has deportato domum redierunt.” Descriptio 
 Grcenlandice, apud Major, p. 53. The glacial men had done their 
 work of slaughter and vanished. 
 
 2 “Mala maggior parte sono delle Islande.” Mr. Major is 
 clearly wrong in translating it “ from the Shetland Isles.” The 
 younger Nicolo was puzzled by the similarity of the names Xslan- 
 da and Eslanda, and sometimes confounded Iceland with the Shet- 
 land group. But in this place Iceland is evidently meant. 
 
 3 This application of the hot water to purposes of gardening 
 reminds us of the similar covered gardens or hot-beds constructed 
 by Albertus Magnus in the Dominican monastery at Cologne in 
 the thirteenth century. See Humboldt’s Kosmos, ii. 130. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 241 
 
 time come many vessels from . . . the Cape above 
 Norway, and from Trondheim, and bring the 
 friars all sorts of comforts, taking in exchange fish 
 . . . and skins of different kinds of animals. 
 . . . There are continually in the harbour a num- 
 ber of vessels detained by the sea being frozen, 
 and waiting for the next season to melt the ice.” 1 
 This mention of the volcano and the hot spring 
 is very interesting. In the Miocene period the 
 Atlantic ridge was one of the principal 
 
 , , . . 1 , Volcanoes of 
 
 seats ol volcanic activity upon the the north At- 
 
 ... n . J r .. lantic ridge. 
 
 globe; the line or volcanoes extended 
 all the way from Greenland down into central 
 France. But for several hundred thousand years 
 this activity has been diminishing. In France, in 
 the western parts of Great Britain and the Heb- 
 rides, the craters have long since become extinct. 
 In the far North, however, volcanic action has 
 been slower in dying out. Iceland, with no less 
 than twenty active volcanoes, is still the most con- 
 siderable centre of such operations in Europe. 
 The huge volcano on Jan Mayen island, between 
 Greenland and Spitzbergen, is still in action. 
 Among the submerged peaks in the northern seas 
 explosions still now and then occur, as in 1783, 
 when a small island was thrown up near Cape 
 Reykianes, on the southern coast of Iceland, and 
 sank again after a year. 2 Midway between Ice- 
 land and Greenland there appears to have stood, 
 
 1 Major, op. cit. p. 16. The narrative goes on to give a descrip- 
 tion of the skin-boats of the Eskimo fishermen. 
 
 2 Daubeny, Description of Active and Extinct Volcanoes , Lon- 
 don, 1848, pp. 307 ; cf. Judd, Volcanoes, London, 1881, p. 234. 
 
242 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 in the Middle Ages, a small volcanic island discov- 
 ered by that Gunnbjorn who first went to Green - 
 f ^ land. It was known as Gunnbjorn ’s 
 
 bjom’s Sker- Skerries, and was described by Ivar 
 
 Bardsen. 1 This island is no longer 
 above the surface, and its fate is recorded upon 
 Ruysch’s map of the world in the 1508 edition of 
 Ptolemy: “Insula haec anno Domini 1456 fuit 
 totaliter combusta,” — this island was entirely 
 burnt (i. e. blown up in an eruption) in 1456 ; and 
 in later maps Mr. Major has found the corrupted 
 name “Gombar Scheer” applied to the dangerous 
 reefs and shoals left behind by this explosion. 2 
 Where volcanic action is declining geysers and 
 boiling springs are apt to abound, as in Iceland; 
 where it has become extinct at a period geologi- 
 cally recent, as in Auvergne and the Rhine coun- 
 try, its latest vestiges are left in the hundreds of 
 thermal and mineral springs whither fashionable 
 invalids congregate to drink or to bathe. 3 Now 
 
 volcanic phe ™ Greenland, at the present day, hot 
 nomenain springs are found, of which the most 
 
 Greenland. r o 7 
 
 noted are those on the island of Ounar- 
 tok, at the entrance to the fiord of that name. 
 
 1 “ Ab Snefelsneso Islandiae, qua brevissimus in Gronlandiam 
 trajectus est, duorum dierum et duarum noctium spatio navi- 
 gandum est recto cursu versus oecidentem ; ibique Gunnbjcernis 
 scopulos invenies, inter Gronlandiam et Islandiam medio situ 
 inter jacentes. Hie cursus antiquitus frequentabatur, nunc vero 
 glacies ex recessu oceani euroaquilonari delata scopulos ante 
 memoratos tarn prope attigit, ut nemo sine vitae discrimine 
 antiquum cursum tenere possit, quemadmodum infra dicetur.” 
 Descriptio Grcenlandice, apud Major, op. cit. p. 40. 
 
