paradox and a bye-word. The Turk has not been more inflexible; nor the
Jew shown more individuality. We have hardly begun systematically to
examine this subject. If the ancient builders were nomads--mere hunters
of the bear, the deer, and the bison, who were too happy in the
Parthian attainments of the bow and arrow to need towns and
temples--certainly no such development arose in these more northern
latitudes. And yet, if we make some peculiar exceptions, it appears
difficult to suppose that the entire race, viewed in its generic and
ethnological aspect, did not present a unity. While the very amplitude
of the continent, and the variety of its soil, climate and productions,
would lead, inevitably, to divisions and sub-divisions of tribes and
languages, there are characteristics so deeply seated in their
organization and habits, physical and mental, as to mark them as a
peculiar family of the Red Type of man. Adopting this idea of unity as
a basis of study, there are, at least, fewer obstacles in grouping the
phenomena from which our deductions are to be drawn. The proof of
negation is not the strongest proof, but it is something to assert that
they are neither of Japhetic or Hamitic origin. In the traditions of
one of the most celebrated North American tribes, namely, the Iroquois,
the continent or "island," as it is termed, is called Aonio,[8] and we
may hence denominate the race Aonic, and the individuals Aonites. If we
do not advance by this term in the origin of the people, we at least
advance in the precision of discussion.

[8] Notes on the Iroquois.

But where shall we find a basis, on which to rest their Chronology?
Must we run back to the epoch of the original dispersion of man, or can
we rest at a subsequent point? Has the era of christianity any definite
relation to their migration? Was the migration designed, or accidental?
Did it consist of one tribe, or twenty tribes? Did it happen at one
epoch, or many epochs? Have they wandered here eighteen centuries, or
double that period? These are some of the inquiries that naturally
occur.

The first great question to be decided in the history of the Red Race,
is, whether they were, as they have been vaguely called, the
_aborigines_, or were preceded, on the continent, by other races? The
second, whether the type of civilization, of which we behold evidences
in Mexico, Yucatan and South America, was an _indigenous development_
of energies latent in the hu