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Charles A. Shook
(1876-1939) Cumorah Revisited (Cincinnati: Standard Pub. Co., 1910) |
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Origin of Polygamy (1910) | Origin Book of Mormon (1914) | Mormons & Mound-Builders
Doctrines & Dogmas (1897) | Book of Mormon Lectures (1901) | Jewish Indians?
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CUMORAH REVISITED OR "The Book of Mormon" and the Claims of the Mormons Re-examined from the Viewpoint of American Archaeology and Ethnology BY CHARLES A. SHOOK _________
_________ CINCINNATI: THE STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY 1910 |
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(under construction) [ blank] PREFACE ________ Having been taught in childhood to believe that the antiquities of Ameriea are the work of those accomplished races describecl in the Book of Mormon, I early acquired an interest in the study of American archaeology and ethnology that has not abated, but has increased as the years have gone by. It was while living at Jeffersonville, Indiana, in the year 1900, that I conceived the idea of making a special study of the Book of Mormon from this viewpoint for the purpose of putting out a small pamphlet on the subject. As I entered deeper and deeper into the study, the work grew until it reached its prescnt proportions, and as discrepancy after diserepancy between the claims of the Book of Mormon and the facts of science were diseovered, I became more and more surprised that this ground had not been more thoroughly worked by the anti-Mormon polemic before, while I became more and more convinced that in the data acquired by archaeologieal and ethological researeh the opponent of this system has a mass of evidenee which, if rightly used, will completely demolish the claim of the historieal credibility of the Book of Mormon. For the last half eentury, at least, the Mormons have put out works on American archaeology, but most of these have been mere collations of passages from scientific writers, taken here and there without a consideration of the context and often so arranged as to give an entirely different impression to the reader than their authors sought to convey. My plan has been to state fairly the Book of Mormon, or the Mormon, position on a certain point, and then to refute it by bringing to bear against it the latest and best authority obtainable. As the reader will notice, the later writings of Nadaillac, Brinton, Powell, Moorehead, Dellenbaugh, Shaler, Thomas, Peet, Henshaw, Holmes and Russell have been given precedence over the earlier writings of Adair, Boudinot, Priest, Baldwin, Foster and others. American archaeology is a growing science, and many of the old opinions have had to be given up as research has progressed. I wish here to acknowledge my indebtedness to the authors from whom I quote, and to disclaim any intention of posing as an authority on American anthropology. All that I have done, for which I can justly ask credit, is to marshal the facts of archaeology, already gathered, against the citadel of Mormon error. How well this has been done will be for the reader to decide. I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Charles Gibson, Mr. Jeff. D. Ward and Mrs. A. E. W. Robertson, of Indian Territory, for Indian vocabularies; to Rev. J. S. Howk, of Jeffersonville, Indiana, for lists of words in the Hebrew and Chaldee; to Rev. S. D. Peet, of Chicago, Illinois, for valuable suggestions and for information touching certain points in which his work as an archaeologist has been involved; and to R. B. Neal, of Pikeville, Kentucky, and Prof. R. C. Robbins, of Mendota, Illinois, besides a number of others who have rendered valuable help in various ways. CHARLES A. SHOOK. BUCHANAN, Michigan, August 19, 1908.
CHAPTER I. 15 THE RISE OF MORMONISM. Is the Book of Mormon one of Solomon Spaulding's romances? -- An outline of Book of Mormon history -- The Book of Mormon and American archaeologyCHAPTER II. 60 THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. The antiquity of man in America -- How man reached America -- The native tribes and nations of America -- The ruins of America -- The traditional history of America -- Archaeological knowledge in 1830CHAPTER III. 139 WERE THE ANCIENT AMERICANS OF THE WHITE RACE? White Indians -- Traditions of white and bearded men -- Red-haired mummies -- American craniologyCHAPTER IV. 173 ARE THE AMERICAN INDIANS OF JEWISH DESCENT? History of the theory -- What the Book of Mormon teaches -- Analogies: Division into tribes, worship of Jehovah, notions of a theocracy, belief in the administration of angels, languages and dialects, manner of reckoning time, prophets and priests, festivals, fasts and religious rites, ablutions and anointings, separation of women, abstinence from unclean things, marriage, divorce and punishment of adultery, cities of refuge, purifications and preparatory ceremonies, ornaments, burial of the dead -- Madagascaran, Mongolian and Malayan analogies -- Facts fatal to the theoryCHAPTER V. 216 WERE THE ANCIENT CENTRAL AMERICANS AND MEXICANS THE JAREDITES AND NEPHITES ? What Mormons claim -- The ancient Central Americans and Mexicans were not white -- The first people of Central America were savages -- The first civilized peoples came from the north -- The contact of the ancient peoples -- The first civilized people not exterminated -- Extent of the ancient empires --Toltec historyCHAPTER VI. 256 WERE THE MOUND BUILDERS THE JAREDITES AND NEPHITES? History of the discussion on the nationality of the Mound Builders -- What Mormons believe -- The Mound Builders one race -- The Mound Builders not one nation, but many tribes -- The direction of Mound-builder migration -- The antiquity of the Mound Builders -- The culture of the Mound Builders -- The nationality of the Mound BuildersCHAPTER VII. 321 THE CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT AMERICA. The origin of ancient American civilization -- Did it come from the tower of Babel? -- Ancient American civilization not derived from the Jews -- Egyptian analogies examined -- The antiquity of ancient American civilization -- Certain features of American civilization which oppose the Book of Mormon -- The ancient Americans did not manufacture iron and steel tools -- The ancient Americans did not have the horse -- The utter absence of wheat and other Oriental cerealsCHAPTER VIII. 384 THE RELIGIONS OF THE AMERICANS. The native idea of God -- The Mayan trinity -- Was Quetzalcoatl Jesus Christ? -- The Indian devil -- The American cross -- The American priesthoods -- Rites and ceremonies -- Cosmogony -- Mythology -- Eschatology -- The ancient religions as revealed in the ruins and remains -- The absence of Jewish and Christian antiquities -- The ancient temples like the modern -- The presence of idols among the antiquities -- The etchings and paintings -- Altars -- Effigy moundsCHAPTER IX. 462 THE NATIVE LANGUAGES OF AMERICA. Their supposed resemblance to the Hebrew examined --Their similarity to the Chinese and other tongues --Not wrecks, but developments -- The structure of the American languages -- The diversity of the American languages -- Supposed Book of Mormon words in American nomenclatureCHAPTER X. 502 THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF AMERICA. No uniform system of ancient writing -- The character of the Maya hieroglyphics -- The origin of the Maya writing -- The antiquity of the Maya writing -- The "Caractors" -- The purported and genuine statements of Anthon -- Are the "Caractors" Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyrian and Arabic? -- Are the "Caractors" American? -- The "Caractors" deformed English -- Archaeological frauds -- The Grave Creek tablet -- The Kinderhook plates -- The Newark tablet -- The Davenport tablet -- The Mendon plates -- ConclusionAPPENDIX. 567 THE BOGUS RELICS FROM MICHIGAN[ blank]
048 Map of Jaredite Lands 052 Map of Nephite Lands 079 Map of Linguistic Stocks of North America 083 Map of Linguistic Stocks of South America 093 Cavate Ruins 097 Cliff Dwellings 101 Map of Nations and Ruins of Central America and Mexico 105 Casa Colorado 312 Monitor Pipes 313 Shell Gorget 339 Ground Plans Maya Temples 407 Quetzalcoatl Crucified, No. 1 408 Quetzalcoatl Crucified, No. 2 505 Mexican Pictographs 510 Indian Pictographs 522 Cut of "Caractors" 528 Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyrian and Arabic Characters 536 Mayan Characters from Palenque 537 Mayan Characters from Copan 538 Mayan Characters from Quirigua 539 Mormon "Caractors" and English Characters 541 The Grave Creek Tablet 547 The Kinderhook Plates 558 The Davenport Tablet 570 Characters on Bogus Antiquities from Michigan [blank] |
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CUMORAH REVISITED
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In both Palmyra and Manchester the Smiths bore an unsavory reputation, and Joseph was reared in ignorance and poverty, and is reputed to have been indolent, loose in his habits and of questionable veracity. Danford Booth, a neighbor, says of him: "I knew Joe Smith personally to some extent, saw him frequently, knew well his reputation; he was a lazy, drinking fellow, and loose in his habits in every way." Orrin Reed, another neighbor, testifies: "Smith's reputation was bad." And William Bryant says of the family: "I knew the Smiths, 16 CUMORAH REVISITED but did not associate with them, for they were too low to associate with. There was no truth in them. Their aim was to get in where they could get property. They broke up homes in that way. Smith had no regular business. He had frequent revelations." 1 Mormon writers try to make it appear that Smith has been grossly slandered, btu it would secm from his own confessions that the charges of his neighbors wcre not far from the truth, for he admits that after receiving his first revelation even he drifted away, "fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth and the corruption of human nature," which led him "into divers temptations, to thc gratification of many appetites offensive in the sight of God." 2 It is only natural that a man should touch his own failings lightly, and it seems most likely that his "foolish errors" were his dissolute habits mentioned in the testimonies of his neighbors. Soon after the Smiths removed to Manchester a revival commenced in that place, which, beginning with the Methodists, soon became general among the other seets of the community -- the Baptists and thc Presbyterians. As a rcsult of strong sectarian prejudices, we are told, there was no little contention among the people, which considerably disturbed the mind of young Joseph, he being partial to the Methodists, though his mother, his brothers, Hyrum and Samuel, and his sister, Sophronia, had been proselyted to the Presbyterians. While in this state of mind, he tells us, Ihe one day read the words of James: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." Taking the apostle's counsel, he sought the seclusion of the forest and laid his desires __________ 1 "Braden and Kelley Debate," p. 119. 2 "Mr. Durant, of Salt Lake City," p 71. CUMORAH REVISITED 17 before the Lord in prayer. Scarcely had he begun to pray, he says, than he was seized by some unseen power which so bound his tongue that he could not speak Thick darkness gathered around him, and it seemed for a time that he was doomed to destruction. Terror-stricken, he exerted all his powers to call upon the Lord, when, to his great joy, a pillar of light. brighter than the sun, deseended upon him, dispelling the darkness, and his power of articulation was restored. At this juncture two personages stood before him with a brightness and glory beyond deseription. One of them, pointing to the other, said: "This is my beloved Son, hear him." "My object in going to inquire of the Lord," says Joseph, "was to know which of all the seets was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong), and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt." Soon after seeing this vision Joseph related his experienee to the Methodist preacher, who, he says, treated his story with contempt saying, that the whole thing was of the devil. and told him that there are no such things nowadays, they having ceased with the apostles. On the night of the 21st of September, 1823. according to his story, he was favored with another vision. After retiring for the night, he betook himself to prayer and supplication, when his room was illuminatcd with a heavenly light and a personage appeared before him who 18 CUMORAH REVISITED gave his name as Moroni. He said that he had come from the presence of God, and told Joseph that there was a great work for him to do, and that his name should go out among the people for both good and evil. He informed him that there was a set of plates deposited in a hill not far from his home, which contained a history of the ancient inhabitants of America, and with them the Urim and Thummim by which they were to be translated. He also quoted a number of passages from the Bible and revealed the depository of the plates "so clearly and distinctly," says Joseph, "that I knew the place again when I visited it." The next day, Smith tells us, he repaired to the spot, which was on a hill near Manchester, where he found a rock of considerable size, thick in the middle, but thin at the edges, which were covered with turf. Removing the earth and procuring a lever, he, with some difficulty, raised the rock, and found underneath, so his story goes, a stone box formed of four flat stones placed upright upon another which served as a bottom. The edges of these stones, we are told, were firmly held together with a certain kind of cement, and the whole formed a box of convenient size and so tight as to exclude moisture. This box is said to have contained, besides the plates and the Urim and Thummim, which were two transparent stones set in bows, a breastplate and the sword of Laban, an ancient resident of Jerusalem. Joseph made an attempt to remove the plates, but was forbidden by the angel, who told him that four years must needs elapse before they were to be delivered into his hands. hilll In October, 1825, Smith hired out to Mr Josiah Stoal, a resident of Chenango County, New York, who sent him to Harmony, Susquchanna County. Pennsylvania, to dig for a lost silver mine. While engaged in CUMORAH REVISITED 19 this labor he boarded at the home of Mr. Isaac Hale, where he met his future wife, Mr. Hale's daughter, Emma. The Hales wcre not at all favorable to Joseph's suit, on account of his dissolute habits -- Joseph says it was because he persisted in his claim to have had a vision -- and he and Emma eloped and were married at the house of Squire Tarbill, in South Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York, January 18, 1827. On the 22d of September following, Joseph went, he says, for the last time to "Hill Cumorah," where the angel delivered the plates into his hands, telling him that he would be held responsible for their safekeeping, and that if he let them go through carelessness or neglect he would be cut off. Apostle Parley P. Pratt gives the following description of the plates and the Urim and Thummim: "These records were engraved on plates, which had the appearance of gold. Each plate was not far from seven by eight inches in width and length, being not quite as thick as common tin. They were filled on both sides with engravings, in Reformed Egyptian characters, and bound together in a volume as thc leaves of a book, and fastened at the edge with three rings running through the whole. This volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of whicll was sealed. The characters or letters upon the unsealed part were small and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction, as well as much skill in the art of engraving. With the records was found a curious instrument, called by the ancients the Urim and Thummim, which consisted of two transparent stones, clear as crystal, set in two rims of a bow. This was in use in ancient times by persons called seers. It was an instrument by the use of which they received revelation 20 CUMORAH REVISITED of things distant, or of things past or future." -- A Voice of Warning, p. 73. In December, 1827, Smith removed from Manchester, where he had been living since his elopement, to the home of his father-in-law in Harmony, Pennsylvania, to escape, he says, from persecution. It is very possible that the citizens of Manchester could have given a better reason for his flight. On the way, he declares he was detained at two different times by an officer with a search-warrant who was looking for the plates. In the month of February, 1828, Martin Harris, a credulous farmer, who had been a friend to Smith and a believer in his story in Palmyra, came to Harmony, obtained a transcript of the characters which were on the plates, and took them to New York and presented them to Dr. Mitchell and Professor Anthon, two learned linguists of that city, for their examination. Harris gives the following account of what happened at New York: "I went to the city of New York and presented the characters which had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated, and he said that they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic, and he said that they were the true characters. He gave me a certificate certifying to the people of Palmyra that they were true characters, and that the translation of such of them as had been translated was also correct. I took the certificate and put it into my pocket, and was just leaving the house, when Mr. Anthon called me back, and asked me how the young man found out that there were gold plates in the place wllere he found them. I answered CUMORAH REVISITED 21 that an angel of God had revealed it unto him. He then said unto me, 'Let me see that certificate.' I accordingly took it out of my pocket and gave it to him, when he took it anil tore it to pieces, saying that there was no such thing now as the ministering of angels, and that if I would bring the plates to him he would translate them. I informed him that part of the plates were sealed, and that I was forbidden to bring them. He replied, 'I can not read a sealed book.' I le ft him and went to Dr. Mitchell, who sanctioned what Professor Anthon had said respecting both the characters and the translation." Upon returning from New York, Harris became Smith's scribe, and, after copying 116 pages, the Book of Lehi, he secured Smith's permission to carry the manuscript home with him to read to his wife, who did not prove as credulous as Martin. One evening, after reading the story to Mrs. Harris and some "pious friends," he locked the manuscript in a bureau drawer and also locked the door of the room. But, notwithstanding these precautions, on the morrow it was gone. It seems that Mrs. Harris did not approve of her husband's course, and, obtaining the manuscript, consigned it to the flames. Great was Smith's consternation when he learned of the misfortune. He, supposing that the manuscript had been preserved, was fearful lest, if he should write another Book of Lehi. the first would be produced, compared with the second, and the fraud be detected. On the other hand, if this part of the book were not reproduced, it would be a tacit confession of the imposture. At this critical time Joseph received another revelation in which he was told that the words of the manuscript had been altered so that they would read contrary to what had been written, for which cause 22 CUMORAH REVISITED he was commanded not to translate that portion of the plates again so that his enemies might "not accomplish their evil designs in lying against those words." For his carelessness Harris lost his place as Smith's scribe, and was severely reprimanded by the Lord in a revelation to Joseph. For several months the work of translating was interrupted, until the 17th of April, 1829, when Oliver Cowdery, who had been a schoolteacher in the Smith district in New York, and who had heard of Joseph's claims from his father, and who had arrived two days before, began his services as Smith's scribe. The manner of translating was unique. Smith, so David Whitmer says, sat at one end of a table and Cowdery at the other. The plates were not directly before Joseph, but, with the Urim and Thummim in his hat and his hat over his face, he read off the stones the translation of the original characters to Cowdery, who wrote it down as it fell from his lips. And, we are informed, neither the characters nor the translation, both of which appeared on the Urim and Thummim, disappeared until after Cowdery had written the translation down correctly. 1 On May 15, 1829, John the Baptist appeared and ordained Smith and Cowdery, so they claim, to the Aaronic priesthood; following whlch Joseph baptized Oliver, then Oliver Joseph, upon which they reordained each other to the same office to which they had been set apart by the spirit hands of the Baptist. The Book of Mormon was finally translated, copyrighted June 11, 1829, and issued in book form early in 1830. With it appeared the testimony of three witnesses, __________ 1 "Prophet of Palmyra," p. 26. CUMORAH REVISITED 23 Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin IHarris; and also the testimony of eight witnesses, Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smitll, Sr., Hyrum Smith and Samuel H. Smith. THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES. Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come, that we. through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken; and we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bare record that these things are true; and it is marvelous in our eyes; nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the24 CUMORAH REVISITED Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen. DAVID WHITMER, MARTIN HARRIS. THE TESTIMONY OF EIGHT WITNESSES. Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as said Smith has translated, we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of sobemess, that the said Smith has shown unto us for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety, that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our namcs unto the world to witness unto the world that which we have seen; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.JACOB WHITMER, JOSEPH SMITH, Sr., PETER WHITMER,Jr., HYRUM SMITH, JOHN WHITMER, SAMUEL H. SMITH. On April 6, 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized at Fayette, Seneca County, New York, with six mcmbers: Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Samuel Smith, IHyrum Smith, David Whitmer and Peter Whitiner. Of these, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were called and ordained elders. This, in brief, is the history of the rise of Mormonism, chiefly from the Mormon viewpoint. CUMORAH REVISITED 25 IS THE BOOK OF MORMON ONE OF SPAULDING'S ROMANCES? Gentiles, with few exceptions, 1 believe that the Book of Mormon is one of Solomon Spaulding's romances, which somehow fell into Smith's hands and was altered to suit his purpose. No matter what others may think, I agree with those who are of this opinion, although I have not always done so. 2Solomon Spaulding was born at Ashford, Connecticut, in 1761; graduated from Dartmouth College in 1785, and completed his course in theology in 1787. After this he preached for a time, but finally became an infidel, quit preaching and engaged in merchandizing in Cherry Valley, New York, where he failed financially in 1807. In 1809, with a business partner, Henry Lake, he built a forge at Conneaut, Ohio, where he again failed in 1812. The same year he removed to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in which city he lived for two years removing then to the town of Amity, in the same State, where he died in 1816. It was while living at Conneaut that he became interested in the aboriginal works of the country, and began his career as a writer of romances based upon them. His first story proves to be a fictitious history of a company of Romans who, in a voyage to Britain in the time of Constantine, were driven from their course by contrary winds and were earried to our shores. They __________ 1 D. H. Bays, for years a prominent minister in the Josephite Church, says, in his "Doctrines and Dogmas of Mormonism," p. 25: "The entire theory connecting Sidney Rigdon and the Spaulding romance with Joseph Smith in originating the Book of Mormon must be abandoned." He connects Oliver Cowdery with Joseph in the fraud. 2 I refer the reader to the excellent little work, "The Origin of the 'Book of Mormon,' Re-examined in Its Relation to Spaulding's 'Manuscript Found'," by A. T. Schroeder, for sale at the Utah Gospel Mission, 739 Republic St., Cleveland, O., for a thorough discussion of this question from the anti-Mormon viewpoint. 26 CUMORAH REVISITED found their way inland, and one of them wrote a history of two lndian tribes, the Sciotans and Kentucks, who were said to have lived on the Ohio River. Spaulding pretended to have found this history, written in the Latin langruage on twenty-eight rolls of parchment, in a stone box in a cave on Conneaut Creek. It is evident that this story was never finished, for it ends abruptly. Spaulding gave as his reason for throwing it aside that he wished to go further back in his dates and write in the old Scriptural style, that his story might appear more ancient. In 1834 this manuscript was loaned by Spaulding's widow to one Dr. D. P. Hurlburt, who was then gathering evidence against the Mormons, and was turned over by him to a Mr. E. D. Howe, editor of the Painesville (O.) Telegraph, who was writing a book, "Mormonism Unveiled." Howe subsequently sold out to one L. L. Rice, who started an antislavery newspaper, and among other things transferred to him this manuscript of Spaulding's. The Spaulding family, losing track of the manuscript, charged Hurlburt with having sold it to the Mormons, but this was subsequently proved untrue, for Mr. Rice, who in the meantime had removed to Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, discovered it among old papers in his possession in 1884, and afterwards deposited it in the library of Oberlin College, where it still remains. Both of the Mormon churches have published copies of this manuscript, and insist that it forever settles the question of the Book of Mormon originating in the writings of Solomon Spaulding. 