 2 Op. cit. p. lxxvi. See below, vol. ii. p. 115, note B. 
 
 3 Judd, op. cit. pp. 217-220. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 243 
 
 These springs seem to be the same that were de- 
 scribed five hundred years ago by Ivar Bardsen. 
 As to volcanoes, it has been generally assumed 
 that those of Greenland are all extinct; but in a 
 country as yet so imperfectly studied this only 
 means that eruptions have not been recorded. 1 
 On the whole, it seems to me that the mention, in 
 our Venetian narrative, of a boiling spring and an 
 active volcano in Greenland is an instance of the 
 peculiar sort — too strange to have been invented, 
 but altogether probable in itself — that adds to the 
 credit of the narrative. 
 
 Thus far, in dealing with the places actually vis- 
 ited by Nicolo or Antonio, or by both brothers, we 
 have found the story consistent and intelligible. 
 But in what relates to countries beyond Greenland, 
 countries which were not visited by either of the 
 brothers, but about which Antonio heard reports, 
 it is quite a different thing. We are introduced 
 to a jumble very unlike the clear, business-like 
 account of Vinland voyages in the Hauks-bok. 
 Yet in this medley there are some statements curi- 
 ously suggestive of things in North America. It 
 will be remembered that Antonio’s voyage with 
 Sinclair (somewhere about 1400) was undertaken 
 
 1 My friend, Professor Shaler, tells me that “ a volcano during’ 
 eruption might shed its ice mantle and afterward don it again in 
 such a manner as to hide its true character even on a near view ; ” 
 and, on the other hand, “ a voyager not familiar with volcanoes 
 might easily mistake the cloud-bonnet of a peak for the smoke 
 of a volcano.” This, however, will not account for Zeno’s “hill 
 that vomited fire,” for he goes on to describe the use which the 
 monks made of the pumice and calcareous tufa for building pur- 
 
2.44 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 in order to verify certain reports of the existence 
 of land more than a thousand miles west of the 
 Faeroe islands. 
 
 About six and twenty years ago, said Antonio 
 in a letter to Carlo, four small fishing craft, ven- 
 turing very far out upon the Atlantic, had been 
 blown upon a strange coast, where their crews 
 were well received by the people. The land 
 proved to be an island rather smaller 
 
 Estotiland. x oii 
 
 than Iceland (or Shetland ?), with a high 
 mountain whence flowed four rivers. The inhab- 
 itants were intelligent people, possessed of all the 
 arts, but did not understand the language of these 
 Norse fishermen . 1 There happened, however, to 
 be one European among them, who had himself 
 been cast ashore in that country and had learned 
 its language; he could speak Latin, and found 
 some one among the shipwrecked men who could 
 understand him. There was a populous city with 
 walls, and the king had Latin books in his library 
 which nobody could read . 2 All kinds of metals 
 abounded, and especially gold . 3 The woods were 
 of immense extent. The people traded with 
 Greenland, importing thence pitch (?), brimstone, 
 and furs. They sowed grain and made “beer.” 
 They made small boats, but were ignorant of the 
 loadstone and the compass. For this reason, they 
 
 1 They were, therefore, not Northmen. 
 
 2 Pruning this sentence of its magniloquence, might it perhaps 
 mean that there was a large palisaded village, and that the chief 
 had some hooks in Roman characters, a relic of some castaway, 
 which he kept as a fetish ? 
 
 3 With all possible latitude of interpretation, this could not be 
 made to apply to any part of America north of Mexico. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 245 
 
 held the newcomers in high estimation . 1 The 
 name of the country was Estotiland. 
 
 There is nothing so far in this vague descrip- 
 tion to show that Estotiland was an American 
 country, except its western direction and perhaps 
 its trading with Greenland. The points of unlike- 
 ness are at least as numerous as the points of like- 
 ness. But in what follows there is a much 
 stronger suggestion of North America. 
 
