Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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What Is Become Of Those Nations Of Louisiana Anterior To The
Lenni-Lenapes, The Shawanese, And Perhaps Even To The Sioux
(Nadowesses, Nahcotas) Of The Missouri, Who Are Strongly Mongolised;
And Who, It Is Believed, According To Their Own Traditions, Came From
The Coast Of Asia?
In the plains of South America we find only a very
few hillocks of that kind called cerros hechos a mano;* (* Hills made
by the hand, or artificial hills.) and nowhere any works of
fortification analogous to those of the Ohio.
However, on a vast space
of ground, at the Lower Orinoco, as well as on the banks of the
Cassiquiare and between the sources of the Essequibo and the Rio
Branco, there are rocks of granite covered with symbolic figures.
These sculptures denote that the extinct generations belonged to
nations different from those which now inhabit the same regions. There
seems to be no connection between the history of Mexico and that of
Cundinamarca and of Peru; but in the plains of the east a warlike and
long-dominant nation betrays in its features and its physical
constitution traces of a foreign origin. The Caribs preserve
traditions that seem to indicate ancient communications between North
and South America. Such a phenomenon deserves particular attention. If
it be true that savages are for the most part degenerate races,
remnants escaped from a common wreck, as their languages, their
cosmogonic fables, and numerous other indications seem to prove, it
becomes doubly important to examine the course by which these remnants
have been driven from one hemisphere to the other.
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