1 __________ 1 Mormon writers and speakers try to make it appear that this is the only manuscript that Spaulding ever wrote. The Deseret News for July 19, 1900, says: "The discovery of the manuscript written by Mr. Spaulding, and its deposit in the library at Oberlin College, O.,... has so completely demolished the theory once relied upon by superficial minds that the 'Book of Mormon' was concocted from that manuscript, that it has CUMORAH REVISITED 27 But that Spaulding wrote at least one other romance, the historical outline of which was identical, or nearly so, with the historical outline of the Book of Mormon, is proved by the testimonies of a number of his relatives and acquaintances, to whom he was in the habit of reading his stories. This manuscript was placed in the printing establishment of one Robert Patterson, of Pittsburg, for publication, from which it mysteriously disappeared, and everything points to its having been stolen by Sidney Rigdon, who afterwards figured conspicuously as Smith's first counselor, and who at that time was an intimate acquaintance of one of Patterson's employes, J. Harrison Lambdin. Patterson was in the book business in 1812 in the firm of Patterson & Hopkins. In January, 1818, the partnership of Patterson & Lambdin was formed, succeeding the firm of R. & J. Patterson. The firm of Patterson & Lambdin continued until 1823. In 1812 Spaulding borrowed money and removed to Pittsburg for the purpose of having his story published, thus making it possible for him to pay his debts. His widow declares that the manuscript was returned to him with the advice to "polish it up, finish it, and you will make money out of it." The Spauldings then removed to __________ been entirely abandoned by all opponents of Mormonism except the densely ignorant or unscrupulously dishonest." But no anti-Mormon writer has ever claimed, but all have expressly denied, that the "Book of Mormon" originated in Spalding's Roman story. As early as 1834 Howe gave a good outline of that story and declared that the "Book of Mormon" originated in another, and this has been maintained all along. Yet, notwithstanding this, the ministry of the Mormon Church appear before the public with the claim that Spaulding wrote a manuscript; that it has been asserted that this manuscript was stolen from Patterson's printing-office and was worked over into the "Book of Mormon;" that this manuscript has heen found; and that it hears no resemblance whatever to the Book of Mormon." The "densely ignorant" and "unscrupulously dishonest" are those who make this false claim in the face of the well-established facts. 28 CUMORAH REVISITED Amity, where they kept a tavern, and where the story, as at Conneaut, became a great attraction. Here Spaulding evidently polished it up, finished it, and resubmitted it for publication sometime before his death in 1816. Mrs. Spaulding, who makes no mention of a resubmission, and who thinks that Rigdon copied the mantlscript when it was first in Patterson's office, does, however, state that Patterson did at one time tell him to "make out a titlepage and preface." It seems most likely that such advice would be given after the story had been finished and resubmitted for publication. It is possible that Spaulding, in polishing and finishing his story, rewrote it, and that it was the story rewritten which was resubmitted to Patterson and which fell into Rigdon's hands; while the old manuscript may have been placed in a trunk, with other papers of Spaulding's, which was sent, after his death, to the home of his wife's brother, W. H. Sabine, in Onondaga County, New York. Smith worked as a teamster for Sabine in 1823, and some have claimed that he either copied or stole this manuscript. The first is very unreasonable, the second is possible. if such a manuscript was in Sabine's possession. That one of Spaulding's manuscripts was stolen from Patterson's office, and that Spaulding suspected Rigdon of the theft, is evident from what Spaulding said to an intimate acquaintance, Joseph Miller, a short time before his death. Miller testifies: "My recollection is that Spaulding left a transcript of the manuscript with Patterson for publication. The publication was delayed until Spaulding could write a preface. In the meantime the manuscript was spirited away, and could not be found. Spaulding told me that Sidney Rigdon had talien it, or was suspected o f taking it. I recollect distinctly that Rigdon's name was mentioned in connection with it," CUMORAH REVISITED 29 Mr. Miller was an intimate friend of Spaulding, bailed him out of jail when he was imprisoned for debt, made his coffin for him and helped bury him when dead. He resided at Amity. That this conviction was shared in by others is shown by what his attending physician, Cephus Dodd, M. D., told George M. French at Spaulding's grave in 1832, two years before it was publicly charged that Spaulding's story was the basis of the Book of Mormon. He expressed a strong conviction that the Book of Mormon originated in the Spaulding manuscript, and that Rigdon was the one who transformed the former into the latter. But Mormons insist that Rigdon was not a resident of Pittsburg at the time it is claimed Spaulding had business relations with Patterson, and so could not have been the thief even if such a manuscript had been stolen from the establishment of Patterson. But this claim is contradicted by the evidences. Rigdon was born February 19, 1793, at Piney Fork, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The place of his birth is variously estimated at from six to twelve miles from Pittsburg. He lived on the farm with his parents up to the time of his father's death in 1810, and after that until his twenty-sixth year, or till 1819. He united with the Baptist Church at Piney Fork, May 31, 1817, and was licensed to preach in March, 1819. The following year he was ordained a Baptist preacher, and was married to Phoebe Brooks, a sister of the wife of Adamson Bently, then a Baptist minister, but afterwards prominently connected with the movement of the Campbells. In 1821, in November, Rigdon received a call from the Baptist Church of Pittsburg, and began active duties in February, 1822. On October 11, 1823, he was excluded for heresy, and subsequently, with the assistance of Alexander Campbell 30 CUMORAH REVISITED and Walter Scott, organized a Disciple church, of which he became pastor. He continued to preach for the Disciples up to the time that he became a Mormon in November, 1830. Living for twenty-six years but a few miles from Pittsburg, which was the largest city and chief trading-point in that part of the country, it will hardly be denied that he was occasionally there before he became pastor of the Baptist Church in 1822. That he was at least a frequent visitor to that city and a friend of young Lambdin during the time in which Spaulding's relations with Patterson existed, is proved by the testimony of Mrs. R. J. Eichbaum, given at Pittsburg, September 18, 1879. "My father, John Johnson, was postmaster at Pittsburg for about eighteen years, from 1804 to 1822. My husband, William Eichbaum, succeeded him, and was postmaster for about eleven years, from 1822 to 1833. I was born August 25, 1792, and when I became old enough I assisted my father in attending to the postoffice, and became familiar with his duties. From 1811 to 1816 I was the regular clerk in the office, assorting, making up, dispatching, opening and distributing the mails. Pittsburg was then a small town, and I was well acquainted with all the stated visitors at the office who called regularly for their mails. So meager at that time were the mails that I could generally tell without looking whether or not there was anything for such persons, though I would usually look in order to satisfy them. I was married in 1815, and the next year my connection with the office ceased, except during the absences of my husband. I knew and distinctly remember Robert and Joseph Patterson, J. Harrison Lambdin, Silas Engles and Sidney Rigdon. I remember Rev. Mr. Spaulding, but simply as one who occasionally called to inquire for CUMORAH REVISITED 31 letters. I remember there was an evident intimacy between Lambdin and Rigdon. They very often came to the office together. I particularly remember that they would thus come during the hour on Sabbath afternoon when the office was required to be open, and I remember feeling sure that Rev. Mr. Patterson knew nothing of this, or he would have put a stop to it. I do not know what position, if any, Rigdon filled in Patterson's store or printing-office, but am well assured he was frequently, if not constantly, there for a large part of the time when I was clerk in the post-office. I recall Mr. Engles saying that 'Rigdon was always hanging around the printing-office.' He was connected with the tannery before he became a preacher, though he may have continued the business whilst preaching." This testimony is important, as it establishes the whereabouts of Rigdon during those years in which Spaulding's relations with Patterson existed, and also the facts that Rigdon was an intimate acquaintance of young Lambdin and had the opportunity of possessing himself of the manuscript, being a frequent lounger around the printing-office. That Rigdon afterwards had a manuscript in his possession which he was fond of reading, and wbich he at one time at least declared was that cf Spaulding's, is proved by the testimonies of Rev. John Winter and Mrs. Amos Dunlap. Dr. Winter was a pioneer preacher in western Pennsylvania, and at the time that Rigdon was pastor of the Baptist Church of Pittsburg was a schoolteacher in that city. Mrs. Dunlap was a niece of Mrs. Rigdon. The testimony of Dr. Winter is as follows: "In 1822 or 1823 Rigdon took out of his desk in his study a large manuscript, stating that it was a Bible romance purporting 32 CUMORAH REVISITED to be a history of the American Indians. That it was written by one Spaulding, a Presbyterian preacher, whose health had failed and who had taken it to the printers to see if it would pay to publish it. And that he had borrowed it from the printer as a curiosity." On the 7th of December, 1879, Mrs. Dunlap made the following statement: "When I was quite a child I visited Mr. Rigdon's family. He married my aunt. They at that time" -- in 1826-7 -- "lived at Bainbridge, Ohio. During my visit Mr. Rigdon went to his bedroom and took from a trunk, which he kept locked, a certain manuscript. He came out into the other room and seated himself by the fireplace and commenced reading it. His wife at that moment came into the room and exclaimed: 'What! you are studying that thing again?' or something to that effect. She then added: 'I mean to burn that paper.' He said: 'No, indeed, you will not; this will be a great thing some day.' Whenever he was reading this he was so completely occupied that he seemed entirely unconscious of anything passing around him." That Rigdon foreknew of the coming out of the Book of Mormon at least two years before it appeared, is proved by the statements which he made to his brother-in-law, Adamson Bently, and to Alexander Campbell. In a letter to Walter Scott, dated January 22, 1841, Bently said: "I know that Sidney Rigdon told me that there was a book coming out, the manuscript of which had been found engraved on gold plates, as much as two years before the Mormon book made its appearance or had been heard of by me." This statement appeared in the disciple organ, the Millennial Harbinger, in 1844, and was commented upon by the editor, Alexander Campbell. as follows: "The conversation alluded to in Brother Bently's letter of 1841 CUMORAH REVISITED 33 was in my presence as well as his, and my recollection of it led me, some two or three years ago, to interrogate Brother Bently touching his recollection of it, which accorded with mine in every particular, except the year in which it occurred, he placing it in the summer of 1827, I in the summer of 1826, Rigdon at the same time observing that in the plates dug up in New York there was an account, not only of the aborigines of this country, but also it was stated that the Christian religion had been preached in this country during the first century, just as we were preaching it in the Western Reserve." Alexander Campbell is a witness who needs not to be vouched for, and his testimony in this matter can not fail to carry weight. The testimonies of Bently and Campbell prove that Rigdon knew of Smith and the Book of Mormon as early, at least, as the year 1827, in September of which the latter claimed to take the plates from their depository; though Rigdon himself denies that he ever saw the Book of Mormon until in t'he fall of 1830. We have other witnesses who testify that Rigdon told them of the coming out of a book describing the ancient Americans some time before he became a Mormon. Darwin Atwater made the following statement at Mantua Station, Ohio, April 26, 1873: "Soon after this the great Mormon defection came on us (disciples). Sidney Rigdon preached for us, and, notwithstanding his extravagantly wild freaks, he was held in high repute by many. For a few months before his professed conversion to Mormonism, it was noticed that his wild, extravagant propensities had been more marked. That he knew before of the coming of the Book of Mormon is to me certain from what he said during the first of his visits to my father's some years before. He gave a 34 CUMORAH REVISITED wonderful description of the mounds and other antiquities found in some parts of America, and said that they must have been made by the aborigines. He said that there was a book to be published containing an account of those things. He spoke of these in his eloquent, enthusiastic style as being a thing most extraordinary." And on June 3, 1841, Dr. S. Rosa, at Painesville, Ohio, testified as follows: "In the early part of the year 1830, when the Book of Mormon appeared, either in May or June, I was in company with Sidney Rigdon, and rode with him on horseback a few miles. Our conversation was principally upon the subject of religion, as he was at that time a very popular preacher of the denomination calling themselves disciples, or 'Campbellites.' He remarked to me that it was time for a new religion to spring up; that mankind were all rife and ready for it. I thought he alluded to the Campbellite doctrine. He said it would not be long before something would make irs appearance; he also said that he thought of leaving Pennsylvania, and should be absent for some months. I asked him how long. He said it would depend upon circumstances. I began to think a little strange of his remarks, as he was a minister of the gospel. I left Ohio that fall and went to the State of New York to visit my friends who lived in Waterloo, not far from the mine of golden Bibles. In November I was informed that my old neighbor, E. Partridge, and the Rev. Sidney Rigdon were in Waterloo, and that they both had become the dupes of Joe Smith's necromancies. It then occurred to me that Rigdon's new religlon had made its appearance, and when I became informed oi the Spaulding manuscript, I was confirmed In the opinion that Rigdon was at least accessory, if not the principal, in getting up this farce." CUMORAH REVISITED 35 It now remains to be shown that Rigdon and Smith knew of each other, and that Rigdon had the opportunity to get the manuscript into Smith's hands in time for its transformation into the Book of Mormon. This, of course, is stoutly denied by the Mormons, who contend that Rigdon knew nothing of either Smith or his book before the visit of Parley P. Pratt to Kirtland, Ohio, where Rigdon resided, in November, 1830. The claim is made that at first Sidney opposed the new religion, but was converted by a vision and was baptized November 14, 1830. An intimate acquaintance of Rigoon, Zebulon Rudolph, a disciple minister and father-in-law of President Garfield, testifies as to his mysterious actions during the winter prior to the appearance of the Book of Mormon. "During the winter previous to the appearance of the Book of Mormon, Rigdon was in the habit of spending weeks away from home, going no one knew whither. He often appeared preoccupied, and he would indulge in dreamy, visionary talks, which puzzled those who listened. When the Book of Mormon appcared and Rigdon joined in the advocacy of the new religion, the suspicion was at once aroused that he was one of the framers of the new doctrine, and that probably he was not ignorant of the authorship of the Book of Mormon." That for two years before he became a Mormon he was occasionally a visitor at Smith's home, is proved by the statements of Smith's neighbors. Pomeroy Tucker, who knew the Smiths well and who helped read the proofs of the Book of Mormon, testifies: "A mysterious stranger now appears at Smith's and holds intercourse with the famed money-digger. For a considerable time no intimation of the name or purpose of this stranger transpired to the public, not even to 36 CUMORAH REVISITED Smith's nearest neighbors. It was observed by some that his visits were frequently repeated. The sequel of the intimacies of this stranger and the money-digger will sufficiently appear hereafter. There was great consternation when the 118 pages of manuscript were stolen from Harris, for it seems to have been impossible, for some unaccountable reason, to retranslate the stolen portion. The reappearance of this mysterious stranger at Smith's at this juncture was again the subject of inquiry and conjecture by observers, from whom was withheld all explanations of his identity and purpose. When the Book of Mormon appeared Rigdon was an early convert. Up to this time he had played his part in the background, and his occasional visits to Smith's had been observed by the inhabitants as those of the mysterious stranger. It had been his policy to remain in concealment until things were in readiness for blowing the trumpet of the new gospel. He now came to the front as the first regular preacher in Palmyra." On May 2, 1879, Abel D. Chase, ar.other neighbor of the Smiths, signed a statement in the presence of Pliny T. Sexton, village president of Palmyra, and J. H. Gilbert, who set up the first edition of the Book of Mormon, relative to the visits of Rigdon to Palmyra before 1830. Of this statement the following is an extract: "During some of my visits at the Smiths, I saw a stranger there who they said was Mr. Rigdon. He was at Smith's several times, and it was in the year of 1827 when I first saw him there, as near as I can recollect. Some time after that tales were circulated that young Joe had found or dug from the earth a book of plates which the Smiths called the Golden Bible." On October 14, 1879 Mr. Gilbert, mentioned above, wrote to Mr. James T. Cobb, of Salt Lake City, Utah, as follows: CUMORAH REVISITED 37 "Last evening I had about fifteen minutes' conversation with Mr. Lorenzo Saunders, of Reading, Hillsdale County, Michigan. He has been gone about thirty years. He was born south of our village in 1811, and was a near neighbor of the Smith family -- knew them all well; was in the habit of visiting the Smith boys; says he knows that Rigdon was hanging around Smith's for eighteen months prior to the publishing of the Mormon Bible." This chain of evidence seems quite conclusive in proving the origin of the Book of Mormon in one of the manuscripts of Solomon Spaulding. But the most important and positive evidence that we have that the Book of Mormon originated as claimed, are the statements of a number of Spaulding's relatives and acquaintances to whom he was in the habit of reading his writings. These witnesses establish, beyond a doubt, that one of his stories was similar in historical outline to the Book of Mormon, and that it also contained names found in the latter, such as Lehi, Nephi, Lamanites, Nephites, Laban, Moroni, Amlicites and Zarahemla. In 1832 or 1833, a Mormon preacher came to Conneaut, the old home of Spaulding, and read a number of extracts from the Book of Mormon before a congregation composed, in part, of his relatives and acquaintances. The historical part was immediately recognized by his brother, John Spaulding, and others. The excitement was so intense that a citizens' meeting was called and Dr. Philastrus Hurlburt was chosen to collect the evidence which afterwards appeared in Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled." This evidence is composed, in part, of the statements of those who heard Spaulding's manuscript read, relative to its similarity to the Book of Mormon in certain names and in general historical outline. The Mormons 38 CUMORAH REVISITED have never succeeded in overthrowing these testimonies, and they stand to-day as "the most important single collection of original evidence ever made upon the subject." 1 John Spaulding says of his brother's manuscript: "The book he was writing was entitled 'Manuscript Found,' of which he read to me many passages. It was an historical romance of the first settlers of America, endeavoring to show that the American Indians are the descendants of the Jew, or the lost tribes. It gave a detailed account of their journey from Jerusalem by land and sea till they arrived in America under the command of Nephi and Lehi. They afterwards had quarrels and contentions and separated into two distinct nations, one of which he denominated Nephites and the other Lamanites. Cruel and bloody wars ensued, in which great multitudes were slain. They buried their dead in large heaps, which caused the mounds so common in this country. The arts, sciences and civilization were brought into view in order to account for all the curious antiquities found in various parts of Nort'h and South America. I have recently read the Book of Mormon, and, to my great surprise, I find nearly all the same historical matter, names, etc., as they were in my brother's writings. I well remember that he wrote in the old style and commenced about every sentence with 'And it came to pass,' or, 'Now it came to pass,' the same as in the Book of Mormon, and, according to my best recollection and belief, it is the same as my brother Solomon wrote, with the exception of the religious matter. By what means it has fallen into the hands of Joseph Smith, Jr., I am unable to determine." Martha Spaulding, the wife of John Spaulding, testifies: __________ 1"The Origin of thc Book of Mormon, Re-examined," etc., p. 40. CUMORAH REVISITED 39 "I was personally acquainted with Solomon Spaulding about twenty years ago. I was at his house a short time before he left Conneaut; he was then writing a historical novel, founded upon the first settlers of America. He represented them as an enlightened and warlike people. He had for many years contended that the aborigines of America were the descendants of some of the lost tribes of Israel, and this idea he carried out in the book in question. The lapse of timc which has intervened prevents my recollecting but few of the leading incidents of his writings; but the names of Nephi and Lehi are yet fresh in my memory as being the principal heroes of his tale. They were the officers of the company which first came off from Jerusalem. He gave a peculiar account of their journey by iand and sea till they arrived in America, after which disputes arose between the chiefs which caused them to separate into different bands, one of which was called Lamanites and the other Nephites. Between these were recounted tremendous battles, which frequently covered the ground with the slain; and their being buried in large heaps was the cause of the numerous mounds in the country. Some of these people he represented as being very large. I have read the Book of Mormon, which has brought fresh to my recollection the writings of Solomon Spaulding, and I have no manner of doubt that the historical part of it is the same that I read and heard read more than twenty years ago. The old, obsolete style and the phrases of 'and it came to pass,' etc., are the same." Henry Lake, Spaulding's business partner, testifies: "He very frequently read to me from a manuscript which he was writing, which he entitled the 'Manuscript Found,' and which he represented as being found in this town. I spent many hours in hearing him read said writings, and 40 CUMORAH REVISITED became well acquainted with its contents. He wished me to assist him in getting his production printed, alleging that a book of that kind would meet with a rapid sale. I designed doing so, but the forge not meeting our anticipations, we failed in business, when I declined having anything to do with the publication of the book. This book represented the American Indians as the descendants of the lost tribes, gave an account of their leaving Jerusalem, their contentions and wars, which were many and great. One time, when he was reading to me the tragic account of Laban, I pointed out to him what I considered an inconsistency, which he promised to correct, but by referring to the Book of Mormon, I find, to my surprise, that it stands there just as he read it to me then. Some months ago I borrowed the Golden Bible, put it into my pocket, carried it home and thought no more about it. About a week after my wife found the book in my coat pocket as it hung up, and commenced reading it aloud as I lay upon the bed. She had not read twenty minutes when I was astonished to find the same passages in it that Spaulding had read to me more than twenty years before from his 'Manuscript Found.' Since that I have more carefully examined the said Golden Bible, and have no hesitation in saying that the historical part of it is principally, if not wholly, taken from the 'Manuscript Found.' I well recollect telling Mr. Spaulding that the so frequent use of the words, 'And it came to pass,' 'Now it came to pass,' rendered it ridiculous." John N. Miller, who worked for Spaulding and Lake at Conneaut, and who boarded with the tormer, testifies: "He had written two or three books or pamphlets on different subjects, but that which more particularly drew my attention was the one which he called the 'Manuscript CUMORAH REVISITED 41 Found.' From this he would frequently read some humorous passages to the company present. It purported to be the history of the first settlement of America before discovered by Columbus. He brought them off from Jerusalem under their leaders, detailing their travels by land and water, their manners, customs, laws, wars, etc. He said that he designed it as a historical novel, and that in after years it would be believed by many people as much as the history of England. He soon after failed in business, and told me that he should retire from the din of his creditors, finish his book and have it published, which would enable him to pay his dcbts and support his family. He soon after removed to Pittsburg, as I understood. I have recently examined the Book of Mormon, and find in it the writings of Solomon Spaulding from beginning to end, but mixed up with Scripture and other religious matters which I did not meet with in the 'Manuscript Found.' Many of the passages in the Mormon book are verbatim from Spaulding, ard others in part. The names of Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, and, in fact, all the principal names, are brought fresh to my recollection by the Golden Bible. When Spaulding divested his history of its fabulous names by a verbal explanation, he landed his people near the Straits of Darien, which I am very confident he called Zarahemla; they were marched about that country for a length of time in which wars and great bloodshed ensued. He brought them across North America in a northeast direction." Aaron Wright testifies: "I first became acquainted with Solomon Spaulding in 1808 or 1809, when he commenced building a forge on Conneaut Creek. When at his house one day, he showed and read to me a history he was writing of the lost tribes of Israel, purporting that they