 For some reason not specified an expedition was 
 undertaken by people from Estotiland to a country 
 to the southward named Drogio, and Dro ^ Q 
 these Norse mariners, or some of them, 
 because they understood the compass, were put 
 in charge of it . 2 But the people of Drogio were 
 cannibals, and the people from Estotiland on their 
 arrival were taken prisoners and devoured, — all 
 save the few Northmen, who were saved because 
 of their marvellous skill in catching fish with 
 nets. The barbarians seemed to have set much 
 store by these white men, and perhaps to have re- 
 garded them as objects of “medicine.” One of 
 the fishermen in particular became so famous that 
 a neighbouring tribe made war upon the tribe 
 which kept him, and winning the victory took him 
 over into its own custody. This sort of thing 
 happened several times. Various tribes fought to 
 secure the person and services of this Fisherman, 
 
 1 The magnetic needle had been used by the mariners of west- 
 ern and northern Europe since the end of the thirteenth century. 
 
 2 “ Fanno nauigli e nauigano, ma non hanno la calamita ne 
 intendeno col bossolo la tramontana. Per ilche questi pescatori 
 furono in gran pregio, si che il re li spedl con dodici nauigli uerso 
 ostro nel paese che essi chiamano Drogio.” Major, op. cit. p. 21. 
 
246 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA . 
 
 so that he was passed about among more than 
 twenty chiefs, and “wandering up and down the 
 country without any fixed abode, ... he became 
 acquainted with all those parts.” 
 
 And now comes quite an interesting passage. 
 The Fisherman “says that it is a very great coun- 
 inbabitants of try, and, as it were, a new world; the 
 countries be- 16 people are very rude and uncultivated, 
 yond ‘ for they all go naked, and suffer cruelly 
 
 from the cold, nor have they the sense to clothe 
 themselves with the skins of the animals which 
 they take in hunting [a gross exaggeration]. They 
 have no kind of metal. They live by hunting, and 
 carry lances of wood, sharpened at the point. 
 They have bows, the strings of which are made of 
 beasts’ skins. They are very fierce, and have 
 deadly fights amongst each other, and eat one an- 
 other’s flesh. They have chieftains and certain 
 laws among themselves, but differing in the differ- 
 ent tribes. The farther you go southwestwards, 
 however, the more refinement you meet with, be- 
 cause the climate is more temperate, and accord- 
 ingly there they have cities and temples dedicated 
 to their idols, in which they sacrifice men and 
 afterwards eat them. In those parts they have 
 some knowledge and use of gold and silver. Now 
 this Fisherman, having dwelt so many years in 
 these parts, made up his mind, if possible, to re- 
 turn home to his own country ; but his companions, 
 despairing of ever seeing it again, gave him God’s 
 speed, and remained themselves where they were. 
 Accordingly, he bade them farewell, and. made his 
 escape through the woods in the direction of 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 247 
 
 Drogio, where he was welcomed and very kindly 
 received by the chief of the place, who knew him, 
 and was a great enemy of the neighbouring chief- 
 tain; and so passing from one chief to another, 
 being the same with whom he had been before, 
 after a long time and with much toil, he at length 
 reached Drogio, where he spent three years. 
 Here, by good luck, he heard from the natives that 
 some boats had arrived off the coast; and full of 
 hope of being able to carry out his intention, he 
 went down to the seaside, and to his great delight 
 found that they had come from Estotiland. He 
 forthwith requested that they would take him with 
 them, which they did very willingly, and as he 
 knew the language of the country, which none of 
 them could speak, they employed him as their in- 
 terpreter.” 1 
 
 Whither the Fisherman was first carried in these 
 boats or vessels, Antonio’s letter does not inform 
 us. We are only told that he engaged in some 
 prosperous voyages, and at length returned to the 
 Faeroes after these six and twenty years ^ Fiflh er- 
 of strange adventures. It was appar- to a “^Lu> 
 ently the Fisherman’s description of Es- da '” 
 totiland as a very rich country ( paese ricchissimd) 
 that led Sinclair to fit out an expedition to visit it, 
 with Antonio as his chief captain. As we have 
 already seen, the Fisherman died just before the 
 ships were ready to start, and to whatever land 
 they succeeded in reaching after they sailed with- 
 out him, the narrative leaves us with the impres- 
 sion that it was not the mysterious Estotiland. 
 
 1 Major, op. cit. pp. 20-22. 
 
248 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 To attempt to identify that country from the 
 description of it, which reads like a parcel of ill- 
 digested sailors’ yarns, would he idle. The most 
 common conjecture has identified it with New- 
 foundland, from its relations to other points men- 
 tioned in the Zeno narrative, as indicated, with 
 fair probability, on the Zeno map. To identify 
 it with Newfoundland is to brand the description 
 as a “fish story,” but from such a conclusion there 
 seems anyway to be no escape. 
 
