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IN the text of Professor Neumann's work, there is an extract from the Nipponski, or Japanese Annals (from 661 until 696), relative to the Ainos, or inhabitants of Jeso. As anything concerning these inter-continental races is of interest in connection with the subject of this work, especially when it refers to any possible affinity between America and Asia, I append the following from the London Times (Nov. 1874):
THE AINOS OF JAPAN.--Mr De Long, lately United States Minister in Japan, made the following statement in his lecture at Sacramento:--"The Japanese estimate their population at about 40,000,000. This I think an over-estimate by from 10,000,000 to 15,000,000, although their reckoning is supported by their census returns. There is found inhabiting the island of Jeso and the Kurile Islands a race of men called by the Japanese 'Ainos,' or 'hairy men.' This appellation they well sustain, as they have full, flowing, black beards, reaching, in many cases, below the middle of the breast. We are told that they are the aborigines of Japan, originally occupying all of the islands embraced in that group; and Japanese history records the fact that Jimoo Tenno, the first Japanese emperor, with some followers, came from heaven in a boat, landed at or near Nagasaki, on the Island of Sikoke, from whom sprang the present Japanese nation; that gradually they beat back and destroyed the Aino race, as we have done the Indian, until the nation attained its present greatness, and the aborigines sank to their present weak condition. This is all the Japanese know of their origin and their race. Nothing interests their leading men more than a study of their probable origin, as they treat with levity the
legend recorded in their country. The embassy which accompanied me to Washington brought with them a large collection of stone beads, arrow-heads, and other evidences of the stone age. These they brought for the purpose of comparing them with similar relics found in our own and other countries. The embassy studied with great regard such Indians as we met, and such relics as could be found at Salt Lake City and other places. Iwakura assured me that the appearance of our Indians, their dress, costume, and weapons, were identical with such ornamentation as their geologists had discovered upon rude images marking the stone age in Japan; and he further remarked to me that he would be almost prepared to believe they were akin, but for the circumstance that our Indians could not be civilised. The Ainos form, in my mind, a curious subject of reflection. They seem to bear no relation in customs, language, or appearance to either the Japanese, Chinese, Manchoos, or other Oriental nations. They are extremely kind, mild-mannered, skilful as hunters and fishermen, intelligent, and brave. Crime is almost unknown among them, yet they are so completely savage or barbarous that they have no idea of their origin, no mode of reckoning time, no knowledge of the value of money, nor even proper names. They call their children 'One,' 'Two,' 'Three,' &c. Their mode of saluting a superior is to sit down upon the earth cross-legged, bow the head, and, placing their hands together with the palms upward, raise them three times toward their faces, as if in the act of casting dust or water upon themselves, after which they complacently stroke their long black beards with both hands three times. This mode of salutation, I believe, is analogous to that of the ancient Hebrews, while the beard and physiognomy of the people, in my mind, strongly resemble that nation. Ancient mining works of a very extensive character are found upon the island of Jeso, where these people live, and are mentioned by Professor Pompelly, who resided there for a period, while in the service of the Japanese, in his work entitled 'A Tour Around the World.'"
This interest of the Japanese in early America, and their belief that their ancestors had something in common with it, is possibly more deeply seated than Europeans are aware of. In his "New Japan," Mr Samuel Mossman, author of "China and its History," &c., writes as follows on this subject:--
"There is evidence to show that some of the early Japanese navigators, driven by the terrible typhoons that sweep over their waters, had entered the great North Pacific drift current bowing to the east--as observed by Krusenstern and Kotzebue--and reached the coasts of California and Mexico. They could not return again to their native land against the current, so those involuntary explorers were in all probability the founders of the Mexican dynasties, of which the famous Montezuma was among the last monarchs. When Cortes arrived in Mexico, he was received by the king and his sages as one whom they expected from the land of their ancestors in the far distant west. Hence it may be said that the Japanese were the first discoverers and founders of America. Even at this day, the remnants of the aboriginal races of California and Mexico have been recognised by intelligent natives from Japan as descendants of their ancestors, whose boats had been carried by currents or driven by tempests from their native shores."
This is an interesting subject, and I regret that more conclusive proofs than those hinted at by Mr Mossman cannot be given. As the Japanese are, however, intelligent scholars, it is to be hoped that among their traditions or literature something may be found confirming the belief that their ancestors carried civilisation to America.
It has been recently discovered that the Indians of Aliaska, until within a century, made mummies of their dead, and deposited them with arms and carved work in caves which were carefully closed. Should it ever be found that this custom prevails, or ever did prevail, among the Ainos, it would be another presumptive link not without value towards establishing the chain of evidence referring to the ancient union of the Old World with the New.