were the first settlers of America, and that the 42 CUMORAH REVISITED Indians were their descendants. Upon this subject we had frequent conversations. He traced their journey from Jerusalem to America as it is given in the Book of Mormon, excepting the religious matter. The historical part of the Book of Mormon I know to be the same as I read and heard read from the writings of Spaulding more than twenty years ago; the names are especially the same, without any alteration. He told me his object was to account for all the fortifications, etc., to be found in this country, and said that in time it would be fully believed by all except learned men and historians. I once anticipated reading his writings in print, but little expected to see them in a new Bible. Spaulding had many other manuscripts which I expect to see when Smith translates his other plate. In conclusion I will observe that the names of, and most of the historical part of, the Book of Mormon were as familiar to me before I read it as most modern history. If it is not Spaulding's writing, it is the same as he wrote; and if Smith was inspired, I think it was by the same spirit that Spaulding was which he confessed to be the love of money." Oliver Smith testifies: "When Solomon Spaulding first came to this place (Conneaut), he purchased a tract of land, surveyed it out and commenced selling it. While engaged in this business he boarded at my house, in all nearly six months. All his leisure hours were occupied in writing a historical novel founded upon the first settlers of this country. He said he intended to trace their journey from Jerusalem, by land and sea, till their arrival in America; give an account of their arts, sciences, civilization, wars and contentions. In this way he would give a satisfactory account of all the old mounds so common to this country. During the time he was at my house I read and heard read one hundred pages or more. Nephi CUMORAH REVISITED 43 and Lehi were by him represented as leading characters when they first started for America. Their main object was to escape the judgments which they supposed were coming upon the old world. But no religious matter was introduced, as I now recollect.... When I heard the historical part of it (Book of Mormon) related, I at once said it was the writings of Solomon Spaulding. Soon after I obtained the book, and, on reading it, found much of it the same as Spaulding had written more than twenty years before." Nahum Howard testifies: "I first became acquainted with Solomon Spaulding in December 1810. After that time I frequently saw him at his house, and also at my house. I once, in conversation with him, expressed a surprise at not having any account of the inhabitants once in this country, who erected the old forts, mounds, etc. He then told me that he was writing a history of that race of people, and afterwards frequently showed me his writings, which I read. I have lately read the Book of Mormon, and believe it to be the same as Spaulding wrote, except the religious part. He told me that he intended to get his writings published in Pittsburg, and he thought that in one century from that time it would be believed as much as any other history." Artemus Cunningham testifies: "In the month of October, 1811, I went from the township of Madison to Conneaut, for the purpose of securing a debt due me from Solomon Spaulding. I tarried with him nearly two days for the purpose of accomplishing my object, which I was finally unable to do. I found him destitute of the means of paying his debts. His only hope of ever paying his debts appeared to be upon the sale of a book which he had been writing. He endeavored to convince me from the rature and character of the work that it would meet 44 CUMORAH REVISITED with a ready sale. Before showing me his manuscripts, he went into a verbal relation of its outlines, saying that it was a fabulous or romantic history of the first settlement of this country, and as it purported to have been a record found buried in the earth, or in a cave, he had adopted the ancient or Scripture style of writing. He then presented his manuscripts, when we sat down and spent a good share of the night in reading them and conversing upon them. I well remember the name of Nephi, which appeared to be the principal hero of the story. The frequent repetition of the phrase 'I Nephi' I recollect as distinctly as though it was but yesterday, although the general features of the story have passed from my memory through the lapse of twenty-two years. He attempted to account for the numerous antiquities which are found upon this continent, and remarked that after this generation had passed away, his account of the first inhabitants of America would be considered as authentic as any other history. The Mormon Bible I have partially examined and am fully of the opinion that Solomon Spaulding had written its outlines before he left Conneaut." These affidavits were first published in Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," in 1834. And, notwithstanding the Mormons have put forth every effort to disprove any connection between Spaulding's story and the Book of Mormon, they have never succeeded in showing that these statements were not made as claimed. All that they have ever done is simply blusteringly to deny the testimony, and this is characteristic of Mormonism in its dealings with all contradictory evidence. But the testimonies of these witnesses stand unimpeached as convicting evidence against the imposture. Since 1834 other acquaintances of Spaulding, who CUMORAH REVISITED 45 knew him either at Conneaut or Amity, and who heard his story read, have added their testimonies to those already given upon the close resemblance of the Book of Mormon to the "Manuscript Found " Joseph Miller, of Amity, under date of February 6, 1879, as reported in the Pittsburg Telegraph, says: "On hearing read the account from the book (of Mormon) of the battle between the Amlicites and the Nephites, in which the soldiers of one army had placed a red mark on their foreheads to distinguish them from their enemies, it seems to reproduce in my mind, not only the narration, but the very words as they had been impressed upon my mind by the reading of Spaulding's manuscript." On April 21, 1869, the following from Redick McKee appeared in the Washington (Pa.) Reporter, under date of April 14, 1879 [sic, 1869]: "In the fall of 1814 I arrived in the village of 'Good Will,' and for eighteen or twenty months sold goods in the store previously occupied by Mr. Thos. Brice. It was on Main Street, a few doors west of Spaulding's tavern, where I was a boarder. With both Mr. Solomon Spaulding and his wife I was quite intimately acquainted. I recollect quite well Mr. Spaulding spending much time in writing (on sheets of paper torn out of an old book) what purported to be a veritable history of the nations or tribes who inhabited Canaan. He called it 'Lost History Found,' 'Lost Manuscript,' or some such name, not disguising that it was wholly a work of the imagination, written to amuse himself and without any immediate view to publication. I was struck with the minuteness of his details and the apparent truthfulness and sincerity of the author. I have an indistinct recollection of the passage referred to by Mr. Miller about the Amlicites making a cross with red paint on 46 CUMORAH REVISITED their foreheads to distinguish them from enemies in the confusion of battle." And Rev. Abner Jackson, on December 20, 1880, made the following statement which was published in the Washington (Pa.) Reporter of January 7, 1881: "Spaulding frequently read his manuscript to the neighbors and amused them as he progressed with the work. He wrote it in Bible style. 'And it came to pass' occurred so often that some called him 'Old Come-to-pass.' The Book of Mormon follows the romance too closely to be a stranger. In both, many persons appear having the same name, as Moroni, Mormon, Nephites, Laman. Lamanites, Nephi and others. Here we are presented with romance second called the Book of Mormon, telling the same story of the same people, traveling from the same plain, in the same way, having the same difficulties and destination, with the same wars, same battles and same results, with thousands upon thousands slain. Then see the Mormon account of the last battle at Cumorah, where all the righteous were slain. How much this resembles the closing scene in the'Manuscript Found.' The most singular part of the whole matter is that it follows the romance so closely, with this difference: The first claims to be a romance; the second claims to be a revelation of God, a new Bible. When it was brought to Conneaut and read there in public, old Squire Wright heard it and exclaimed, 'Old Come-to-pass has come to life again.' Herc was the place where Spaulding wrote and rcad his manuscript to the neighbors for their amusement. and Squire Wright had often heard him read from his romance. This was in 1832, sixteen years after Spaulding's death. This Squire Wright lived on a little farm just outside of the little village. I was acquainted with him for twenty-five years. I lived on his farm when I was a boy and CUMORAH REVISITED 47 attended school in his village. I am particular to notice these things to show that I had an opportunity of knowing what I am writing about." The evidence in the case goes to show that Spaulding wrote several manuscripts; that one of these closely resembled the Book of Mormon in general historical outline and proper names, differing from it in not possessing Scriptural quotations and religious matter; that this manuscript was placed in the printing establishment of one Robert Patterson, of Pittsburg, from which it mysteriously disappeared; that Spaulding suspected Rigdon of the theft; that at the time the manuscript was in Patterson's office Rigdon lived in the vicinity of Pittsburg and was intimate with J. Harrison Lambdin, one of Patterson's employes; that Rigdon had in his possession a mantlscript which he told Dr. Winter had been written by Spaulding; that he mentioned the coming out of a book describing American antiquities and giving an aceount of the first people at least two years before the Book of Mormon appeared; and that he had communication with the Smiths before he openly united with the Mormons in November, 1830. It would seem that this chain of evidence would be sufficient to put the claim, that the Book of Mormon originated in one of Spaulding's romances, beyond the reach of reasonable doubt. OUTLINE OF BOOK OF MORMON HISTORY. Followillg the plan of the Bible, the Book of Mormon is divided into books of which there are fifteen: 1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon, Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, Nephi, Disciple of Nephi, Mormon, Ether and Moroni. Historically they cover a period of twenty-six hundred years and describe two distinct nations of people, the Jaredites and Nephites; the Book48 CUMORAH REVISITED of Ether being an abridged history of the former, the other fourteen of the latter. According to the Book of Mormon, the first inhabitants of America came from the Tower of Babel under Jared and his brother, the latter a prophet of the Lord. With tlleir fcllowing they journeyed from Babel northward
into Armenia, from thence westward over southern Europe to Spain (the Book of Mormon, Land of Moriancumer), where they dwelt on the seashore for four years. At the close of this period, by the command of God, they built eight peculiarly shaped "barges" and put to sea, landing, after a voyage of 344 days, upon "the east coast of Central America, near the mouth of the CUMORAH REVISITED 49 river Motagua." -- Report of the Committee on American Archaeology, p. 70. Ether gives the following description of the barges in which they are said to have come: "And they were small, and they were light upon the water, even like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water; and they were built after a manner that they were exceeding tight, even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the sides thereof were tight like unto a dish: and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree and the door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish." -- Ether 1:5. The brother of Jared was puzzled to know how the occupants were to get air, so the Lord said: "Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top thereof, and also in the bottom thereof; and when thou shalt suffer for air, thou shalt unstop the hole thereof, and receive air." -- Ether I:6. For light the Lord touched with his finger sixteen small stones which Jared's brother had "moulten" out of a rock, and these, placed one in each end of the eight barges, gave light to those within. Upon reaching Central America the Jaredites founded a government and began to settle the country. Their Land of Moron comprised about the present States of Tabasco, Chiapas, Guatemala and western Honduras. Their capital was also called Moron and is identified by the Josephite Committee on American Archaeology with either Copan or Quirigua, two ancient cities now in ruins. 1 The peninsula of Yucatan was __________ 1 Report, p. 70. 50 CUMORAH REVISITED called the Land of Nehor; Mexico, the Land of Heth; and the United States is named on the Committee's maps the Land Northward. Their oldest and richest communities were in the Land of Moron, but large and flourishing Jaredite centers existed where New Orleans, St. Louis and Cincinnati now stand, and Jaredite people and culture were spread throughout the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys. The Committee say: "It appears from the record that at this time Central America and a large proportion of the central portion of the United States were settled by the Jaredites; in the United States, probably, they occupied mainly in the valleys of the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio Rivers, covering largely their watersheds. Omer and Nimrah 'fled out of the land,' evidently from the countries already settled, and probably the chief centers were at New Orleans, St. Louis, Cincinnati, except in Mexico and Central America, where the oldest and richest communities dwelt." -- Report, p. 72. The culture of the Jaredites was of a superior order. They understood the uses of metals, iron included. They manufactured silks and linen goods. They had flocks and herds, horses, asses, elephants, "cureloms" and "cumoms." They had a well-organized government. They worshiped, and had intercourse with, God. They had secret societies, and they employed a phonetic system of writing. All of which belong to a considerable degree of civilization. After dwelling here for sixteen hundred years, being ruled over by thirty rulers, 1 suffering from dissensions and revolts, and spreading over the extensive territory ment.oned, they came to an end in a civil war in a battle __________ 1 "Joseph the Seer," p. ~~8. CUMORAH REVISITED 51 fought in 600 B. C., at Hill Ramah in western New York, in which thousands were slain in a few days, only two escaping -- Coriantumr, one of the generals, and Ether, a prophet of the Lord. The former was afterwards discovered by the people of Zarahemla and dwelt with them "nine moons;" Ether wrote a history of his people on a set of plates and hid them in such a manner that they were discovered by their successors. This, in brief, is the history of the first colony of immigrants that came to America, as given in the Book of Mormon and outlined in Mormon works. The book further claims that, in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, there was dwelling at Jerusalem a prophet, Lehi by name, a righteous man. On account of the wickedness of the city, God commanded him to take his family and depart into the wilderness of Arabia that he might escape the calamities about to befall the people on account c; f their sins. His family consisted of his wife, Saraiah, and his four sons, Laman, Lemuel, Sam and Nephi. The first two were obstinate and irreligious; the latter two were dutiful and obedient. After their departure the sons visited Jerusalem at two different times. They went first to obtain a set of brass plates, containing a genealogy of their fathers, which were not obtained, however, until Laban, their keeper, had been slain by Nephi, when they returned to their father bringing the plates and Zoram, Laban's servant, who consented to return with them. By the plates Lehi discovered that he was of the tribe of Manasseh. The sons visited Jerusalem a second time and brought back with them Ishmael and his family, which consisted of two sons and five unmarried daughters, who became the wives of Lehi's four sons and Zoram. Not long after reaching the wilderness Ishmael died and 52 CUMORAH REVISITED two more sons, Jacob and Joseph, were born to Lehi. Eight years having elapsed since Lehi left Jerusalem, the little company, which now numbered eight families,
by the command of God, built a ship, launched out into the Indian Ocean, and, after a stormy voyage, during CUMORAH REVISITED 53 which the wicked Laman and Lemuel rebelled again.st their brother Nephi, landed "on the coast of Chili, not far from the thirtieth degree, south latitude." -- Report, p. 11. Here they found all manner of beasts -- the cow, ox, ass, horse, goat and wild goat; also such ores as gold, silver, iron and copper. Nephi began immediately to keep a record of his people, for which purpose he made a set of plates and began to engrave thereon their history in the "Reformed Egyptian" language. Lehi, soon afterwards, having waxed old, called his family together, blessed them in true patriarchal style, gave up the ghost and was buried. With his dcath the bond that held the two contrary factions together was broken and they drifted apart, Laman and Lemuel and the two sons of Ishmael with their families being called Lamanites; and Nephi, Sam and Zoram and their families, with Jacob and Joseph and their sisters, being called Nephites. The former were savage, indolent and irreligious, because of which God cursed them with a dark skin and .hey "did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey." They were the ancestors of our American Indians. The latter were industrious, religious and progressive, because of which God blessed them abundantly. After the separation, the Lamanites established themselves in what is now the State of Rioja in the Argentine Republic, 1 while the Nephites went a thousand miles farther north and founded the city of Nephi in the present country of Peru. The Committee identify this city with the ancient city of Cuzco. Here they built a temple like unto Solomon's and instituted a worship similar to the Jewish, with Jacob and Joseph as priests. From Nephi, being a prolific people, they spread over the adjacent __________ 1 Report, p. 19. 54 CUMORAH REVISITED country, and what is now northern Chili, western Bolivia and Peru was included in the Land of Nephi. Of the ancient cities of this region, the Committee identify Huanuco, Riobamba, Gran-Chimu and Cuelap-Tingo, with the Book of Mormon cities, Ishmael, Amulon, Middoni and Lehi-Nephi, respectively. After dwelling in this region for four hundred years, till about 200 B. C., under pressure from the Lamanites to the south of them, they moved northward into the Land of Zarahemla, now the United States of Colombia and western Venezuela, where they united with the people of Zarahemla, or Mulekites, who had come from Jerusalem about the time of its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, under Mulek, one of Zedekiah's sons. This people had .anded upon the west coast of the Isthmus of Panama, but had migrated southward, instead of northward, and had settled in the northern part of South America. It was among this people that Coriantumr, the Jaredite, dwelt "nine moons." The Nephites and Mulokites from that time forward were one people, the Nephite king, Mosiah, being their first joint ruler. The Eook of Mormon river Sidon is identified with the Magdalena. From Zarahemla the Nephites spread over the Isthmus of Panama, their Land Bountiful; Nicaragua and eastern Elonduras, their Land Desolation; San Salvador, their Land Joshua; Guatemala and western Honchlras, their Land Jashon; Chiapas and Tabasco, their Land Antum; Mexico, their Land Shem; and the United States, their Land of Many Waters. Thus, they inhabited the territory previously occupied by the Jaredites, with the probable exception of Yucatan, and, in additlon to it, South America, which was not inhabited by their predecessors, but was kept by them as a reserve for game. The Committee say, on the settlements north of Mexico: "On entering the United States, the Nephites CUMORAH REVISITED 55 settled largely in the same sections inhabited by the Jaredites, the oldest mound builders, and their march to their final conflict was along the same lines." -- Report, p. 65. A Nephite by the name of Hagoth, an "exceeding curious man," fitted out a ship and sailed from the Isthmus of Panama into the Pacific and was never heard of again. Some Mormons have conceived the idea that he was the mythical Hawaii who is said to have.settled the Sandwich Islands. 1 After Christ's resurrection he is said to have appeared to the Nephites; to have set his church in order with twelve apostles; and to have inaugurated a veritable millennium, for, so widespread was the revival immediately following his appearance, that there ceased to be "Lamanites or any manner of ites." But alas! the blooming millennium was soon cut short and the Lamanites went back to their old ways, and began to persecute the Nephites with relentless fury, which resulted in the latter's final overthrow, in 385 A. D., on the same field where a thousand years before the Jaredites had been exterminated. A few escaped and fled southward, but were afterwards destroyed, though some Mormons assert that they were absorbed among the Lamanites and that from them came the tribes of "white Indians," such as the Mandans and Menominees. Moroni, the last of the Nephites of royal blood, completed the record of his people upon the plates, adding an abridgment of the record of Ether, and deposited them in "Hill Cumorah'' (the Jaredite Ramah or Riplah, known to vulgar Gentiles as "Mormon Hill," which lies southeast of Palmyra, N. Y.) in 420 A. D., from which, it is __________ 1 "Book of Mormon Lectures," p. 206. 56 CUMORAH REVISITED claimed, they were taken by Joseph Smith on September 22, 1827. The Nephites, like the Jaredites, were highly cultured. They worshiped the one true God. They observed the Jewish law up to the time of Christ, when they became Christians. They worked the metals. They built temples, synagogues, sanctuaries and houses of cement. They were agriculturists, warriors and tradesmen. And they had a phonetic system of writing. Reader, this is, briefly, the history of ancient America as given in the Book of Mormon and outlined in the Report of the Committee on American Archaeology and other Mormon works. There are slight differences between the Mormon churches in the establishment of certain boundary lines and the location of certain places, but, in the main, this will be considered a fair outline of ancient American history by 350,000 human souls. Will it stand the test of investigation? We shall see. THE BOOK OF MORMON AND AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY. The Book of Mormon, coming to us with the claim of divine inspiration, demands our acceptance under pain of eternal damnation. Apostle Orson Pratt sets the case fairly before us, from the Mormon point of view in these words: "The nature of the message in the Book of Mormon is such, that, if true, no one can possibly be saved and reject it; if false, no one can possibly be saved and receive it. Therefore, every soul in all the world is equally interested in ascertaining its truth or falsity." O. Pratt's Works, p. 68.It is also conceded by Mormons themselves that the integrity of their system is so dependent upon the authenticity of the Book of Mormon that to prove it false is to overthrow the entire Mormon superstructure. "It is very CUMORAH REVISITED 57 evident," says Elder George Reynolds, "that if the Book of Mormon is not of God, then the whole superstructure of Mormonism is, of necessity, a gross imposture, the cruelest of religious deception that for many centuries has misled humanity." -- The Myth of the Manuscript Found, pp. 9, 10. The claims of the Book of Mormon must be considered from four points of view: First, from the viewpoint of a possible human authorship. Did it originate in the writings of Solomon Spaulding? Secondly, from the viewpoint of itself as a religio-literary production. Do its structure, doctrinal teachings and moral precepts evince its divine inspiration? Thirdly, from the viewpoint of prophecy. Are the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments, which are applied to its "coming forth," rightly applied or misapplied? And fourthly, from the viewpoint of American archaeology and ethnology. Are its historical statements substantiated by archaeological and ethnological research ? It is my intention, in the following pages, to consider its claims from the viewpoint of American archaeology and ethnology, for the purpose of showing that it is not a credible history of ancient America, but a work of pure fiction, false in its historical accounts, and in its descriptions of the customs, habits, religion, government and character of the first Americans. In order to accomplish this, I shall put before the reader the facts as established by the latest research as these are given in the works of the latest and best authors. The opinions of the older writers will be made use of only so far as they agree with these facts. Mormon writers confidently assert that the data acquired 58 CUMORAH REVISITED by scientific investigation in the fields of American archaeology and ethnology fully substantiate the claims of the Book of Mormon. This will be seen in the following quotations from authorities in the two great branches of the Mormon Church. "The Book of Mormon statements have smee been verified by facts, the later and best authorities concurring with the Book of Mormon idea." Report of the Committee of American Archaeology, p 96. "The historical accounts recorded in the book are being rapidly substantiated by American archaeological research." -- Elder C. J. Hunt in Opinions of Sixty-five Leading Ministers and Bible Commentators on Isa. 29: 11-24 and Ezek. 37: 15-20, pp. 3, 4. "The students of American antiquities will find upon a eareful examination that no discovery has thus far been made which in a single instance contradicts the record of America's great and glorious past, as found in the Book of Mormon." -- Elder R. Etzenhouser, in "The Book Unsealed," p. 78. "So the 'Book of Mormon' still stands like a very Gibraltar, undisturbed by ridicule, scathing criticism, or scientifie demonstration." -- Apostle W. H. Kelley, in "Presidency and Priesthood," p. 286. "For not only are the principles of the gospel of Christ great and eternal truths, which we preach, but the book under discussion, as the history of ancient American peoples, is also true and fully substantiated, not only by Bible prophecies, but also by abundant discoveries of science, by a wonderful array of archaeological ruins and antiquarian remains, by many historical facts developed since its publieation, by the traditional history of tribes and nations, and, finally, by the internal evidenees found in the book itself, they being historical, geographical and CUMORAH REVISITED 59 doctrinal in their character, and strong in proof." -- Elder H. A. Stebbins, in "Book of Mormon Lectures," p. 3. President W. W. Blair declares that the facts stated in the book have since been "fully attested by the antiquarian and the geologist." -- Joseph the Seer, p. 175. And Apostle Orson Pratt asserts that "there can not be found one truth among all the gleanings of antiquity that clashes with the historical truths of the Book of Mormon." -- O. Pratt's Works, p. 153. These extracts from the works of prominent Mormon writers on the relation of the sciences of archaeology and ethnology to the question of the credibility and historical accuracy of the Book of Mormon, show the interest of the Mormon people in, and their expectations from, archaeological and ethnological research. |