 With Drogio, however, it is otherwise. The 
 description of Drogio and the vast country stretch- 
 wastheac- mg beyond it, which was like a “new 
 gio 1 wo ven^ into world,” is the merest sketch, but it 
 
 the narrative , , • -i i , • , • 
 
 by the young- seems to contain enough characteristic 
 er Nicoi6 ? details to stamp it as a description of 
 
 North America, and of no other country accessible 
 by an Atlantic voyage. It is a sketch which ap- 
 parently must have had its ultimate source in some- 
 body’s personal experience of aboriginal North 
 America. Here we are reminded that when the 
 younger Nicolb published this narrative, in 1558, 
 some dim knowledge of the North American tribes 
 was beginning to make its way into the minds of 
 people in Europe. The work of Soto and Cartier, 
 to say nothing of other explorers, had already been 
 done. May we suppose that Nicolb had thus ob- 
 tained some idea of North America, and wove it 
 into his reproduction of his ancestors’ letters, for 
 the sake of completeness and point, in somewhat 
 the same uncritical mood as that in which the most 
 worthy ancient historians did not scruple to invent 
 speeches to put into the mouths of their heroes? 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 249 
 
 It may have been so, and in such case the descrip- 
 tion of Drogio loses its point for us as a feature 
 in the pre-Columbian voyages to America. In 
 such case we may dismiss it at once, and pretty 
 much all the latter part of the Zeno narrative, re- 
 lating to what Antonio heard and did, becomes 
 valueless ; though the earlier part, relating to the 
 elder Nicolo, still remains valid and trustworthy. 
 
 But suppose we take the other alternative. As 
 in the earlier part of the story we feel sure that 
 young Nicolo must have reproduced the ancestral 
 documents faithfully, because it shows knowledge 
 that he could not have got in any other way; let us 
 now suppose that in the latter part also he added 
 nothing of himself, but was simply a ^ , . 
 
 faithful editor. It will then follow that present actual 
 
 experiences in 
 
 the Fisherman’s account of Drogio, re- Amer * 
 duced to writing by Antonio Zeno about 
 1400, must probably represent personal experiences 
 in North America ; for no such happy combination 
 of details characteristic only of North America 
 is likely at that date to have been invented by any 
 European. Our simplest course will be to sup- 
 pose that the Fisherman really had the experiences 
 which are narrated, that he was bandied about 
 from tribe to tribe in North America, all the way, 
 perhaps, from Nova Scotia to Mexico, and yet 
 returned to the Faeroe islands to tell the tale ! 
 Could such a thing be possible? Was anything 
 of the sort ever done before or since ? 
 
 Yes: something of the sort appears to have 
 been done about ten years after the Zeno narra- 
 tive was published. In October, 1568, that great 
 
250 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 sailor, Sir J ohn Hawkins, by reason of scarcity of 
 food, was compelled to set about a hun- 
 
 The case of A 
 
 David Ingram, dred men ashore near the Rio de Minas, 
 on the Mexican coast, and leave them to 
 their fate. The continent was a network of rude 
 paths or trails, as it had doubtless been for ages, 
 and as central Africa is to-day. Most of these 
 Englishmen probably perished in the wilderness. 
 Some who took southwesterly trails found their 
 way to the city of Mexico, where, as “vile Lu- 
 theran dogges,” they were treated with anything 
 but kindness. Others took northeasterly trails, 
 and one of these men, David Ingram, made his 
 way from Texas to Maine, and beyond to the St. 
 John’s river, where he was picked up by a 
 friendly French ship and carried to France, and so 
 got home to England. The journey across North 
 America took him about eleven months, but one 
 of his comrades, Job Hortop, had no end of ad- 
 ventures, and was more than twenty years in get- 
 ting back to England. Ingram told such blessed 
 yarns about houses of crystal and silver, and other 
 wonderful things, that many disbelieved his whole 
 story, but he was subjected to a searching exami- 
 nation before Sir Francis Walsingham, and as to 
 the main fact of his journey through the wilder- 
 ness there seems to be no doubt . 1 
 