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Since these chapters went to press, I have conversed with a gentleman holding the rank of General in the United States regular army, who has not only passed many years in active
intercourse with a great variety of Indian tribes, but has had many opportunities of studying Mongolian types. Among his observations were the following:--Having asked him if he had ever observed a resemblance between Red Indians and Tartars, he replied that he had, but that it was more marked in some tribes than in others. On inquiring in which tribe it was most apparent, he promptly replied the Sioux. Another gentleman who was present confirmed the resemblance, and commented on the former great extent of the Dakotahs. On asking General ------ how he accounted for this likeness being stronger in the Indians of the Plains than in the Chippeways, he replied with substantially the same suggestion as that which I have given at the end of Chapter IX. of this work--that all Red Indians, and many Eastern Asiatics, had a common Mongol origin, which in the nomadic and equestrian life of the Plains, had redeveloped itself into a type somewhat resembling that existing in the steppes of Tartary. He also declared that, in all Red Indian tribes, there is a really extraordinary resemblance of squaws to Chinese women. This is recognised by both Indians and Chinese when they meet--as they now very frequently do--in California and Oregon. My informant had been interested and amused at seeing the prompt intimacy which often ensued on such rencontres. Chinese and Red Indian women have in common a very peculiar custom, not found among Aryan races. Many of my American readers will understand to what I allude. I am inclined to believe that Nature manifests herself in these affinities. Once, at an English boat-race on the Thames, I saw a group of gipsies eyeing with intense interest a very dark and very well-dressed gentleman. As I approached, one of them muttered to me in his language, "Rya ma pensa tu te adovo rye se Romanis?" ("Master, don't you think that gentleman is gipsy?") I was under the impression that it was a wealthy Jew from India, who lived in the neighbourhood, and told the Petulengo there was no gipsy blood there. But I found afterwards that the dark gentleman was really Hindoo. An old
gipsy woman, when she saw the Shah, declared positively there was something Rommany in him; "she knew it well enough." And as she herself used half-a-dozen Persian words in saying so, I thought her partly right. Gipsies fraternise very readily with natives of India, but not with Jews; nor have I ever heard of Chinese or Red Indians regarding mulattoes as of their blood--with the exception, perhaps, of "Jim Beckworth," whose assertion must, however, be taken with allowance. General ------ recognised the custom of love-making described by Hoei-shin in Fusang as common to several Red Indian tribes, though it does not--at present, at least--last so long among the latter as it did in the days of the monk. A month is generally sufficient, in these degenerate days, for the suitor to reside near his love; but the higher the pretensions of the girl, the longer must he continue his residence.
My informant had lived among the Pueblos. He was positive that there were among them virgins appointed to keep the sacred fire burning, but added, that there were male priests also charged with the same duty. He had remarked that the Indians of the North-west Coast frequently repeat in their well-known black-stone carvings the dragon, the lotus-flower, and the alligator, specimens of which he had recently given to a well-known professor at Oxford.
It is difficult to touch on the resemblance of North American Indians to inhabitants of Asia, without becoming involved in the differences of opinion between what Daniel Wilson calls the American school of ethnologists, and others in Europe. According to the former, to use the words of Wilson, the American aborigines are affirmed "to constitute one nearly homogeneous race, varying within very narrow limits from the prevailing type, and agreeing in so many essentially distinctive features as to prove them a well-defined, distinct species of the genus Homo. Lawrence, Wiseman, Agassiz, Squier, Gliddon, Nott, and Meigs, might each be quoted in confirmation of this opinion, and especially of the prevailing uniformity of certain strongly-marked
cranial characteristics; but the source or all such opinions is the justly-distinguished author of the 'Crania Americana,' Dr Morton of Philadelphia." Mr Wilson holds that this idea of a nearly absolute homogeneity pervading the tribes and nations of the Western Hemisphere, through every variety of climate and country, is so entirely opposed to the ethnic phenomena witnessed in other quarters of the globe, that it is deserving of the minutest investigation. The marked differences which have been found to exist among the men, as among the fauna peculiar to the Western Hemisphere, are explained by Agassiz as "an indefinite limitation between species," or "a tendency to split into minor groups running really into one another, notwithstanding some few marked differences" ("Indigenous Races of the Earth," p. 14). Mr Wilson holds that recent researches indicate radical differences among the aborigines of America; and that, for instance, tried by Dr Morton's own definitions and illustrations, the famous Scioto Valley skull essentially differs from the American typical cranium in some of its most characteristic features. And Mr Wilson further claims that, of a great number of ancient American skulls examined by him, very many exhibited an unmistakable difference from the so-called typical skull of Morton, while a general uniformity is traceable in a considerable number of Mexican crania, "but not without such notable exceptions as to admit of their division also into distinct dolichocephalic and brachycephalic groups." When it is recognised, as both Morton and Agassiz have done, that there are marked differences between American aboriginal skulls--differences as great as are allowed for different races in Europe--it does not establish their identity to declare they all "run into each other," and are all variations from the Scioto Mound skull. This, which is characterised by Morton as the perfect type of Indian conformation, to which the skulls of all the tribes, from Cape Horn to Canada, more or less approximate, presents two-thirds of its cerebral mass in front of the meatus auditorius externus; whereas, in the elongated Peruvian skull, unaltered by artificial means, this is almost exactly
reversed, showing, by the proportions of the cerebral cavity, that fully two-thirds of the brain lay behind the meatus auditorius. The reader who is interested in this subject may consult Mr Wilson's "Prehistoric Man" (London, Macmillan & Co., 1862), for the arguments on either aide. Non nobis tanta componere lites. But neither view affects the probability of Hoei-shin's having visited America, nor the fact that there are at present regular links of likeness between the American Indians of the North-west Coast through the Aleutian Islands to Asia. That Dr Morton himself had no prejudices on this subject is evident, since he, with the late Albert Gallatin, having read in the MS. my translation of Professor Neumaun's work, expressed a great interest in it, and manifested no opposition to the opinions advanced, excepting, indeed, that Dr Morton said to me, in conversation on the subject, that such authority as that of Chinese annals seemed obscure and doubtful. Professor Neumann, as may be seen on referring his text, fully accepted Dr Morton's views of an entire unity between all the American Indian tribes, but apparently held the opinion that, at some very early age, they had a common origin with certain Asiatic races. At present only one thing is certain, that our knowledge is far from being sufficiently advanced to enable us to decide a question which, when carried out, may involve that of the origin of man.