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Yet, notwithstanding this general physical uniformity, there are wide inter-racial variations. The majority of American tribes are prevailingly meso- or brachycephalic, but in a few the long-headed type of skull prevails. Of these, Brinton mentions the Eskimo of the north, the Tapuyas of Brazil and the Aymaras of Peru, while the cephalic index of the Yumas has been noticed to run as low as 68. In color the American tribes vary from a light ash color to a very dark, almost black, shade of CUMORAH REVISITED 61 complexion. These variations are not, however, in reference to climate, the Yurucares of the torrid zone being light, while the Kaws of the north temperate are very dark. The hair is generally coarse, straight and black, but cases are known in which it is fine and silky and even wavy or curly. When carefully examined, it reveals an undercolor of red very noticeable in some tribes, especially among the children. The growth is usually thick and strong on the head, but scanty on the body and face, and yet instances are recorded of tribes with full beards. Within some tribes individuals have been observed with light hair and light eyes. The Americans also vary in stature, the Patagonians being frequently over six feet in height, while the Warraus are below medium; though no tribes are as dwarfish as the Lapps and Bushmen. The arms are generally long and the hands and feet small in comparison with those of the Europeans. 1 Whatever may have been their origin, one thing is certain: the people of this continent have been so long separated from the rest of mankind as to set themselves off in a body by themselves, distinct from all other races in language, color and culture, and are to be recognized, not as a branch of the Mongolian, Polynesian or Caucasian family, but as a distinct family by themselves, for which the Anthropological Society of Washington has suggested the name "Amerind," a combination of the first syllables of American and Indian. "They constitute," says Brinton, "as true and distinct a sub-species as do the African or the White Race." -- Essays of an Americanist, p. 17. For our knowledge of the Amerind of the past, we have to depend upon oral and, more or less, uncertain __________ 1 "The American Race," pp 36-40, 62 CUMORAH REVISITED traditions handed down from father to son through numberless generations; the picture-writing of the Aztecs and the more developed system of the Mayas, their southern neighbors; the writings of the Spanish and French priests and English missionaries, with those of the native converts, conquistadors, travelers and explorers; the "actual condition, institutions and beliefs" of the tribes at the time of the Discovery; the lingual affinities between the tribes; and the material monuments of ruined cities, mounds and fortifications with other archaeological remains. THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. It has long been a question with anthropologists whether to consider the distinct races of men as separate creations or as types of one species descended from a common source. Those who believe in man's specific diversity have advocated their side of the question with a degree of zeal and a display of learning quite remarkable, and yet the argument still seems to be on the side of those who believe with Paul that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth; and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation" (Acts 17:26). On this point Dr. Brinton says: "But now, after weighing the question maturely, we are compelled to admit that the apostle was not so wide of the mark after all—that, in fact, the latest and best authorities, with no bias in his favor, support his position and may almost be said to paraphrase his words. For, according to a late writer whose work is still a standard in the science of ethnology, the severest and most patient investigations show that 'not only do acknowledged facts permit the assumption of the unity of the human species, but this opinion is attended with fewer discrepancies, and has greater inner 63 consistency, than the opposite one of specific diversity.'" -- Myths of the New World, p. 14. Prominent among the advocates of the diversity of the human species was Dr. Samuel George Morton, who wrote in its defense his well-known works, "Crania Americana" and "Crania Egyptiaca." His investigations were confined, however, to the first half of the nineteenth century, he dying May 15, 1851. After his death his disciples, Dr. J. C. Nott and Mr. George R. Gliddon, defended his views in their "Types of Mankind." Louis Agassiz was also of this opinion and divided humanity into eight distinct types which, he thought, originated independently of each other and in special adaptation to the climate and environment of those regions where they dwelt. These types are the Arctic, Mongol, European, American, Negro, Hottentot, Malay and Australian. It hardly needs to be said that this theory, which at the time of its introduction caused no little stir in scientific and religious circles, so far as it relates to the question of the origin of the American race, has but few supporters to-day, the recent studies in biology and anthropology putting it in no very favorable light. [1] "On the one hand," says Brinton, "the laws of the evolution of the higher vertebrates offer no support to the idea that the species man was developed on the American continent. Its living and fossil fauna are alike devoid of high apes, of tailless monkeys, or those with thirty-two teeth; in the absence of which links we must accept man as an immigrant, not a native in the New World. Nor can we place his advent extremely remote." -- Myths of the New World, p. 48. __________ 1 The theory of "monogenism," or the specific unity of man, is now adopted by most anthropologists. -- "Myths of the New World" p. 14, Footnote. 64 CUMORAH REVISITED Those who hold to the theory that American man came from the Old World are divided among themselves in their opinions as to the country from which he came. Some have suggested China, others Polynesia, others Phenicia, others Atlantis, and still others Palestine. Volumes have been written on these different theories, and numberless analogies in custom, habit, institution and belief have been pointed out to prove them, but, notwithstanding all this, these theories have passed away before the advance of scientific research. Brinton remarks: "JFor all those old dreams of the advent of the Ten Lost Tribes, of Buddhist priests, of Welsh princes, or of Phenician merchants on American soil, and there exerting a permanent influence, have been consigned to the dust-bin by every unbiased student, and when we see learned men essaying to resuscitate them, we regretfully look upon it in the light of a scientific anacronism. The most competent observers are agreed that American art bears the indisputable stamp of its indigenous growth. Those analogies and identities which have been brought forward to prove its Asiatic or European or Polynesian origin, whether in myth, folklore or technical details, belong wholly and only to the uniform development of human culture under similar conditions. This is their true anthropological interpretation, and we need no other."— Myths of the New World, pp. 33, 34. The data which we have at hand make it necessary for us to reject the assumption that the American Indian is a descendant of some one, or of a number, of the historic nations. His physical peculiarities, his languages and the characteristic features of his culture all combine to refute such a hypothesis. On the contrary, these evidences go to show that he must have come to America in the dim, distant ages of the past, long before the erection 65 of the pyramids of ancient Egypt and the palaces and temples of ancient Babylon, and when he and his fellows were still chippers of stone, and developed here upon this continent in conformity with its climate and environments and the laws of his own nature. This theory is rapidly being confirmed by the data which are being brought to light by scientific investigation.1 The "area of characterization," or the locality where American man received the peculiar physical stamp characteristic of his race, Brinton would locate in North America, east of the Rocky Mountains and between the receding wall of the glacial ice-sheet and the Gulf of Mexico. His reasons for this belief are the proximity of this region to the land areas of the Old World; the inadaptation of the race to the tropical climate; their susceptibility to hepatic disorders and diseases of the torrid zone; the robust physique of the tribes of the temperate regions, as compared with those of the tropics; and the fact that in North America "we find the oldest signs of man's residence on the continent." [2] THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA. On the antiquity of man the opinions of anthropologists vary widely. Professor Winchell states that man's antiquity "may reach a hundred thousand years." [3] And Dr. Brinton thinks that man may have been in the Delaware Valley even longer ago than that. [4] On the other hand, Dawson declares that the "four or five thousand years for the postdiluvian period, and two thousand, or a little more, for the antediluvian period, will exhaust all __________ 1 "North Americans of Yesterday," p. 14, 2 "The American Race," p. 35. 3 "Preadamites," p. 473. 4 "Essays of an Americanist," p. 53. 66 CUMORAH REVISITED the time that geology can allow for the possible existence of man." [1] With reference to the glacial period, man's origin is preglacial, glacial or postglacial. To arrive, therefore, at any conclusion whatever as to his antiquity, it is first necessary to locate, approximately, this period. The Glacial Age has been put back in the history of the world 1,280,000,000 years. Lyell's first estimate brought it to a close 800,000,000 years ago, but this he subsequently lowered to 200,000,000 years. [2] But, since Lyell's day, estimates as to the length of the geological periods have been greatly cut down, and Professor Wright now tells us that geological time is not a hundredth part as long as it was once supposed to be. Of more recent estimates on the close of this age, Brinton says: "As you are aware, the attempt has several times been made to fix the final retrocession of the glaciers of North America. The estimates have varied from about 12,000 years ago up to 50,000, with a majority in favor of about 35,000 years." -- Essays of an Americanist, p. 41. The late writer on American anthropology, F. S. Dellenbaugh, following Gilbert, would, however, reduce even the lowest of these estimates. He says: "The period of time that has elapsed since the so-called disappearance of the ice was formerly believed to be very great, but latterly views on this point have been much modified. Gilbert has declared, after a study of the Niagara gorge, that the time since the ice left that region is not more than seven thousand years, perhaps less. More recent investigations have tended to confirm his suggestion of __________ 1 "Present-day Tracts. No. 42," p. 22. 2 "Science of the Day and Genesis," p. 105. I give these figures wholly on the authority of Pr. Nisbet. I have not been able to trace them further. 67 fewer years." -- North Americans of Yesterday, p. 441. This seems to be in agreement with the results of the investigations of other geologists in other localities. Professor Andrews estimated, after making observations on the beaches of Lake Michigan, that a period of time somewhere between 5,500 and 7,500 years has elapsed since the deposits of the Glacial Age were made.1 And Professor Winchell, by comparing the present rate of wear with the chasm worn at St. Anthony's Falls, obtained, as the mean result of the different estimates, 8,859 years as the length of time between our own and the retrocession of the glaciers of that locality.2 On the recent close of the glacial period, Prof. G. F. Wright says: "The glacial period did not close more than ten thousand years ago. This shortening of our conception of the ice age renders glacial man a comparatively modern creature. The last stage of the excessive unstability of the earth was not so very long ago and continued down to near the introduction of man." [3] Confining our attention to the American continent, we find no well-authenticated evidence that man came before the glacial period. As for the indications of his existence during that period, they are vague and uncertain, in consequence of which archaeologists differ, some holding that he came before the ice receded, and others holding that he came after. Among those of the former class may be mentioned the names of Wilson, Wright, Abbott and Putnam; and of the latter, Dawson, Holmes, Fowke, McGee, Thomas and Russell. Professor Thomas writes: "The writer, as those who peruse this work will observe, has not entered into a discussion __________ 1 "Story of the Earth and Man," p. 295. 2 "Science of the Day and Genesis," p. 109. 3 "The Other Side of Evolution," p. 95. 68 CUMORAH REVISITED of the question of the so-called paleolithic age, or glacial man in America, for the reason that he does net believe the evidence on which the theory is based as yet sufficient to justify its acceptance. The results of the more recent investigations in America, or at least North America, all tend in the other direction. One by one the strongholds of the advocates are being overturned, and the evidence on which the theory is based discounted." -- Introduction to the Study of North American Archaeology, p. 5. And Prof. Israel Cook Russell, professor of geology in the University of Michigan, in his late work, "North America," p. 362, says: "Turning to the geological records, we find no authentic and well-attested evidence of the presence of man in America either previous to or during the glacial period.... In brief, all the geological evidence thus far gathered bearing on the antiquity of man in America points to the conclusion that he came after the glacial epoch. Judgment in this respect, however, should be held in abeyance, as the search for evidence is as yet incomplete." One by one the evidences of the extreme antiquity of American man have been overturned. The fossil Guadaloupe man, which Nott and Gliddon declared to be of a great age, was shown by Professor Dana to be the body of a Carib Indian two or three centuries old. Agassiz gave the Florida bone an antiquity of fourteen thousand years; but its finder, Count Portales, declared that it was not found imbedded in coral rock, as was supposed, but in fresh-water sandstone on the shores of Lake Monroe, Florida, associated with the shells of fresh-water species now living. Of the Natchez bone, which was thought to date back to preglacial times, Winchell says: "From being the relic of a preglacial man it suddenly became the [69] bone of a red Indian, perhaps a hundred and fifty years old." -- Preadamitcs, p. 425. And Dr. Dowler estimated that the New Orleans skeleton, found buried under sixteen feet of river mud and four successive cypress forests, was 57,000 years old. This estimate was approved by Charles Lyell. On the contrary, the engineers, Humphreys and Abbott, claim that the ground upon which New Orleans now stands, to the depth of forty feet, has been deposited within 4,400 years; while Dr. Foster claims that the so-called cypress forests are nothing more than driftwood carried down the Mississippi and imbedded in the sediment. [1] But, perhaps, the piece of evidence that has been considered the most important, as proving the existence of Tertiary man in America, is the renowned Calaveras skull said to have been found in a mine-shaft at Altaville, California, in 1866. Winchell declares that this is the "best authenticated instance of Pliocene man which has been brought to light," and it has been accepted as such by a number of other scientists, although there never has been a time when some have not held it in doubt. According to Professor Whitney, who was one of the first geologists to examine this skull, it was found in Mattison & Co.'s mine, 130 feet under the ground, being taken from a bed of gravel by Mr. Mattison himself, who at first thought it was only a piece of the root of a tree. When delivered to Whitney, the base of the skull was incrusted "in a conglomerate mass of ferruginous earth, water-worn pebbles of much altered volcanic rock, calcareous tufa, and fragments of bones," which gave it the appearance of a great antiquity. Whitney wrote a defense of its genuineness and the find was heralded throughout both __________ 1 "Science and Genesis," pp. 84, 85 70 CUMORAH REVISITED Europe and America as positive proof of the existence of preglacial man upon this continent. But many scientists have never been convinced of its high antiquity. There is a "practical identity of the skull with modern crania" which "speaks very eloquently against extreme antiquity," it being very closely analogous to the skulls of the Digger Indians who inhabited that region when the skull was found. Its claim to a high antiquity is also weakened by the report current at the time of its finding that it was an Indian skull which was coated with gravel, buried at the bottom of the mine, and afterwards taken out to hoax a certain doctor of the place. Mr. W. H. Holmes, who does not believe in its high antiquity, has reviewed the evidences in the case in a convincing manner in Bulletin 1242 of the Smithsonian Institution, entitled "Review of the Evidence Relating to Auriferous Gravel Man in California." The finding of human bones and implements with the bones of the mastodon has been taken by some as strong evidence of the great age of the species man in America. This assumption, however, will not stand in the light of geological and archaeological research, for it is now a well-known fact that mastodon bones have been taken from peat beds, which, judging by the present rate of deposit, are not more than five hundred years old. This brings the mastodon down to a comparatively recent date. "Mastodon bones," says Professor Henshaw, "have been exhumed from peat beds in this country at a depth which, so far as is proved by the rate of deposition, implies that the animal may have been alive within five hundred years."—Second Report Bn. Amcr. Ethno., p. 153. On the antiquity of American man, the chronological systems of the Mexicans, Mayas and Peruvians throw no [71] light, as they carry us back but comparatively few centuries before the Discovery. The annals of the Mayas reach back nearly to the beginning of the Christian era, where they fade into the mythical, while those of the Nahuas, Bancroft declares, "reach back chronologically, although not uninterruptedly, to the sixth century of our era." And, as for Peru, great uncertainty shrouds its history after a few centuries back of the invasion of the Spaniards, and this grows denser and deeper as we go further back. Because of the uncertainties that have crowded into the American traditions, the events they describe are accepted as historical only so far as they are borne out by other evidences. The tradition that the Nahuas came from a more northern latitude, therefore, is established by the linguistic evidences which we have of such a migration. And it may be received as historically true that Peru has had two, or more, epochs in her history. While the former existence of a powerful Maya empire in the region of the Usumacinta rests upon something more than vague tradition, it has to prove it the crumbling palaces and temples of Palenque, Copan and Quirigua. One of the most reasonable grounds for demanding a high antiquity for the American race is found in its languages. Here we find a diversity greater than is to be found among any other race on the globe. In fact, the American languages, 450 in number, as given by Reclus, exceed in number those in use in all the rest of the earth. It is said that in Mexico alone there are nineteen linguistic stocks, divided into 108 distinct languages, and upwards of sixty dialects. The great Algonkin family, which originally stretched from the Rockies to the Atlantic, contains, according to Brinton, twenty-six distinct languages. 72 CUMORAH REVISITED And this diversity extends throughout the two Americas until it is safe to conjecture that the number of dialects in both continents exceeds two thousand. American languages have changed slowly. While tribes have dropped some words and invented others, often on account of superstitious caprice, the radicals and structure of the different languages have remained unchanged for untold ages, and, because of this, "they form the safest guide now available in the classification of the various branches of the Amerind race."—North Americans of Yesterday, p. 25. Some philologists, despairing of ever tracing the American languages back to a common point of divergence, are of the opinion that they sprang from several linguistic centers. Powell, whose ability as an American philologist none will question, after an exhaustive study of the tongues of North America, writes: "The North American Indian tribes, instead of speaking related dialects, originating in a single parent language, in reality speak many languages, belonging to distinct families, which have no apparent unity of origin." It was his belief that there was no "single primitive speech common to mankind," but that the human race "spread throughout the habitable earth anterior to the development of organized languages," and that the different tongues of men sprang from distinct centers after their dispersion. [1] But to other philologists this great linguistic diversity is only a forceful argument for the high antiquity of man upon this continent. "To me," says Brinton, "the exceeding diversity of languages in America and the many dialects into which these have split, are cogent proofs of the vast antiquity of the race, an antiquity __________ 1 "First Kept. Bu. Am. Ethno.," p. 79. [73] stretching back tens of thousands of years. Nothing less can explain these multitudinous forms of speech." -- Essays of an Americanist, p. 35. The conclusion upon which we all can agree is that the marvelous diversity of his languages demands for American man the highest antiquity the other evidences will allow, which will at least carry him back to the close of the glacial epoch. HOW MAN REACHED AMERICA. This brings us to another question: How did man reach America ? Three ways have been proposed for the peopling of this continent by those who hold to the exotic origin of the American race: by vessel, either intentionally or accidentally; by way of Behring Strait, and over lands now submerged beneath the ocean. Those who hold that America was peopled by immigrants from the Old World who crossed the sea in ships, and with the intention of inhabiting this continent, were numerous a century ago. They differed among themselves as to the country from which the populators came, some claiming Babel, others Polynesia, others Phoenicia, others Scandinavia and some Atlantis as the original home of these immigrants. Probably the most unreasonable of all these theories, and yet the one that has outlived all the others, is that they were Jaredites from Babel and Jews from Jerusalem. Those who think that this continent was peopled accidentally, by crews of vessels wrecked upon our shores, are with us to-day. Professor Shaler is of the opinion that the first men were either Japanese or Chinese who were floated on "chance rafts" by the ocean and atmospheric currents to our Pacific shore. He also states that it is "barely possible" that ships from the Mediterranean may have been carried by 74 CUMORAH REVISITED wind and wave to the coast of South America, although, he says, "the distance is, however, so great, °nd the time of the journey so long, that it is improbable that a ship scantily provisioned, as were the vessels of old, should have borne living voyagers across this wide field of waters." -- Nature and Man in America, p. 178. But, while Mongolian vessels have actually reached our Pacific coast at the rate of two per year, it is very unlikely that our continent was peopled in that chance way, for the number of vessels afloat two thousand years ago was nothing as compared to the number afloat to-day. The majority of students are of the opinion that some other way will have to be found to account for the peopling of this continent. The most generally accepted theory is that the first inhabitants of America came from northeastern Asia across Behring Strait. The proximity of the continents of Asia and America at the north has made such a theory appear most plausible. It is also known that there has been, for a number of centuries, intercommunication between the tribes of Alaska and Siberia, for the Eskimo have carried on a regular traffic with the Russian traders, while the Tchutski have made hostile inroads upon the tribes on this side of the strait. But, within historic times at least, immigration has been into Asia from America, instead of in the opposite direction, and Behring found the Aleutians nearest Kamschatka uninhabited, while those nearest the American side were inhabited by tribes with unmistakable American affinities. Dr. Brinton also offers two serious objections to this route: "We know that Siberia was not peopled till late in the Neolithic times" -- the first Americans being Paleolithic men, the inference is, then, that the continent was inhabited before Siberia -- "and, what is more, that the vicinity of [75] the strait and the whole coast of Alaska were, till a very modern geologic period, covered by enormous glaciers which would have prevented any communication between the two continents." -- The American Race, p. 21. But, be this as it may, one thing is very certain: if the western continent was peopled from Asia, via Behring Strait, it was not by those highly cultivated nations from the southern parts. To suppose that Egyptians, Israelites or Hindoos would leave a warm climate and journey hundreds of miles through a zone of ice, which is devoid of the fruits and cereals upon which they depended in a great measure for sustenance, carrying with them their arts, customs, habits, religion and language, in order to reach a land of which they could have heard only by the most uncertain rumors, if at all, is too absurd to think about. If, then, America was peopled from the northwest, it must have been by slow stages and successive waves of immigration and by tribes accustomed to the rigorous Arctic climate. But, admitting this as a possible route for immigrants accustomed to the severity and food supply of a cold climate, and even admitting the possibility of a few immigrants reaching our shores through the agency of wind and wave, there is a better theory which accounts for the peopling of America upon the hypothesis that there formerly existed a land-bridge, or land-bridges, by which men passed from continent to continent. That such land surfaces once existed, linking the continents together, is an established fact Such sunken lands are revealed -by soundings, and there seems to be evidence of their former existence in the fauna and flora of the New World. Brinton claims that, from the period of the Eocene down to the close of the Pliocene, America and Europe were connected on the north by such surfaces, 76 CUMORAH REVISITED of which Greenland, Iceland, Shetland and the Orkneys were the highest elevations. Prof. James Geikie claims that in the glacial and early postglacial ages the north Atlantic bed was raised three thousand feet above its present level, constituting a continuous land passage from Europe to America. And Mr. James Croll declares that the glacial striae, on the rocks of Shetland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and south Greenland, are in such directions and of such a character as to show clearly that they have been produced by land ice, and that a theory of land connection between Europe and America "can alone explain all the facts." [1] There also seems to be clearly established evidence in the fauna and flora that the continents of Europe and North America were at one time connected. Certain species of land snails are found in both Labrador and Europe. The horse, which is commonly supposed to belong to the Old World, is now known to have been a native of America in the earlier geologic epochs. The cave bear of Europe was identical with our Rocky Mountain grizzly. Remains of the mammoth are found in both continents. The musk-ox, once common in Europe, still lives in Arctic America. Rutimeyer declares that the ancient bison (Bos priscus) of Europe was the same as the American buffalo. The fossil remains of the camel, it is said, have been found in South America and Kansas. The glutton of northern Europe and the wolverine of the United States are the same. Remains of the European cave lion and cave wolf are met with in America. And the Cervus Americanus, discovered in Kentucky, was as large as and resembled the Irish elk. [2] The flora of northern Greenland is American; that of __________ 1 "The American Race," pp. 29-32. 