 1 Ingram’s narrative was first published in Hakluyt’s folio of 
 1589, pp. 557-562, but in his larger work, Principal Navigations , 
 etc., London, 1600, it is omitted. As Purchas quaintly says, “ As 
 for David Ingram’s perambulation to the north parts, Master 
 Hakluyt in his first edition published the same ; but it seemeth 
 some incredibilities of his reports caused him to leaue him out in 
 the next impression, the reward of lying being not to be beleeued 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 251 
 
 Far more important, historically, and in many 
 ways more instructive than the wanderings of 
 David Ingram, was the journey of Cabeza de 
 Yaca and his ingenious comrades, in 
 
 0 # # t ’ The case of 
 
 1528-36, from the Mississippi river cabeza de 
 
 ^ . 1 fl . Vaca, 1628-36. 
 
 to their friends in Mexico. This re- 
 markable journey will receive further considera- 
 tion in another place. 1 In the course of it Cabeza 
 de Yaca was for eight years held captive by sundry 
 Indian tribes, and at last his escape involved ten 
 months of arduous travel. On one occasion he 
 and his friends treated some sick Indians, among 
 other things breathing upon them and making the 
 sign of the cross. As the Indians happened to get 
 well, these Spaniards at once became objects of 
 reverence, and different tribes vied with one an- 
 other for access to them, in order to benefit by 
 their supernatural gifts. In those early days, be- 
 fore the red men had become used to seeing Euro- 
 peans, a white captive was not so likely to be put 
 to death as to be cherished as a helper of vast and 
 
 in truths.” Purchas his Pilgrimes, London, 1625, vol. iv. p. 1179. 
 The examination before Walsingham had reference to the pro- 
 jected voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, which was made in 1583. 
 Ingram’s relation, “ w ch he reported vnto S r Frauncys Walsing- 
 hm, Knight, and diuers others of good judgment and creditt, in 
 August and Septemhar, Ao Dni, 1582,” is in the British Museum, 
 Sloane MS. No. 1447, fol. 1-18; it was copied and privately 
 printed in Plowden Weston’s Documents connected icith the History 
 of South Carolina , London, 1856. There is a MS. copy in the 
 Sparks collection in the Harvard University library. See the late 
 Mr. Charles Deane’s note in his edition of Hakluyt’s Discourse 
 concerning Westerne Planting , Cambridge, 1877, p. 229 ( Collec- 
 tions of Maine Hist. Soc., 2d series, vol. ii.) ; see, also, Winsor, 
 Narr. and Crit. Hist., iii. 186. 
 
 1 See below, vol. ii. p. 501. 
 
252 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 undetermined value . 1 The Indians set so much 
 store by Cabeza de Vaca that he found it hard to 
 tear himself away; but at length he used his in- 
 fluence over them in such wise as to facilitate his 
 moving in a direction by which he ultimately suc- 
 ceeded in escaping to his friends. There seems to 
 be a real analogy between his strange experiences 
 and those of the Fisherman in Drogio, who became 
 an object of reverence because he could do things 
 that the natives could not do, yet the value of 
 which they were able to appreciate. 
 
 Now if the younger Nicolo had been in the 
 mood for adorning his ancestors’ narrative by in- 
 serting a few picturesque incidents out of his own 
 hearsay knowledge of North America, it does not 
 seem likely that he would have known enough to 
 hit so deftly upon one of the peculiarities of the 
 barbaric mind. Here, again, we seem to have 
 come upon one of those incidents, inherently prob- 
 able, but too strange to have been invented, that 
 tend to confirm the story. Without hazarding 
 anything like a positive opinion, it seems to me 
 likely enough that this voyage of Scandinavian 
 fishermen to the coast of North America in the 
 fourteenth century may have happened. 
 
 It was this and other unrecorded but possible 
 There may instances that I had in mind at the be- 
 recordedirh 1 " ginning of this chapter, in saying that 
 vSitsToNorth occasional visits of Europeans to Amer- 
 Amenca. j ea { n pre-Columbian times may have 
 occurred oftener than we are wont to suppose. Ob- 
 
 1 In the first reception of the Spaniards in Peru, we shall see 
 a similar idea at work, vol. ii. pp. 398, 407. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 253 
 
 serve that our scanty records — naturally somewhat 
 perplexed and dim, as treating of remote and un- 
 known places — refer us to that northern Atlantic 
 region where the ocean is comparatively narrow, 
 and to that northern people who, from the time of 
 their first appearance in history, have been as 
 much at home upon sea as upon land. For a 
 thousand years past these hyperborean waters have 
 been furrowed in many directions by stout Scandi- 
 navian keels, and if, in aiming at Greenland, the 
 gallant mariners may now and then have hit upon 
 Labrador or Newfoundland, and have made flying 
 visits to coasts still farther southward, there is 
 nothing in it all which need surprise us . 1 
 
