THE CONTINENT IN PRE-SPANISH DAYS

The discovery of South America stands as one of the most dramatic events
in history. From the time of its occurrence until the present so deeply
has this event impressed itself on men's minds that the previous state
of the Continent has been a somewhat neglected topic. The Incas and
their civilization, it is true, have attracted no small share of
attention to themselves, and the subject has become more or less
familiar to the average English reader through the medium of the work of
Prescott, who has been followed by a number of later writers, many of
whom have dealt very exhaustively with this subject. Yet, after all, the
Incas, for all their historical importance, occupied but a very small
portion of the territories of the Southern Continent. Beyond the western
fringe of the Continent which was theirs by heritage, or by conquest,
were other lands--mountainous in parts, level in others, where the great
river basins extended themselves--which were the chosen hunting and
fishing grounds of an almost innumerable number of tribes.

The degree of civilization, or, more accurately speaking, of savagery
which characterized these as a whole necessarily varied to a great
extent in the case of each particular tribe. Nevertheless, from the
comparatively high culture of the Incas down to the most intellectually
submerged people of the forests and swamps, there were certain
characteristics held in common by all. This applied not only to a marked
physical likeness which stamped every dweller in the great Continent,
but to customs, religious ceremonies, and government as well. Concerning
the origin of the South American Indians interminable disputes have now
raged for generations, but that in the case of all the various tribes
the origin was the same has never, I think, been controverted. The most
common theory concerning the origin of the South Americans is that this
was Mongolian.

This idea would certainly seem one of the most feasible of the many put
forward. Those who have delved sufficiently deeply into the matter have
found many striking analogies in customs, religious ceremonies, and even
in language between the inhabitants of South America and those of
Eastern Asia; and there are even those who assert that the similarity
between the two peoples extends to the designs on domestic pottery. The
majority of those who have devoted themselves to this subject of the
South American aborigines