2 "Atlantis," p. 55 [77] southern Greenland is European. The flora of the Miocene in Europe still lives in the forests of Virginia, the Carolinas and Florida in such familiar trees as the magnolia, tulip-tree, maple, evergreen oak, plane-tree, robinas and sequoias. And of three thousand plants, found in the Miocene fossil beds of Switzerland, the majority are found in America.' This identity of fauna and flora can best be explained by the theory of land surfaces connecting the continents, and, if these formed a bridge for plants and animals to pass over, as they continued into postglacial time,2 they may also have formed a bridge over which man passed from the Old World into the New. It is possible that the first immigrants to America reached our shores at different times and in all three of the ways suggested, but it seems most probable that the bulk of the ancient population came over land surfaces now submerged and when in a very low state of culture, and that the subsidence of these lands, isolating the people from the Old World, was one of the means of establishing here a distinct type of men—the American race. These, isolated from the men of the other continent, and with numbers increased only occasionally by small and insignificant influxes of immigration, which were not sufficient to tinge the stock, developed here on American soil, and under the influence of American climate and environment, a culture peculiarly American, of which the Mayas, Mexicans and Peruvians, at the time of the Discovery, exhibited the highest phase, and which bore but few special resemblances to that of Old World nations and only such as can be accounted for upon the hypothesis that two peoples, in similar conditions __________ 1 "Atlantis," p. 56. 2 "Earth and Man," pp, 288, 289 78 CUMORAH REVISITED and grades of development, will do the same thing alike. This is the theory accepted by a considerable number of American ethnologists, and is confirmed by the great mass of data which we have at hand. THE HISTORIC TRIBES AND NATIONS OF AMERICA. The American race is divided into 180 separate linguistic stocks, of which eighty are found in North and one hundred in South America. These stocks, in turn, are subdivided into tribes which speak dialects differing, in some instances, from one another as much as the German differs from the English, yet with a thread of homogeneity running through them all that proves their primitive unity. As it would be impossible and unnecessary for me to describe and locate all the tribes of this continent, which would require a book of several hundred pages, I shall content myself with speaking only of those who are most important, or who are in some way connected with the argument of this book. In the far north we have the Eskimo, or Innuit, who are an arctic and a maritime people inhabiting the coasts of the Arctic Ocean, from Alaska eastward to Labrador, Greenland and the islands of the Northern Sea. Some ethnologists claim that they do not belong to the American race at all, but are of Asiatic origin, while others believe that they are a distinct race by themselves. South of the Eskimo and stretching almost from Hudson Bay on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west and from the territory of the Eskimo on the north to British Columbia on the south, are the tribes of the Tinne or Athapascan stock. A branch of this stock, of which the Apaches and the Navajos are tribes, is found in Arizona and New Mexico wedged in between the Uto-Aztecan [79] tribes of Utah and adjacent territory and those of Alexico. Along our Pacific Coast, from Alaska southward into [graphic] Lower California, are a number of small, but independent, stocks of which the most important are the Kolu-schan, Chimmesyan, Skittagetan, Salishan, Wakashan, Chinookan, Sahaptian, Mariposan, Yuman, Piman and 80 CUMORAH REVISITED Serian. Brinton tells us that of the fifty-nine stocks in North America north of Mexico "no less than forty... were confined to the narrow strip of land between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean." -- American Race, p. 57. The Algonkins, originally, extended from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean and from Hudson Bay to the Carolinas. These Indians were the skillful hunters, bold warriors and typical Americans of whom Pontiac, Tecumceh and Black Hawk were notable examples. Among their tribes are the Mohicans, Lenapes, Shaw- nees, Miamis, Chippeways, Ottawas, Pottawatamies, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos, Menominees, Crees, Cheyennes, Arapahoes and Black feet. The Iroquoians occupied the valley of the St. Lawrence and the State of New York. The Cherokees also belong to this stock, and when the whites came were dwelling in the mountainous country of eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, northern Alabama and western Virginia and North Carolina. Another branch, the Tusca- roras, dwelt on the head-waters of the Roanoke River, and still other branches on the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, and on both the north and south shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie. Lying south of the Algonkins and Iroquoians were the tribes of the Chata-Muskoki family in the present States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. To this stock belong the Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Seminoles. The watershed of the Mississippi was largely in possession of the Dakotas or Sioux, those intrepid plainsmen who have ever viewed the encroachments of the whites with a jealous eye and who have more than once on the field of battle disputed their right to advance westward. [81] Small bands of Sioux have also been found in Virginia and near the mouth of the Mississippi. The Caddoes and Kiowas are two smaller stocks. The tribes of the former were scattered irregularly from the Middle Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico, while the latter lived in the upper basin of the Canadian branch of the Arkansas River. The great Uto-Aztecan family next claims our attention. Tribes speaking dialects of this language have been found as far north as the Columbia River and as far south as the Isthmus of Panama. This family is divided into three branches: the Shoshonean, or northern; the Sonoran, or middle, and the Xahuan, or southern. Within this family are found the widest degrees of culture, the Diggers, the lowest Indians in North America, and the Aztecs, one of the most accomplished tribes, belonging to it. Among the tribes connected with this stock whose names will be mentioned on the pages of this work are the Toltecs, Aztecs, Chichimecs, Tezcucans and Tlascalans. Tribes of the great Mayan family inhabited the greater portion of Central America. Of these are the Mayas of Yucatan, the Tzendals of Chiapas, the Cak- chiquels and Quiches of Guatemala and the Lancandons on the Rio Lancandon. An outlying colony, the Huas- tecs, are also found in Mexico, on the Rio Panuco, north of Vera Cruz. The Mayas were the most enterprising of all the peoples of antiquity and built the forest-grown cities of Central America and Yucatan. Lying between the Uto-Aztecan and Mayan tribes, or occupying territory among them, are such stocks as the Otomies, Tarascos, Totonacs, Zapotecs, Miztecs, Zoques, Mixes and Chontals. These tribes, or some of them, are sometimes classed with one or the other of the great 82 CUMORAH REVISITED peoples just mentioned, the Nahuas and Mayas, but Brinton gives them independent positions. Passing over the Isthmian tribes, who are of little importance to us in this consideration, we enter the present territory of the United States of Colombia. Here originally dwelt the Chibchas, or Muyscas, a race of high culture, whose capital was in the vicinity of Bogota. The Chibchas were skillful in the working of metals. The Carib stock was extensively distributed in the southern continent, inhabiting, on the mainland, the territory between the Essequibo River and the Gulf of Maracaibo. At the Discovery dialects of this stock were also found on the Lesser Antilles and the Carriby Islands. South of the Caribs lay the tribes of the Orinoco and its affluents. Father Gilii, over a century ago, grouped them into nine stocks, the Carib, Saliva, Maipure, Oto- maca, Guama, Guayba, Jaruri, Guarauna and Aruaca, but Alexander Humboldt, after naming and locating 186 of these tribes, renounced as hopeless any attempt to classify them linguistically. The tribes on the upper Amazon and its tributaries Hervas classifies into sixteen stocks. This classification Brinton, however, rejects, and says: "No portion of the linguistic field of South America offers greater confusion than that of the western Amazonian region."—American Race, p. 278. Of all the native languages of South America, the Arawack is the most widely disseminated. Tribes of this stock are scattered from the head-waters of the river Paraguay northward to the Goajiros Peninsula, the most northerly point on the southern continent. Both the Greater and Lesser Antilles, with the Bahamas, were originally inhabited by tribes of this stock. The Tupis are found in Brazil from the Amazon on [83] the north to Uruguay on the south and from Bolivia on the west to the Atlantic on the cast. Erinton mentions [graphic] forty-one tribes who belong to this stock. Adjacent to the Tupis on the east are the Tapuyas, 84 CUMORAH REVISITED who are located between south latitude 5 degrees and south latitude 20 degrees, from north to south, and from the Schingu River on the west to the Atlantic Ocean on the east. This stock, which is one of the most extensive in South America, contains twenty-two known tribes. That vast region lying south of the dividing upland which separates the southern watershed of the Amazon from the watershed of the Rio de la Plata, is the home of a number of wild and independent stocks. For convenience this region is divided into three divisions: the Gran Chaco, or northern; the Pampean and Araucanian, or middle, and the Patagonian and Fuegian, or southern. Brinton mentions the names of five stocks in the Gran Chaco, one in the Pampean and three in the Patagonian region. Directing our attention now to the tribes on the Pacific Coast, we find the Canaris in the region around the Gulf of Guayaquil, and the Yuncas, or Chimus, in the vicinity of the present city of Truxillo. Both of these tribes were skillful artificers, and to the Yuncas is ascribed one of the most noted of the ruins in Peru, Gran Chimu. In Peru, proper, we find two great families, the Aymara and the Quichua. Some hold that they are related, others that they are independent. The first can, probably, claim the longer residence in this region, and to them are undoubtedly due the ancient monuments of the first epoch of Peruvian history. To the Quichuas belonged the Incas, to whom are ascribed the cities of the later epoch of Peruvian history. The Quichuas inhabited a territory stretching from 3 degrees north of the equator to 32 degrees south of the equator, and reaching from the Pacific Coast some hundred miles into the interior. The Aymaras dwelt south and east of the Quichuas upon CUMORAH REVISITED 85 the plateau and western slopes of the Andes and from south latitude 15 degrees to 20 degrees. The foregoing descriptions, while very brief, will be sufficient, I believe, to give the reader some idea of the location of those tribes v hose names will be mentioned in this book. I recommend the reading of Brinton's excellent and comprehensive work, "The American Race,' for a fuller description of these tribes and nations. THE RUINS OF AMERICA. The American archaeological field may be divided, for convenience, into six sections: the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys and adjacent territory; the southwestern part of the United States, comprising adjacent portions of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona; Mexico; Central America; the United States of Colombia, and Peru. Although in other parts of the continent ancient tribes have left remains, it was in these that aboriginal American art reached the highest stages of its development.Antiquities of the Mound Builders. The remains of the Mound Builders are found chiefly in the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and their tributaries, with a number in the Southeastern States. Yet, while this may be called the territory proper of this people, their remains have been found as far west as British Columbia and as far east as the Atlantic Coast. The greatest number of mounds is found in the State of Ohio, which has ten thousand of them. New York has 250. And, in an area of fifty square miles on the borders of the States of Illinois and Iowa, twenty-five hundred mounds have been counted, to say nothing of inclosures.Squier and Davis, who in 1845-47 excavated more 86 CUMORAH REVISITED than two hundred of the mounds, and who published the account of their explorations in their well-known work, "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," classify these works, according to their probable purposes, as follows: For Defense Sacre Miscellaneous. MOUNDS Of Sacrifice. For Temple Sites. Of Sepulture. Of Observation. __________ 1 "American Archaeology," pp. 125, 126. 2 "The Mound Builders," p. 23. "Prehistoric America," p. 89. CUMORAH REVISITED 87 thick and inclose an area of 111 acres. The hill from which it rises is said to be five hundred feet high and the wall over a mile and a half in length. 1 A number of earthworks, because of their form and location, are supposed to have been sacred inclosures. The walls are usually circular or square, the circular works having nearly a uniform diameter of from 250 to 300 feet. The reasons given for classifying them as sacred inclosures are: First, they are of smaller dimensions; secondly, the ditches are on the inner side of the embankment; thirdly, "altars" are found within them; and, fourthly, they are more often found on the river bottoms, frequently overlooked by adjacent heights. However, all archaeologists do not agree that these works were for sacred purposes. Prof. Cyrus Thomas ("American Archaeology," p. 131) says: "Although this view has been accepted by numerous authors, it does not appear to be founded on any valid reason. The more reasonable conclusion which is generally accepted at the present day is that they have been fortified villages. Lewis H. Morgan suggested that where the square and the circle were combined, the former surrounded the village, while the latter, which is often without a trench, was a substitute for a fence about the garden in which the villagers cultivated their maize, beans, squashes and tobacco." The mounds of sacrifice, or "altar mounds," are found at various points throughout the country. The distinguishing feature about them, and that which gives them their name, is an altar, or hearth, made of clay or stone found at the base resting on the original surface. These altars are of different shapes, round, elliptical, square or oblong, and in size range from two to fifty feet __________ 1 "Prehistoric America," p. 89. 88 CUMORAH REVISITED by twelve or fifteen, the average dimensions being from five to eight. Upon excavation these altars have been found to contain calcined human bones, and implements and trinkets of various kinds, such as carved stones, mica ornaments, copper bracelets, discs and tubes, shell beads, pottery, spearheads and the like. It is very probable that these altars, instead of being for sacrifice, were for the purpose of cremating the dead, or were the beds where victims were burned at the stake, as they were used for this purpose after the coming of the whites. The mound group at Mound City, Ohio, three miles north of Chillicothe, on the Scioto River, contains a number of these so-called altar mounds. One of them is ninety feet in diameter at the base by seven and one-half feet high. The altar was ten by eight feet in dimensions at the base and six by four at the top, being eighteen inches high. The dip of its concave surface was nine inches. The hollow contained a deposit of ashes three inches thick and a few shell and pearl beads. 1 Of so-called temple mounds, we have those at Marietta, Newark and Portsmouth, Ohio; Cahokia, Illinois, and Seltzertown, Mississippi. One of the temple mounds at Marietta is 10 feet high, 188 feet long and 132 feet wide. Leading up to its summit are four graded ascents, midway upon each side, each being sixty feet long by twenty-five wide. 2 The Cahokia mound was by far the largest and has been called the "monarch of all the mounds." It was located within a group of about sixty others and was in the form of a parallelogram, being 720 by 560 feet at the base and ninety feet high, truncated at the top. The dimensions of its truncated summit were 310 by 146 feet. On its top was a conical __________ 1 "The Mound Builders," p. 48. 2 "The Mound Builders," p. 45. CUMORAH REVISITED 89 mound, ten feet high, which, upon excavation, was found to contain human bones, pieces of flint and fragments of pottery. 1 The great mound at Seltzertown is. almost as large as was that at Cahokia. In its form it is a parallelogram, being six hundred by four hundred feet at the base and forty feet high. The platform is reached by a flight of steps and is about three acres in area. From the summit rise three conical mounds, the largest of which is forty feet high, giving the entire structure an altitude of eighty feet. The northern face of the mound is strengthened by a wall of sun-dried bricks two feet thick, many of which still retain the finger-marks of the builders. 2 The temple mounds are all truncated and many of them are terraced. The great mound at Grave Creek, West Virginia, ranks among the most important of the mounds of sepulture. It is one thousand feet in circumference at the base and seventy feet high. Three chambers were found in it, two at the base, the other thirty feet above. The upper chamber contained one body; one of the lower chambers two one of a male, the other of a female. With these remains were also found mica ornaments, shell collars, copper bracelets and fragments of carved stone. The third chamber contained ten skeletons in a squatting posture, supposed to have been victims immolated in honor of the chief. The walls and ceilings were made of beams, which, decaying away, let the superimposed mass of earth and stones down upon the skeletons. 3 A sepulchral mound at New Madrid, Missouri, upon exploration, was found to be 900 feet in circumference at its base and 570 at its summit. In its interior was found __________ 1 "Prehistoric America," p. 103. 2 "Prehistoric America," pp. 103, 104. 3 "Prehistoric America," p. 116. 90 CUMORAH REVISITED a chamber formed of elm or cypress poles set together like the rafters of a house, the ends being tied together with reeds. This chamber was coated both inside and out with a coating of marl, the inside coating being carefully smoothed and painted with red ochre. Excavations yielded syenite discs, numerous pieces of pottery and one vessel inclosing a human skull which could not be removed. 1 The great Miamisburg mound, in Ohio, is classed by MacLean among the mounds of observation. It is situated on a high hill, just east of the Great Miami, and has a commanding view of the valley. It is 852 feet in circumference by sixty-eight in height. A beacon light displayed from its summit could easily be seen from the high mound near Elk Creek, in Butler County, and from there warning could be given to all the inclosures in that part of the State. 2 Lookout Mountain, near Circleville, Ohio, is also supposed to be a mound of observation. There is still another class of mounds which remain to be mentioned, those that resemble animals, birds and the human figure and which are known as effigy mounds. These abound in the State of Wisconsin, and have also been found elsewhere. Their purpose was evidently totemic. Of this class I mention two, the Great Serpent and the Great Elephant. The former is found in Adams County, Ohio, on a hill overlooking Brush Creek. Its coils are seven hundred feet long and in its mouth it has an egg-shaped mound whose major axis is 160 feet. 3 The latter is found in Grant County, Wisconsin, eight miles from the mouth of the Wisconsin River, and is 135 __________ 1 "Prehistoric America," p. 104. 2 "The Mound Builders," p. 59. 3 CUMORAH REVISITED 91 feet long by sixty broad at the broadest part. 1 Prof. Cyrus Thomas, who explored it in 1884 under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, declares that it was intended to represent a bear, the proboscis being made by drifting sand. Other works of the Mound Builders might be mentioned, but as this is not intended to be a work of descriptive archaeology, I forbear, referring the reader to the authors quoted from and referred to for further information concerning the mounds. Antiquities of the Cliff Dwellers. The country of the Cliff Dwellers, in the southwestern part of the United States, affords much that is interesting to the antiquarian. Here, in a region of mountain ranges and arid deserts, with an occasional fertile valley, a numerous population once lived and developed a stage of culture considerably beyond that of the wild tribes of North America.Mr. G. Nordenskiold classifies the works of this people geographically as follows: (1) The ruins on the upper course of the Colorado and its tributaries. (2) The ruins on the Rio Grande and its tributaries. And (3) the ruins on the Gila and its tributaries. Holmes classifies these works topographically as: (1) Settlements in the valleys and on the plains. (2) Settlements on the high plateaus or mesas. (3) Cliff dwellings And (4) cave dwellings. The villages or settlements found in the valleys or on the plains and mesas consist of pueblos made of stone or adobe laid in clay or mud and forming parallelograms or circles laid out, where the ground permits, with great __________ 1 "Prehistoric America," p. 125. 92 CUMORAH REVISITED (pages 92-113 not yet transcribed) 114 CUMORAH REVISITED its defenders claim that it is accurate and reliable. If it is what its defenders assert it to be, why have they left the work of archaeological research wholly in the hands of uninspired men? Why have they not gone forth, Book of Mormon in hand, and located the ruined cities of Central America and thus proved its infallibility and inspiration? In the third place, its geographical and topographical descriptions are so vague that there exists a difference of opinion among even the Mormons themselves on the location of many of the cities and places mentioned in the book. Although hundreds of cities, countries and places are mentioned, but few landmarks are given by which they may be located. While the author seems to have recognized the general shape of the central portion of the continent in the construction of his story, his topographical and geographical descriptions are very vague and indefinite. The Isthmus of Panama is called "the narrow neck which led into the land northward" (Alma 30:3), and this seems to be the fixed star from which Mormon writers make all their geographical calculations. It is easy to understand that by the Land Northward and the Lard Southward North and South America are meant and that by the Land of Many Waters the United States is intended, while the Land of Nephi is without doubt to be located somewhere on the west coast of South America. But these are about all of the natural and political divisions whose locations can be made out by the descriptions given. On the location of other countries and places there is a disagreement, conjecture and uncertainty, and this is admitted by the Josephite Committee on American Archaeology: "So all that can be done in the way of mapping the lands and places of dwelling of this ancient race is by approximation and probabilities, in the main; certainty CUMORAH REVISITED 115 as to fixed locality being the exception, while much must be left to mere theory." -- Report, p. 7. This admission places the Josephite Committee on American Archaeology in direct opposition to the Brighamite, Orson Pratt.
TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT AMERICA.
Who were the Mound Builders? This question has probably provoked more guesses than any other in American archaeology. Some have been certain that they were a people from Central America, who, after dwelling in the northern valleys for a long time, returned into Mexico as the Toltecs. Others have been satisfied to speak of them simply as a "lost race" without trying to account for either their origin or their disappearance. But of late, on account of the data gathered by the Smithsonian and other institutions, archaeologists have pretty generally settled down to the conclusion that they were tribes of American Indians and not a lost race of superior culture. The evidence of this is so strong that it is sheer folly any longer to deny it. The most important tradition which reaches back to pre-Columbian times is that preserved among the Delawares. It was given to the world by the missionary Heckewelder, in 1819, and was later confirmed by Brinton in his translation of the Delaware Walam Olum, or Red 116 CUMORAH REVISITED Score, though it was, without doubt, known to white men before. According to this tradition, the Ohio Valley was, in olden times, inhabited by the Alligewi, Talligewi, Talligeu or Tallike, an enterprising and numerous race, who lived in communities and tilled the soil. It is stated that this people, after long occupying this region, were finally driven out by the combined forces of the Lenape and Hurons and forced to flee to the south. Name, location, tradition and language all agree in identifying this expelled people with the Cherokees, who call themselves Tsalagi. The tradition, as given by Heckewelder, runs as follows: "The Lenni Lenape (according to the tradition handed down to them by their ancestors) resided many hundred years ago in a very distant country in the western part of the American continent. For some reason which I do not find accounted for, they determined on migrating to the eastward, and accordingly set out together in a body. After a very long journey and many nights' encampment by the way, they at length arrived on the Namaesi-Sipu, where they fell in with the Mengwe, who had likewise emigrated from a distant country and had struck upon this river somewhat higher up. Their object was the same with that of the Delawares: they were proceeding on to the eastward until they should find a country that pleased them. The spies which the Lenape had sent forward for the purpose of reconnoitering had, long before their arrival, discovered that the country east of the Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful nation, who had many large towns built on the great rivers flowing through their land. Those people (as I was told) called themselves Talligeu or Tallegewi... Many wonderful things are told of this famous people. They are said to have been remarkably tall and stout; and CUMORAH REVISITED 117 there is a tradition that there were giants among them, people of much larger size than the tallest of the Lenape. It is related that they had built to themselves regular fortifications or intrenchments, from whence they would sally out, but were generally repulsed. I have seen many of the fortifications said to have been built by them, two of which in particular were remarkable. One of them was near the mouth of the river Huron, which empties itself into the lake St. Clair on the north side of that lake, at the distance of about twenty miles northeast of Detroit. This spot of ground was, in the year 1776, owned and occupied by a Mr. Tucker. The other works, properly intrenchments, being walls or banks of earth regularly thrown up, with a deep ditch on the outside, were on the Huron River, east of the Sandusky, about six or eight miles from Lake Erie. Outside of the gateway of each of these two intrenchments, which lay within a mile of each other, were a number of large flat mounds, in which, the Indian pilot said, were buried hundreds of the slain Tallegwi, whom I shall hereafter, with Colonel Gibson, call Alligewi. Of these intrenchments Mr. Abraham Steiner, who was with me at the time when I saw them, gave a very accurate description, which was published in Philadelphia in 1789 or 1790, in some periodical work the name of which I can not at present remember. When the Lenape arrived on the banks of the Mississippi, they sent a message to the Alligewi to request permission to settle themselves in their neighborhood. This was refused them, but they obtained leave to pass through the country and seek a settlement farther to the eastward. They accordingly began to cross the Namaesi-Sipu, when the Alligewi, seeing that their numbers were so very great, and, in fact, they consisted of many thousands, made a furious attack upon 118 CUMORAH REVISITED those who had crossed, threatening them all with destruction if they dared to persist in coming over to their side of the river. Fired at the treachery of these people and the great loss of men they had sustained, and, besides, not being prepared for a conflict, the Lenape consulted on what was to be clone -- whether to retreat in the best manner they could, or to try their strength and let the enemy see that they were not cowards, but men, and too high-minded to suffer themselves to be driven off before they had made a trial of their strength and were convinced that the enemy was too powerful for them. The Mengwe, who had hitherto been satisfied with being spectators from a distance, offered to join them on condition that after conquering the country they should be entitled to share it with them. Their proposal was accepted, and the resolution was taken by the two nations to conquer or die. Having thus united their forces, the Lenape and Mengwe declared war against the Alligewi, and great battles were fought, in which many warriors fell on both sides. The enemy fortified their large towns and erected fortifications, especially on large rivers or near lakes, where they were successfully attacked and sometimes stormed by the allies. An engagement took place in which hundreds fell, who were afterwards buried in holes or laid together in heaps and covered over with earth. No quarter was given, so that the Alligewi at last, finding that their destruction was inevitable if they persisted in their obstinacy, abandoned the country to the conquerors, and fled down the Mississippi River, from whence they never returned. The war which was carried on with this nation lasted many years, during which the Lenape lost a great number of their warriors, while the Mengwe would always hang back in the rear, leaving them to face the enemy In the end the conquerors divided the country CUMORAH REVISITED 119 between themselves. The Mengwe made choice of the lands in the vicinity of the Great Lakes and on their tributary streams, and the Lenape took possession of the country to the south. For a long period of time, some say many hundred years, the two nations resided peacefully in this country and increased very fast. Some of their most enterprising huntsmen and warriors crossed the great swamps, and, falling on the streams running to the eastward, followed them down to the great bay river (meaning the Susquehanna, which they call the great bay river from where the west branch falls into the main stream), thence into the bay itself, which we call Chesapeake. As they pursued their travels partly by land and partly by water, sometimes near and at other times on the great salt-water lake, as they call the sea, they discovered the great river which we call the Delaware." -- Cherokees in Pre-Columbian Times, pp. 12-14. I am strongly of the opinion that it was this tradition that suggested to the originators of the Mormon fraud the story of the Nephites fleeing southward after their defeat at Cumorah. The Central Americans and Mexicans. Central America and Mexico were the seats of two distinct and semi-civilized peoples, the Mayas and Nahuas. Of these, the former were the more ancient and cultured, the latter the more recent and widespread. The monuments, hieroglyphics and languages of these peoples show marked diversities, but some of the myths and their calendar systems show close resemblances. 1In the valley of the Usumacinta, in Central America, tradition says there once existed a mighty Maya, or Colhua, empire known as Xibalba, or the empire of Chanes, __________ 1 "Prehistoric America," p. 262. 120 CUMORAH REVISITED or Serpents, whose attributed founder was Votan, who is said to have come from the land of shadow beyond the seas. Just where his home was no one can tell, but all sorts of conjectures are rife. Brasseur de Bourbourg supposed it to have been in South America over the Caribbean Sea and identified him and his followers with the fleeing Atlantes. Some of the Spanish missionaries, determined to bend every tradition to make it harmonize with their theories, placed it in the Old World, to which, they claimed, he made four visits, during which he saw the ruins of the Tower of Babel and Solomon's temple. The Chiapanese are said to have called him "the grandson of that respectable old man that built the great ark" (?); and Short says of this tradition: "The tradition of Votan, the founder of Maya culture, though somewhat warped, probably by having passed through priestly hands, is, nevertheless, one of the most valuable pieces of information which we have concerning the ancient Americans. Without it, our knowledge of the Mayas would be a hopeless blank, and the ruins of Palenque would be more a mystery than ever." -- North Americans of Antiquity, p. 204. In Central America Votan is said to have found tribes of the lowest degree of culture, who had preceded him in the occupancy of the country. They are mentioned in the old traditions as the Chichimecs, and are said to have lived entirely by the chase. Votan apportioned the land among his followers, who were known as Tzequiles ("men with petty-coats"), taught the savage Chichimecs the art of cooking their food, and instituted among them the arts of civilized life. According to Quiche chronology, the empire of Xibalba was founded in 955 B;. C. Its capital is known in tradition as Nachan, which is almost universally conceded to be Palenque. CUMORAH REVISITED 121 "Nachan, or the Town of Serpents, of which the ruins of Palanque exhibit the grandeur, was their capital." -- Nadaillac, p. 263. "This Nachan is unquestionably identified with Palenque." -- Short, p. 205. "It is more than probable that Palenque was the capital, as Ordonez believes -- the Nachan of the Votanic epoch." Bancroft, Vol. V., p. 169. This, however, is disputed by both Charnay and Thomas, who regard Palenque as having been a religious rather than a civil center. 1 The empire grew so rapidly that three tributary monarchies were founded with capitals at Tulan in Chiapas, Mayapan in Yucatan, and Copan in Honduras, and the whole central region came under the sway of the scepters of the Votanic monarchs. But after a number of centuries of progress this empire began to decline, probably through internal revolts, and fell an easy prey to the victorious Nahuas who had come down from the north. Bancroft remarks: "The result was only a change of dynasty accompanied by the introduction of some new features in government and religious rites. The old civilization was merged in the new, and practically lost its identity; so much so that all the many nationalities that in later times traced their origin to this central region were proud, whatever their language, to claim relationship with the successful Nahuas, whose institutions they had adopted and whose power they had shared." -- Native Races, Vol. V., p 234 From the valley of the Usumacinta colonies went out in several directions to people the surrounding country. Some went to Guatemala, where their descendants are __________ 1 "American Archaeology," p. 285. 122 CUMORAH REVISITED known still as the Cakchiquels and Quiches. After the eleventh century Quiche civilization was modified by Toltec contact and the region where they are located presents two different sets of ruins, an older and one more recent; the first evidently built by the direct descendants of the founders of Xibalba, the latter by those descendants after coming in contact with foreign influences and receiving infusions of foreign blood. Those who settled Yucatan are known as the Mayas even to the present day. They reached their golden age about a century before the invasion of Cortez, but were followed by defeat and their kingdom was broken up into a number of petty states. So tenaciously have they clung to their ancient language that, in many localities, it is still spoken in its original purity, and the sons of the conquerors in some instances have forgotten their Castilian and have adopted entirely the tongue of the sons of the conquered. The Tzendals and Tzotzils also claim to be direct descendants of the builders of Palenque. The Nahuas, the second people to exert an influence and establish a civilization in Mexico and Central America, came into those countries from the north or northwest. "The ancient American races preserved the tradition of distinct migrations, in their hieroglyphics and pictographs. According to these traditions, it was from a country situated on the north or the northwest that the Nahuas came." -- Prehistoric America, p. 272. It is very evident that Nahuatl immigrations continued from the north during a considerable period of time, beginning with their first appearance as a rival of Xibalba, and, if tradition is to be believed, not ending until the. invasion of Mexico by the Aztecs and kindred tribes as late as three hundred years before the Conquest. Little is known about the early history of the Nahuas CUMORAH REVISITED 123 in Central America. Bancroft says: "The Nahua power grew up side by side with its Xibalban predecessor, having its capital Tulan apparently in Chiapas." -- Native Races, Vol. V., p. 233. There are also good reasons for believing that at first this people were content to dwell quietly and peaceably in the Usumacinta region and that hostilities were not provoked until after they had succeeded in bringing under their influence a number of wild tribes, who, reduced to a life of civilization, joined their standard in the struggle to overthrow the Votanic monarchs. After the fall of Xibalba but little is heard of the Nahua people and their government for a number of centuries, except that at sometime prior to the fifth century a struggle occurred, following which there was a general scattering of the tribes. We have now reached the sixth century, when tradition begins to assume more of the aspect of historical fact. Bancroft states: "As has been stated, the sixth century is the most remote period to which we are carried in the annals of Anahuac by traditions sufficiently definite to be considered in a strict sense as historic records." -- Native Races, Vol. V., p. 157. With this century we have the advent of the Toltecs into Mexico. They were a Nahuan tribe and the most prominent representative of that people's culture of which we have any record. The unanimous testimony of tradition is that they came from the north, from the mysterious Hue Hue Tlapallan (Old Old Red Land), the nursery of the Nahua people, which has been variously located. Briart locates it near Lake Tulare in California; Becker, on the Rio Colorado; and Baldwin, Short and Foster in the Mississippi Valley. But Bancroft, on the contrary, attempts to find this country in the Usumacinta region and supposes that the Toltecs were a fragment of 124 CUMORAH REVISITED that people which overthrew Xibalba. Notwithstanding his views, however, he admits the prevalence of the tradition, that the Toltecs came from the north, among the Aztecs when the Spaniards first came in contact with them. "It is not probable," he says, "that this idea of a northern origin was a pure invention of the Spaniards; they doubtless found among the Aztecs with whom they came in contact what seemed to them a prevalent popular notion that the ancestors of the race came from the north." -- Native Races, Vol. V., p. 2~7. Baldwin and Foster, in their works, "Ancient America" and "Prehistoric Races of the United States," begin the Toltec period in Mexico at about 1000 B. C., instead of in the sixth century A. D., confounding the date of their rise with the traditional date of the founding of Palenque, and, possibly, themselves with the Nahua tribes who had preceded them. Among those who have dated the beginning of the Toltec supremacy in Mexico from the sixth or seventh century A. D. are Clavigero, Gallatin, Humboldt, Prescott, Squier, Morton, Nott and Gliddon, Bancroft, Short, Bradford, Stephens, Charnay, Nadaillac and Thomas. This latter view is more consistent with the probabilities, for the theory is now generally accepted that fifteen hundred years are sufficient to cover the building of all those cities of both Central America and Mexico whose ruins still remain. Brinton denies that the Toltecs, as they are commonly described, ever existed. He says: "The Toltecs may have been one of the early and unimportant gentes of the Azteca, but even this is doubtful. The term was properly applied to the inhabitants of the small town of Tula, north of the valley of Mexico." -- The American Race, p. 129. Elsewhere he says of them: "One of their" -- Nahua's CUMORAH REVISITED 125 -- "small bands, the Toltecs, became invested in later legends with the halo of heroes and magicians, and were mythically represented as the founders of that civilization which it is probable they largely borrowed in germ from tribes in the south of Mexico. Such as it was, they readily assimilated and increased it, and their distant colonies in Nicaragua and Costa Rica carried it with them to these remote points." -- Myths of the New World, p. 42. It is possible that the Nahua tribes from the north, with a degree of culture but little above that of the Chata Muskoki tribes, but with progressive dispositions, coming in contact with the Maya civilization in Central America, enhanced their own culture and developed it with a number of resemblances to the Mayan, but in a different channel; and that the Toltecs did not originate all the features of the civilization commonly ascribed to them, but, infusing new life into that which had been derived in part from Xibalba or its fragments by the Nahua tribes who had preceded them, developed it into that enjoyed by the people of Anahuac between the sixth and eleventh centuries of our era. Stephens and Charnay go to the opposite extreme of denying any culture in Central America at all but the Toltecan. Their theory is that the cities commonly ascribed to the ancient Mayas were built by that people after their career in Mexico. Charnay says: "Granted their building genius, seeing that both the architecture and the decorations of the edifices correspond to the descriptions left by historians respecting Toltec palaces and temples of the Uplands, we are in a position to affirm that there was no other civilization in Central America except the Toltec civilization, and that, if another existed, our having met with no trace of it gives us the right to deny 126 CUMORAH REVISITED it altogether." -- The Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 278. The Toltecs ruled in Mexico for five hundred years, to the eleventh century, when they were overcome by the Chichimecs, a people of the same Nahua stock. The Toltec empire was ruled by a confederacy of three cities, Culbuacan, Otompan and Tollan, each having its turn as the leading power; the last being renowned for its culture and splendor, the first surviving in name the subsequent changes to the Conquest. On the nature of the Toltec overthrow Bancroft remarks: "The Toltec downfall was the overthrow of a dynasty, not the destruction of a people." -- Native Races, Vol. V., p. 288. After their fall the great mass of the Toltec people quietly submitted to their successors, while the nobles, with their followers, fled southward, taking refuge among the Miztecs and Zapotecs of Oajaca and influencing the culture of the Quiches of Guatemala. The Chichimecs were, in turn, overcome by the Aztecs, who continued their rule to the invasion of Cortez and the fall of Montezuma. This, in brief, is the outline of the ancient history of Central America and Mexico, taken from the traditions of those countries, with the opinions and explanations of modern writers included. It is not at all unlikely that much that is recorded is a statement of fact and truly historical, while much is purely mythical. The Peruvians. Trustworthy information does not carry us back in the history of Peru further than a few centuries before the conquest by Pizarro. What we have has been obtained chiefly from the works of Garcilasso de la Vega and Montesinos, the former a descendant, through hisCUMORAH REVISITED 127 mother, of the Incas, and whose chief aim seems to be to glorify his people; and the latter a Spaniard whose work is of doubtful importance. According to Montesinos, Peruvian history is to be divided into two epochs: the first lasting from the dawn of civilization to the first or second century of our era; the second, from 1021 A. D., when the empire was reconstructed under the first Inca, to the Conquest. Ancient Peru was more extensive than the present, and comprised, along with what is now included within its boundaries, the country of Ecuador and parts of Bolivia, Chili and Argentina, a territory three thousand miles long by four hundred broad. Here are to be found ruins noted for their massiveness; long, well-paved roads; aqueducts, and other evidences of a taste and mechanical skill considerably beyond the ordinary savage. Marquis Nadaillac is pleased to call the Peruvian the "most highly civilized empire of the two Americas," and indeed, in some respects, at the time of the Conquest, it surpassed even that of Montezuma. The Peruvians were "equally advanced in the various mechanical and fine arts," says Bancroft; "except sculpture and architectural decoration, they lived under as perfect a system of government and rendered homage to less bloodthirsty gods." -- Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 792. The Incan capital, Cuzco, from cosca, Peruvian for "heaps," was built upon the foundations of a more ancient city which dated back to an earlier period, and authorities are pretty well agreed that Peruvian history is to be divided into at least two epochs. "It is now agreed that the Peruvian antiquities represent two distinct periods in the ancient history of the country, one being much older than the other." -- Ancient America, p. 226, 128 CUMORAH REVISITED "The most remarkable monuments of antiquity are considered the works of a people preceding that found by Pizarro in possession of the country, and bearing very much the same relation to the subjects of the Incas as the ancient Mayas bore to the Quiches of Guatemala, or perhaps the Toltecs to the Aztecs." -- Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 791. "We may reasonably conclude that there existed in the country a race advanced in civilization before the time of the Incas; and, in conformity with nearly every tradition, we may derive this race from the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca; a conclusion strongly confirmed by the imposing architectural remains which still endure, after the lapse of so many years on its borders." -- Conquest of Peru, Vol. I., p. 7. "It is certain that before the time of Manco Capac" -- the first Inca -- "the inhabitants of the country were by no means plunged in barbarism. The Quichua culture had a past, of which the theocratic and social organization founded by the first Inca was but a development. Numerous buildings are undoubtedly earlier than the Incas, at least than those of whom authentic history has preserved an account." -- Prehistoric America, p. 389. Just when this first period began no one can surely tell, but Montesinos begins it five hundred years after the deluge, when its