 Nothing can be clearer, however, from a survey 
 of the whole subject, than that these pre-Colum- 
 bian voyages were quite barren of re- 
 
 , p, r . . ^ T . The pre-Co- 
 
 suits of historic importance, in point lumbian 
 
 _.. _ _ voyages made 
 
 oi colonization they produced the two no real contri- 
 
 * / buttons to geo- 
 
 ill-fated settlements on the Greenland graphical 
 
 . _ _ knowledge ; 
 
 coast, and nothing more. Otherwise 
 they made no real addition to the stock of geo- 
 graphical knowledge, they wrought no effect what- 
 ever upon the European mind outside of Scandi- 
 
 1 The latest pre-Columbian voyage mentioned as having oc- 
 curred in the northern seas was that of the Polish pilot John 
 Szkolny, who, in the service of King Christian I. of Denmark, is 
 said to have sailed to Greenland in 1476, and to have touched 
 upon the coast of Labrador. See Gomara, Historia de las Indias, 
 Saragossa, 1553, cap. xxxvii. ; Wytfliet, Descriptionis Ptolemaicce 
 Augmentum, Douay, 1603, p. 102 ; Pontanus, Rerum Danicarum 
 Historia , Amsterdam, 1631, p. 763. The wise Humboldt men- 
 tions the report without expressing an opinion, Examen critique , 
 tom. ii. p. 153. 
 
254 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 navia, and even in Iceland itself the mention of 
 coasts beyond Greenland awakened no definite 
 ideas, and, except for a brief season, excited no 
 interest. The Zeno narrative indicates that the 
 Vinland voyages had practically lapsed from mem- 
 ory before the end of the fourteenth century . 1 * * 
 Scholars familiar with saga literature of course 
 knew the story; it was just at this time that Jon 
 Thordharson wrote out the version of it which is 
 preserved in the Flateyar-bok. But by the gen- 
 eral public it must have been forgotten, or else 
 the Fisherman’s tale of Estotiland and Drogio 
 would surely have awakened reminiscences of 
 Markland and Vinland, and some traces of this 
 would have appeared in Antonio’s narrative or 
 upon his map. The principal naval officer of the 
 Faeroes, and personal friend of the sovereign, after 
 dwelling several years among these Northmen, 
 whose intercourse with their brethren in Iceland 
 was frequent, apparently knew nothing of Leif or 
 Thorfinn, or the mere names of the coasts which 
 they had visited. Nothing had been accomplished 
 by those voyages which could properly be called a 
 and were in contribution to geographical knowledge. 
 a°Discovery S of To speak of them as constituting, in any 
 America. legitimate sense of the phrase, a Dis- 
 covery of America is simply absurd. Except for 
 Greenland, which was supposed to be a part of the 
 European world, America remained as much un- 
 discovered after the eleventh century as before. 
 
 1 Practically, but not entirely, for we have seen Markland 
 
 mentioned in the “ Elder Sk&lholt Annals,” about 1362. See 
 
 above, p. 223. 
 
PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES. 
 
 255 
 
 In the midsummer of 1492 it needed to be discov- 
 ered as much as if Leif Ericsson or the whole race 
 of Northmen had never existed. 
 
 As these pre-Columbian voyages produced no 
 effect in the eastern hemisphere, except to leave 
 in Icelandic literature a scanty but interesting 
 record, so in the western hemisphere they seem to 
 have produced no effect beyond cutting down a 
 few trees and killing a few Indians. In the out- 
 lying world of Greenland it is not improbable that 
 the blood of the Eskimos may have received some 
 slight Scandinavian infusion. But upon the abo- 
 riginal world of the red men, from Davis strait to 
 Cape Horn, it is not likely that any impression of 
 any sort was ever made. It is in the highest de- 
 gree probable that Leif Ericsson and his friends 
 made a few voyages to what we now Icnov y to have 
 been the coast of America; but it is an abuse of 
 language to say that they “discovered” America. 
 In no sense was any real contact established be- 
 tween the eastern and the western halves of our 
 planet until the great voyage of Columbus in 
 1492. 
 
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