first inhabitants, he says, "flowed in abundance towards the valley of Cuzco, conducted by four brothers." Baldwin attaches some probability to this myth and says: "He discards the wonder-stories told of Manco Capac and Mama Oello, and gives the Peruvian nation a beginning which is, at least, not incredible. It was originated, he says, by a people led by four brothers, who settled in the valley of Cuzco, and developed civilization there in a very human way. The youngest CUMORAH REVISITED 129 of these brothers assumed supreme authority, and became the first of a long line of sovereigns." -- Ancient America, p. 264. This period, according to our Spanish author, lasted till the first or second century of our era, during which, he says, sixty-four sovereigns reigned. For a thousand years after its close the country was broken up into a number of petty states until 102I A. D., when the first Inca began to rule. The Incas ruled until the Conquest, when Atahualpa, the last, was cruelly put to death by Pizarro. There were twelve or thirteen of these sovereigns whose names have been preserved in the lists of Garcilasso and Montesinos. Dr. Brinton unhesitatingly denounces the list of Montesinos as spurious. He says: "Historians are agreed that the long lists of Incas in the pages of Montesinos, extending about two thousand years anterior to the Conquest, are spurious, due to the imagination or the easy credulity of that writer." -- Essays of an Americanist, p. 23. This, in brief, is the outline of the aboriginal history of America as given in the traditions. That some of it is untrustworthy I grant, but that much of it is to be depended upon is proved by the corroboratory evidences from the languages and remains. If the reader will compare this outline with the historical outline of the Book of Mormon as given in Chapter I., he will find but few points of agreement between the two. ARCHAEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE IN 1830. I pass now to the Mormon claim that prior to the year 1830, in which the Book of Mormon came out and the Mormon Church was organized, there was not enough known of the antiquities of America to enable some one to get up such a story as the Book of Mormon.130 CUMORAH REVISITED On this point Elder H. A. Stebbins writes: "But many people innocently suppose that numerous books were in existence before 1830, from which it would have been comparatively easy for something to have been written as a work of fiction, just as Mr. Clark Braden boldly and falsely stated about the work of Josiah Priest. Desiring to know for myself how this was, I have either examined the books themselves or the encyclopedia accounts of them and their authors, and the result is that of over twenty chief writers upon American antiquities only one book is proven to have been published in the English language prior to the copyrighting of the Book of Mormon, and that is the work of Captain Del Rio, which was published in London in 1822." -- Book of Mormon Lectures, p. 18. In a foot-note on the same page he adds: "Probably now two with the work of Helen Maria Williams, if hers was published before 1830." Her work, a translation of Humboldt, was printed in 1814. (Nadaillac's "Prehistoric America," p. 284, foot-note.) In his tract, "Modern Knowledge of the Antiquities of America," p. 4, Mr. Stebbins says further: "And to those, whether they are in the church or out of it, who have gathered the idea that for sometime before the publication of the Book of Mormon there was world-wide knowledge of the existence of the ruined cities of Central America, we say that they have certainly obtained a very wrong impression, one that is contrary to the truth. And that the opposers are either very deficient in their education upon this point, or else they purposely leave their readers and hearers in the dark as to the real facts, which, when stated, will make the whole subject clear to all who desire the truth, and only the truth." If this gentleman has examined only a few more than CUMORAH REVISITED 131 twenty of the chief works on American antiquities, or the encyclopedia accounts of them, his research has certainly not been extensive, and this accounts for his conclusion, and possibly what he says about the education of others may apply to himself. While it is not claimed that there was world-wide knowledge, using this term in its broadest sense, of the ruined cities of Central America in 1830, it is claimed, and can be proved, that there was enough known of them before that date to have enabled some one to get up just such a story as the Book of Mormon. The fact is that there were a considerable number of works on science, travel and adventure published in the English language before 1830 which contained descriptions of the ruined cities of Mexico, Central America and Peru. Some of these were translations of works in French and Spanish; others were works by English and American authors. The following are the names of a number of works in the English language which, before 1830, described the antiquities of Central America and Mexico. They are either quoted from or referred to in the writings of Bancroft, Prescott and other later writers: "History of America," Herrera, London, 1740. "History of America," Robertson, London, 1777. "Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America," Barton, Philadelphia, 1797. "Account of the Settlement of Honduras," Henderson, London, 1811. "Decades," Peter Martyr, London, 1812. "Researches," Humboldt, London, 1814. "Researches in America," McCulloh, Baltimore, 1817. "Spanish America," Bonneycastle, London, 1818. "Travels in North America," Bingley, London, 1821. 132 CUMORAH REVISITED "Six Months' Residence in Mexico," Bullock, London, 1823. "History of Guatemala," Juarros, London, 1824. "History of Mexico," Mill, London, 1824. "Notes on Mexico," Poinsett, London, 1825. "Historical Researches," Ranking, London, 1827. "Journal," Lyon, London, 1828. "Mexico Illustrated," Beaufoy, London, 1828. "Mexico in 1827," Ward, London, 1828. CUMORAH REVISITED 133 written about by at least three English authors, if Bancroft has made no mistake, before the copyrighting of the Book of Mormon in 1829. These authors are Juarros, Bullock and McCulloh, the last devoting several pages of his "Researches in America" to its description. 1 On the antiquities of Peru, before 1830, we have such works as the "Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies," London, 1604, by Acosta; "History of America," London, 1777, by Robertson; and "Voyage to South America," London, 1806, by Ulloa. On Robertson's work Justin Windsor, in his "Narrative and Critical History of America," Vol. I., p. 269, says: "Robertson's excellent view of the story of the Incas in his 'History of America' was for many years the sole source of information on the subject for the general English public." The antiquities of the Mound Builders were also well known of, and extensively written upon, a number of years before the Book of Mormon appeared. The controversy over the question of the nationality of the Mound Builders began as early as 1803. The American Antiquarian Society was organized at Worcester, Mass., in 1812, and for it Caleb Atwater surveyed the aboriginal works at Circleville, Ohio, in 1819. 2 And Lewis Cass wrote of the mounds in the North American Review for January, 1826. The following works on the antiquities of the United States were extant before 1830: __________ 1 "Native Races," Vol. IV., p. 294, footnote. Since writing the above I have run across the following statement in Justin Windsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America," Vol. I., p. 169: "The earliest general account of these ancient peoples" -- of Mexico and Central America -- "which we have in English is in the 'History of America,' by William Robertson." This work was published in the year 1777. 1 "The Mound Builders," p. 3. 134 CUMORAH REVISITED "Travels," Bartram, London, 1766. "History of Florida," Romans, 1775. "North American Indians," Adair, London, 1775. "Travels," Carver, 1776. "Notes on Virginia," Jefferson, Boston, 1802. "Travels," Lewis and Clark, London, 18I4. "Views of Louisiana," Breckinridge, Pittsburg, 18I4. "Researches in America," McCulloh, Baltimore, 18I7. "Travels in Arkansas," Nuttal, 182I. "Gazetteer for Illinois and Missouri," Beck, 1821. "Natural and Aboriginal History Tennessee," Heywood, Nashville, 1823. The lists of books just given prove that there was ample information before 1830 for some one to get up just such a story as the Book of Mormon. The fact is that Adair's "American Indians," Robertson's "History of America" and Barton's "Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America" would have furnished Solomon Spaulding, long before 1812, all the information necessary to write out its outline as claimed. Not only was there a considerable number of works on American antiquities extant before 1830, but the basic theories of the Book of Mormon were those held by their authors and were popular at that time. I. According to the Book of Mormon the arts, habits, customs, language and religion of ancient America were __________ 1 Justin Windsor, "Narrative and Critical History of America," Vol. I., p. 398, says of Barton's opinion on the nationality of the Mound Builders: "B. S. Barton, in 'Observations in Some Parts of Natural History' (London, 1787), credits the Toltecs with building them" -- the mounds -- "whom he considered the descendants of the Danes." CUMORAH REVISITED 135 brought from the Old World. This opinion was held by the great majority of Americanists at the beginning of the last century, one deriving American culture from China, another from Atlantis, another from Polynesia, and another from Palestine. 2. The book claims that the first inhabitants of this continent came direct from the Tower of Babel. A belief that was shared in by such early writers as Ulloa, Villagutierre, Torquemada, L'Estrange, Thompson and others. 3. The book declares that the American Indians are descendants of the children of Israel. Of earlier writers who held this view may be mentioned Thorowgood, Penn, Ben Ezra, Beatty, Edwards, Stiles, Smith, Boudinot, Adair, Mayhew and Eliot. In 1873 Foster declared that this theory was "profoundly entertained a century ago." -- Prehistoric Races, p. 323. 4. The book tells us further that the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi were inhabited in ancient times by highly civilized peoples, distinct from the American Indians. This theory was not new in 1830, having been advanced about the beginning of the century by Rev. Thaddeus M. Harris, and was held at that time by the greater number of American archaeologists. 5. After the defeat of the Nephites at Hill Cumorah we are told that their remnant fled into the "south countries." Heckewelder, as we have seen, gave to the world in 1819 a Delaware tradition according to which the Tallegwi, the Ohio mound builders, after their defeat by the combined forces of the Lenape and Hurons, also fled southward. 6. The book further declares that two distinct, civilized peoples, the Jaredites and Nephites, dwelt, in ancient times, in Central America and Mexico. Long before 136 CUMORAH REVISITED 1830 the ethnical distinction between the Mayas and Nahuas had been observed. 7. The Jaredites, it is claimed, were all exterminated with the exception of two individuals. The theory of "extinct," "vanished" and "lost" races was held long before it entered into the minds of Spaulding, Rigdon and Smith. 8. The belief that the Christian religion had been preached in America, as made in the Book of Mormon, was first advocated by many of the Spanish priests of Mexico, who saw in the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl, the apostle Thomas, who, they thought, preached in America during the first century of our era. 9. Smith's claim that he found the plates in Hill Cumorah may have been suggested by the Stockbridge Indian tradition, obtained by Dr. West and published in Boudinot's Star in the West in 1816, according to which "their fathers were once in possession of a 'Sacred Book' which was handed down from generation to generation and at last hid in the earth." These theories have pretty much all been disproved and given up. Americanists no longer look abroad for the origin of American culture, but have come to consider it as purely American, developed here and possessing no marks by which it may be traced to the Old World. No ethnologists of note any longer hold to the opinion that the American Indians are descendants of the children of Israel, having fully satisfied themselves that the analogies cited by Adair are insufficient to establish any such relationship. The highly civilized Mound Builders have also passed under the investigations of the Smithsonian and other institutions, and in their place we have a people who had reached only the "upper status of savagery." The Tallegwi, it is now known, were not CUMORAH REVISITED 137 the Nephites fleeing southward from Cumorah, but were only the Cherokees who were driven from their ancient seats north of the Ohio River by the combined forces of the Lenapes and Hurons, and who fled southward into that country which they inhabited at the coming of the whites. The theory of "extinct,' "vanished" and "lost" races, made so prominent in the Book of Mormon, has given place to the more sober presumption that the builders of the ancient American cities were only those races who were found here at the time of the Discovery, and the ancestors of existing native tribes. And Quetzalcoatl turns out to be neither St. Thomas nor Jesus Christ, but only the god of the air in Aztec mythology. If he is but aware of it, the anti-Mormon polemic has, in the data acquired by our archaeologists, a mass of evidence which, if rightly used, will completely overturn the strongholds of Mormonism. The trend of research has not been, as Mormon writers try to make it appear, in the direction of the Book of Mormon, but away from it, as will be observed by any one who will read the up-to-date works on the subject. It is a noticeable fact that the defenders of the book appeal for material with which to defend their claims far more often to works written by the older authors than they do to works written later. There seems to be a decided partiality for Adair, Boudinot and Priest, although the latest of these, Priest, wrote over seventy years ago. These, on the question of the relationship of the Indians to the Jews, are their standard authors. On the subject of the Mound Builders, their chief authority is Baldwin's "Ancient America," a work published in 1871, and before the more critical study of the works of this people had been made. Baldwin's theory, under later investigation, has been completely demolished, and to-day such writers as Powell, 138 CUMORAH REVISITED Holmes, Henshaw, Thomas, Brinton, Fowke, Moorehead, Carr, Shaler and Dellenbaugh speak of the Mound Builders, not as a vanished race, but as those very Indian tribes who inhabited the mound region at the coming of the whites. Of course such facts arc carefully concealed by Mormon writers from the eyes of their readers, they writing as though all discoveries were corroboratory of their claims. They are further to be charged with being lovers of the fanciful, the marvelous, the sensational and the impossible. Their books are full of the accounts of "wonderful finds," sensational newspaper reports and the descriptions of tablets and plates acknowledged to be frauds by all good archaeologists. These are dealt out to a gullible public without question, and are received by a certain class in the same way. In one of their recent works appears, unquestioned, a newspaper report of "A Prehistoric Town 125 Feet Under the Earth." 1 Several others contain long descriptions of the well-known frauds, the "Kinderhook Plates" and the "Newark Tablet." The more the antiquities of America are studied, the less of the marvelous appears, and the reader may justly look with suspicion upon every report that ascribes to the ancient Americans things exceedingly extraordinary. __________ 1 "Parsons' Text-book," p. 5. |
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CUMORAH REVISITED
139 To the first class belong such writers as Ranking, Lang, Jones, Delafield and Adair, who advocated, respectively, the descent, either in whole or in part, of the Americans from the Mongolians, Polynesians, Phoenicians, Egyptians and Israelites; to the second, such writers as Morton, Nott and Gliddon, and others who deny the unity of the human species; and to the third, such of our later writers as Brinton, Powell and Marquis Nadaillac. The Book of Mormon teaches that both the people and the culture of ancient America came from the Old World. The Jaredites, coming from the Tower of Babel about twenty-two centuries B. C., landed upon the east coast of Central America, and for sixteen hundred years held sway over a territory which, at the wind-up of their career, extended from Honduras on the south to the Great Lakes on the north, and east and west from ocean 140 CUMORAH REVISITED to ocean; and the Nephites, immigrating from Jerusalem about 600 B. C., and landing upon the coast of Chili, by gradual movements spread northward, until, at the close cf their national existence in 385 A. D., they occupied both Americas. These peoples, it is claimed, were the authors of those remarkable cities whose ruins still remain in Peru, Central America and Mexico. "And according to both the Book of Mormon and science," says Elder Stebbins, "it was not the red man who built cities and erected palaces. It was a nobler race, and they remained fair until they amalgamated with the Lamanites and were brought under the same cursing."—Lectures, p. 177. With the history of the Jaredites and Nephites the book also gives us what its defenders claim to be the only true account of the origin of the red race and also its history for a thousand years from its beginning. According to this account, the American is an offshoot of the Semitic branch of the Caucasian race, which, by a miracle, was transformed in color from white to coppery, the cause of this wonderful transformation being a willful and persistent disobedience to the commands of God. Nephi gives the following account of this miraculous change: "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did cause my people to be industrious, and to labor with their hands. And it came to pass that they would that I should be their king. But I, Nephi, was desirous that they should have no king; nevertheless, I did for them according to that which was in my power. And, behold, the words of the Lord had been fulfilled unto my brethren, which he spake concerning them, that I should be their ruler and their teacher; wherefore, I had been their ruler and their teacher, according to the commandments [141] of the Lord, until the time they sought to take away my life. Wherefore, the word of the Lord was fulfilled which he spake unto me, saying: That inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy word, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And behold, they were cut off from his presence. And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For, behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint. Wherefore, as they were white, and exceeding fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God, I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities. And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed: for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done. And because of their cursing which was upon them, they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey." -- 2 Nephi 4: 4. This, then, is the origin of the American Indians, if the Book of Mormon is true. Without further introductory remarks I pass imme-' diately to a consideration of the various lines of evidence -- physiological, traditional and craniological—which Mormons produce in support of their claim that the first Americans were of the white race. To prove that the ancient Americans were of the white race, or were white races, Mormons confidently refer us to the tribes of so-called "white Indians," as the Mandans and Menominees, who, it is declared, are remnants of the ancient population; to the traditions of "white and bearded men," who are mentioned as the authors of the 142 CUMORAH REVISITED ancient civilization of Peru, Central America and Mexico, which are explained in harmony with the accounts of the advent of the Jaredites and Nephites; to the mummies with red or chestnut hair from the mountain-caves of Tennessee and Kentucky, the cliff-houses of the southwest and the huacas of Peru, in which, it is declared, the type of the ancient race is preserved; and to the crania from the ancient burial-places, which we are told are far superior to those of our American Indians in both skull structure and shape. These are the evidences which Mormon writers insist corroborate the Book of Mormon. WHITE INDIANS. Among the various Indian tribes which have been termed "white Indians" may be mentioned the Yurucares of Bolivia, the tribes of the upper Orinoco, the Mandans of the upper Missouri, the Menominees of Wisconsin and the Kolosch of the northwest coast. These tribes are distinguished by a light shade of complexion from their fellows. It is claimed that these so-called white Indians are the descendants of the remnant of the Nephites which escaped at the battle of Cumorah. "Doubtless," says Elder Stebbins, "they were scattered and driven in bands to various secluded places, and from them came the light-complexioned tribes who have been known since the time the Europeans settled this country, such as the Mandans and other tribes mentioned by travelers and explorers." -- Lectures, p. 262. But it can not be proved that these tribes have a drop of White blood in their veins. Their color does not prove it, for it is not a darker shade of white, but a lighter shade of brown or coppery, while their other [143] physical characteristics link them closely to the darker tribes around them. On this point Bradford writes: "But yet no varieties have been observed which approach the Indians anywhere near the white and black races, and where an exception occurs in one particular, the other peculiarities are still retained. It is true, many statements have been made concerning the existence of white and black Indians, but, upon examination, they are found to have proceeded usually from the early travelers, who were often vague and exaggerated in their use of terms; or to have been founded upon misnomers; or to have related to tribes who had intermarried with Europeans."— American Antiquities, p. 259. Brinton, also, after giving American anthropology his close attention for a lifetime, declares that there is no tribe on this continent which possesses a truly white skin. He says: "The hue of the skin is generally said to be reddish, or coppery, or cinnamon color, or burnt coffee color. It is brown of various shades, with an undertone of red. Individuals or tribes vary from the prevailing hue,, but not with reference to climate. The Kolosch of the northwest coast are very light colored; but not more so than the Yurucares of the Bolivian Andes. The darkest are far from black, and the lightest by no means white."—The American Race, p. 39. In respect to its variations in color, the red race has not as wide extremes as the Ethiopian and the Caucasian. The former includes within its limits the yellow Hottentot and the coal-black tribes of the tropics; while in the latter the color variations run from the blue-eyed, blond-haired Teuton to the dark-skinned Arab. The light color of some of the American tribes does, therefore, not prove that they have White blood in their veins, but is, 144 CUMORAH REVISITED evidently, only one of those physical anomalies met with among all the varieties of mankind. The whiteness of many of these tribes has also been grossly exaggerated. The Menominees, for instance, are not truly white; Short says they are of an "ash color," the color of "white mulattoes," and a friend of mine, who has frequently seen them, informs me that they are "smoky white." In their other features they are distinctly Indian, having the same coarse, straight, black hair and high cheek bones of the tribes around them, while they are connected linguistically with the Chippeways, Ottawas and Pottawatamies. The white Indians of the upper Orinoco, according to Humboldt, who gave them a personal examination, differ "from other Indians only by a much less tawny skin, having at the same time the features, the stature and the smooth, straight, black hair of their race;" and Brinton asserts that their light color "is not a question of descent, but of climatic surroundings and mode of life." [1] As for the Yurucares, the traveler, D'Orbigny, suggests that their fair complexion is due to their residence in the dense forests in a hot, humid atmosphere. And this explanation seems very reasonable, for it is an unquestioned fact that darkness and humidity have a tendency to bleach out the skin into a lighter hue. He also observed large patches of albinism upon many of their persons. [2] The Mandans, while they, or some of them, have light complexions, blue eyes and chestnut hair, have other peculiarities which are distinctively Indian. Dellenbaugh ("The North Americans of Yesterday," p. 394) gives us a cut of Rushing Eagle, a Mandan chief, in whom are displayed the typical features of the red race: low forehead, __________ 1 "The American Race," p. 271. 2 "The American Race," p. 297. [145] large nose, high cheek bones and black hair. And Bradford suggests that the light complexion of some of the members of this tribe may be due to intermixture. He says: "But connected as they are by affinities in language to other tribes whose Indian physiognomy can not be doubted, it is possible that these peculiarities have been produced by an intermixture of the race." -- American Antiquities, p. 267. "The Algonkins," says Brinton, "with one voice called those of their tribes living nearest the rising sun Abnakis, our ancestors at the east, or at the dawn; literally, our white ancestors."—Myths of the New World, p. 207. From this a Mormon author' insists that the ancestors of the Algonkins were truly white. But this claim has no good foundation, for the Abnakis are not white, but copper colored, and they derive their name, not from a peculiarity of complexion, but from the fact that they are the farthest east of any of the Algonkin tribes and dwell toward the "white land," the land of the rising sun. Donnelly is a prominent Mormon witness on the light complexion of the ancient Americans. He states that the ancient Quichuas of Peru were a "fair-skinned race, with blue eyes and light and even auburn hair," and that their descendants "are to this day an olive-skinned people, much lighter in color than the Indian tribes subjugated by them." But the assertion of this author relative to the color of the ancient Peruvians is wholly gratuitous. He does not know and can not prove what he claims. And his descriptions of their descendants do not accord with the descriptions of other and better authors. Says Bradford: "The present Peruvian Indians, who are of the same race as the ancient inhabitants, are described __________ 1 "Divinity of the Book of Mormon Proven by Archaeology," p. 120. 146 CUMORAH REVISITED as of a copper color, with high cheek bones, small black eyes set widely apart, hair coarse and black, without any inclination to curl, beard scanty, nose somewhat flattened, small stature, and the feet small: these characters are of general prevalence among all the natives." -- American Antiquities, p. 263. And Brinton states: "Cieza de Leon and other early Spanish writers frequently refer to the general physical sameness of the Peruvian tribes. They found all of them somewhat undersized, brown in color, beardless, and of but moderate muscular force."—The American Race, p. 210. These writers positively deny that the Quichuas were of a lighter color "than the Indian tribes subjugated by them," and Bradford declares that all of the Peruvian tribes are of the same race as the ancient inhabitants. Some of the tribes owe their light color to an admixture with the whites since the discovery of the continent in 1492. For instance, the great number of half-breeds who are so common in North America. The Boroanes of Chili, a tribe of Araucanians, with light eyes, fair complexion and red hair, also owe these peculiarities to descent from women taken in Spanish towns.1 Among the Pueblos of the Southwest albinos are common. They have light complexions, light hair and blue or pink eyes. Bancroft says of the Pueblos and Mokis: "Albinos are at times seen amongst them, who are described as having very fair complexions, light hair and blue or pink eyes."—Native Races, Vol. I., p. 530. Brinton informs us that the Pueblos are not all of the same stock, but that they belong to at least four families: the Moki, Kera, Tehua and Zuni. On the albinos among __________ 1 "American Antiquities," p. 262. [147] the Zuni we have the following report: "Many of the Indians of Zuni (New Mexico) are white. They have a fair skin, blue eyes, chestnut or auburn hair, and are quite good looking. They claim to be full-blooded Zunians, and have no tradition of intermarriage with any foreign race. The circumstance creates no surprise among this people, for from time immemorial a similar class of people has existed among the tribe." But, as could be expected, Elder Walker, who is anxious to find some evidence by which he may establish the Book of Mormon claim that a white race once inhabited America, will not have it that way, and declares that "the description of the Zunians will not apply to Albinos."—Ruins Revisited, p. 202. He gives no reason for making so unwarranted an assertion, and the reader is left to infer that he has none. There is no more reason for assuming that the peculiar whiteness of the Indian albinos is due to descent from the Caucasian race than that the peculiar whiteness of the negro albino is, which we know is not the case. There is as much reason for claiming that the ancient Americans were a black race as that they were white, if we are to be led to a conclusion by the complexion of their descendants; for the Kaws of Kansas, Short declares, "are nearly as black as the negro," and Win- chell informs us that the "ancient Indians of California, in the latitude of forty-two degrees, were as black as the negroes of Guinea." And invariably the light-complexioned tribes are lower in point of culture than are many of those which are darker skinned. And this is inconsistent with the theory that they are descendants of the civilized and enlightened Nephites. The semi-civilized tribes of Peru, which contended so strongly against Pizarro, are described as copper colored, with 148 CUMORAH REVISITED coarse black hair, high cheek bones, scanty beards, noses somewhat flattened, small statures and small feet. The enterprising Mayas are said by Brinton to be "short, strong, dark and brachycephalic." [1] And the Nahuas are said to be copper colored, with thick, black, coarse hair, thin beards and black eyes. Thus we look in vain for physical marks among the more civilized tribes of America by which descent from the Nephites may be traced. TRADITIONS OF WHITE AND BEARDED MEN. The traditions of the appearance in America of white and bearded men are warped into harmony with the accounts of the advent of the Jaredites and Nephites. Some of these men are said to have come in ships, and all are said to have introduced civilization among the natives. All of the more advanced nations had traditions of the coming of these civilizers. The Nahuas had their Quetzalcoatl, the Tzendals their Votan, the Zapotecs their Wixeepecocha, the Mayas their Zamna, the Quiches their Gucumatz, the Muyscas their Bochica, and the Quichuas their Viracocha. There is a striking sameness to these old tales, all agreeing that their heroes were white and bearded; that they appeared suddenly and mysteriously; and that, after their work was done, they disappeared in the same way. It was the expectancy of the return of Quetzalcoatl, and the confounding of Cortez with him, that made the conquest of Mexico no more difficult than it was. Quetzalccatl is described as a white man with dignified bearing, large, round head, broad forehead and long black hair. He is said to have come to Cholula, Mexico, from Yucatan (some accounts say from Tulha, Mexico), __________ 1 "The American Race," p. 154. [149] and is declared to have been a man of great moderation, bitterly opposed to war and violence and to the sacrifice of human beings. After twenty years in Cholula, during which time he taught the people the art of working in silver, he departed toward the east with the promise that he would return at a future day and rule the land. Many of the Spanish fathers identified Quetzalcoatl with the apostle Thomas, but Lord Kingsborough and Elder Stebbins think he was none other than Jesus Christ. His name signifies bright or shining snake, or feathered serpent, and in his deification he stands in Aztec mythology as the god of the wind or air. [1] Votan, the hero of Chiapas, came, according to tradition, from across the sea with a company of followers called by the natives "Tzequiles." They are said to have been white and bearded and to have taught the savage Chichimecs the arts of civilized life. To him is ascribed the honor of the erection of Palenque and the establishment of the empire of the Serpents about a thousand years before Christ. Mormons think that Votan and his followers were the Jaredites from Babel. [2] Wixeepecocha, the white and bearded culture hero of the Zapotecs, is said to have come from the sea and to have been a man of venerable aspect who dressed in the habiliments of a monk. In character he was like Quetzalcoatl, and was so strict a celibate that no woman was allowed in his presence except to give her auricular confession, a practice which he established among the people. A legend says that, after suffering persecution, he mysteriously disappeared from the summit of Mount Cempoaltepec. [3] __________ 1 "Myths of the New World," p. 213. 2 "Parsons' Text-book," pp. 14, 15. "The Book Unsealed," Chap. III. 3 "Native Races," Vol. III., p. 455. 150 CUMORAH REVISITED The traditional account of Zamna is that he entered Yucatan very early, some say coming from the west, others from the east. According to one account, he was the son of Hunab Ku, "the only god," and his spouse, Ixazaluoh. Unlike Wixeepecocha, he was well received by the people, who, after his death, founded the city of Izamal over his grave. To him is ascribed the honor of the invention of hieroglyphical writing. [1] The Quiche account of Gucumatz very closely resembles that of Quetzalcoatl, and, as their names mean the same, good authorities have decided that they are one and the same mythical character, and identical with the Maya god, Kukulkan. [2] Bochica, so tradition says, after civilizing the Muys- cas of Colombia, retired into a monastic state for two thousand years. [3] And Viracocha, "foam of the sea," arising from the bosom of Lake Titicaca, made the sun and moon and placed them in the heavens, presided over the erection of the Peruvian cities on the islands and western shore of the lake, and then disappeared in the western ocean. [4] Bancroft sums up the accounts of these culture heroes in the following: "Although bearing various names and appearing in different countries, the American culture heroes all present the same general characteristics. They are all described as white, bearded men, generally clad in long robes; appearing suddenly and mysteriously upon the scene of their labors, they at once set about improving the people by instructing them in useful and ornamental arts, giving them laws, exhorting them to practice __________ 1 "Native Races," Vol. III., p. 462. 2 "Myths of the New World," p. 141. 3 "Native Races," Vol. 111., p. 169. 4 "Myths of the New World," p. 211. [151] brotherly love and other Christian virtues, and introducing a milder and better form of religion; having accomplished their mission, they disappear as mysteriously and unexpectedly as they came; and, finally, they were apotheosized and held in great reverence by a grateful posterity." -- Native Races, Vol. V., p. 23. The question before us is, Are these traditions warped and vague accounts of the coming of the Jaredites and Nephites and of their settlement in America? Mormon writers insist that they are, but they possess certain features which forbid the application they make of them. Elder Stebbins says: "Also traditions assure us that the first colonizers were civilized and were white men who wore beards." -- Lectures, p. 174. But this is one of the very things that these traditions do not assure us of. These white and bearded men, according to the accounts, were not colonisers of an uninhabited wilderness, as the Jaredites and Nephites are said to have been, but civilisers of savage and unenlightened tribes who had preceded them. They all found those countries to which they came inhabited. Bancroft, speaking of Votan, says: "He was not regarded in the native traditions as the first man in America; he found the country peopled, as did all the culture heroes." -- Native Races, Vol. V., p. 159. Now, if these traditions are historical, who were the dark-skinned natives who were here before the Jaredites came? Why does the Book of Mormon give us no information regarding them? It will not do to say that this part of the traditions is purely mythical, while that which relates to their physical appearance is historical, for it is as general throughout all the traditions as the claim that the characters were white and bearded. There are still other features in these myths which 152 CUMORAH REVISITED will not harmonize with the Book of Mormon account. Quetzalcoatl is described as bitterly opposed to war and violence, as were also Gucumatz and Wixeepecocha, which can be said of neither the Jaredites nor Nephites. The Votanese could not have been either of the two, for, according to their tradition, they founded the empire of the Serpents in 955 B. C., twelve centuries too late for the Jaredites and eight or ten centuries too early for the Nephites. Neither of the great leaders of the Book of Mormon peoples, Jared nor Nephi, practiced celibacy nor instituted auricular confession. Neither disappeared mysteriously from the summit of Mount Cempoaltepec. Neither was buried where Izamal now stands, like Zamna. Neither went into a monastic state at the close of their life's work. And neither disappeared in the Pacific Ocean. If it is objected that this reasoning is arbitrary, I ask, How is it to be determined that these minor details are not as historical as the claim that these culture heroes were white and bearded? Students interpret these traditions in three ways: (i) Some believe that they are vague historical accounts of Europeans or Asiatics, who, either accidentally or purposely, came to our shores in early times, and who afterwards either returned or mysteriously disappeared. (2) Others conclude that they are wholly mythical and that the white and bearded men are simply personifications of the dawn. And (3) still others claim that the culture heroes were Indian reformers, of lighter complexions than their fellows, who appeared for a time among the natives, introducing among them advanced ideas, and who afterwards disappeared to be deified by a grateful posterity. I commit myself to no theory. It is possible that these myths are, in a limited sense, historical and record [153] the visits of white reformers from the Eastern continent in ancient times. However, if this be so, and it is not at all likely, their influence could not have been great, for at the time of the Discovery the arts, customs, religions and languages of the people bore no marks of such an impression from the Old World. Brinton thinks that these heroes were only personifications of the dawn. He says that Quetzalcoatl "is a pure creation of the fancy, and all his alleged history is nothing but a myth." And adds: "Like all the dawn heroes, he, too, was represented as of white complexion, clothed in long white robes, and, as many of the Aztec gods, with a full and flowing beard." -- Myths of the New World, p. 214. But other authors believe that these heroes were real persons—Indian reformers—who, after death, were deified and made gods. Dellenbaugh says of Quetzalcoatl: "He has been frequently identified with the dawn, but there seems to be good reason for believing that he was a real character, who became deified as his good deeds passed down to successive generations." -- North Americans of Yesterday, p. 397. Bandelier concludes that this god was "a prominent, gifted Indian leader, who certainly preceded the coming of those Nahuatl tribes" -- Aztecs, etc. -- "that subsequently formed the valley confederacy, as well as that cf the later tribe of Tlaxcallan. The claim to his origin accordingly rests between the so-called Toltecs on one side and the Olmeca and Xicalanca on the other." -- Ibid. And Thomas asks: "Is it not possible that these traditional personages were priestly messengers traveling from tribe to tribe to weld together a common brotherhood? Such a supposition would not be more extravagant 154 CUMORAH REVISITED than that theory which makes of them sun and light myths." -- American Archaeology, p. 363. No matter how these traditions may be interpreted, they will not harmonize with the Book of Mormon. If these culture heroes are only personifications of the dawn, as Brinton thinks, or Indian reformers, as Bandelier and others conclude, they afford no support to the Book of Mormon account. And even if these traditions are to a limited extent historical, they contain radical features which can not be made to agree with the history of the Jaredites and Nephites. Besides the tradition of the origin of her civilization previously given, Peru had two other traditions accounting for the introduction of advanced ideas among her peoples. According to one, the Sun, taking compassion on the degraded condition of the people, sent his two children, Manco Capac and his sister-wife, Mama Oello, "to gather the natives into communities and teach them the arts of civilized life." And, according to another, the people were civilized by four brothers who were raised from the bosom of Lake Titicaca by Viracocha and were given the four points of the compass. Baldwin says of Montesinos: "He discards the wonder-stories told of Manco Capac and Mama Oello, and gives the Peruvian nation a beginning which is at least not incredible. It was originated, he says, by a people led by four brothers, who settled in the valley of Cuzco, and developed civilization there in a very human way. The youngest of these brothers assumed supreme authority, and became the first of a long line of sovereigns." -- Ancient America, p. 264. Mormons are very confident that these four white and bearded men were Laman, Lemuel, Sam and Nephi, the last the youngest, who became the first of a long [155] line of Nephite kings. "Were not these," the Committee ask, "the four brothers, Laman, Lemuel, Sam and Nephi?" -- Report, p. 19. But they could not have been, even if real characters, for the following reasons: 1. Their names, as given in the traditions, are Ayar-Manco-Topa, Ayar-Cachi-Topa, Ayar-Anca-Topa and Ayar-Uchu-Topa, not Laman, Lemuel, Sam and Nephi. 2. They found the country already inhabited by tribes to whom they imparted "the blessings of civilization," instead of uninhabited as the Nephites are said to have found it. 3. If Montesinos is correct, they entered the valley of Cuzco five hundred years after the deluge, several centuries too early for Lehi's sons. 4. According to the "Report of the Committee on American Archaeology" (pp. 18, 19), Laman and Lemuel had nothing to do with the founding of ancient Peru, being a thousand miles to the south in the province of Rioja. 5. The four sons of Lehi, who are said to have been at the founding of the city of Nephi (Cuzco), were Sam, Nephi, Jacob and Joseph, and the last was a priest, not a king. Brinton, who is not inclined to take any of these accounts literally, says of these brothers: "Their names are very variously given, but as they have already been identified with the four winds, we can omit their consideration here." -- Myths, p. 212. And this is the most reasonable disposal that can be made of them. RED-HAIRED MUMMIES. Mummies with red or chestnut hair have been discovered in different parts of America, and in these, it is 156 CUMORAH REVISITED thought, has been preserved the type of the ancient race. These bodies have been taken from the saltpetrous caves of Kentucky and Tennessee, from the cliff-houses of the Southwest and from the burial-places of Peru. They have been preserved by different agencies, by the action of certain chemicals in the soil or in the atmosphere of the places where they have been deposited, by the cool, dry climate or by a primitive but effective process of embalment. The question before archaeologists is this: Are these mummies with auburn hair the bodies of a race different from the present American, or is the light color of their hair due to the action of certain chemicals found in their depositories ? The latter is by far the more reasonable explanation of the mystery, and has to support it the fact that the soils of their burial-places are strongly impregnated with lime, saltpeter and other chemicals which have a tendency to fade out the color of human hair. Short says of the opinion of Jones on the color of the mummies from Kentucky and Tennessee: "Professor Jones supposes that the light color of these so- called mummies of Tennessee and Kentucky is due to the action of lime and saltpeter." -- North Americans of Antiquity, p. 187. And Bradford, in speaking of these mummies and also those from Peru, says: "With regard to the color of the hair observed upon these bodies" -- from Kentucky and Tennessee -- "it has been unreasonably considered as sustaining the theory of the European origin of the ancient inhabitants of the west. The probabilities are, however, that its original hue was black, and that the change to its present appearance is owing to the chemical action of the saltpetrous earth in which the bodies were [157] deposited. In corroboration of this view, some human remains found in Peruvian sepulchres may be referred to; several of these tombs examined in 1790, by the Spaniards, contained bodies in an entire condition, but withered and dried, and the hair of a red color. From their position and other accompanying circumstances, they were undoubtedly the remains of the Peruvian Indians, the change in the hair having probably arisen from the character of its soil, it being impregnated with saline matter." -- American Antiquities, pp. 31, 32. Yet Short, after admitting that "the siliceous sand and marl of the plain southward of Arica" -- in Peru -- "where the most remarkable cemeteries are situated, is slightly impregnated with common salt as well as nitrate and sulphate of soda," still contends that the ancient Peruvians were "an auburn-haired race" !' A most conclusive proof that the light-haired mummies of America are the bodies of American Indians is that they were buried in the same way and in the same kinds of sepulchres in which the historic tribes, of the localities in which they have been found, buried their dead. Many of the light-haired mummies from Peru have been taken from large towers called chulpas, made of rough stone and clay, square, round or rectangular in shape, and often over twenty feet high. The bodies were wrapped in llama skins, were entombed in a sitting posture, and were surrounded by the ornaments and utensils which they had made use of during life. But these chulpas were not the work of an extinct race, but of the Aymaras, a tribe now existing, who practiced this mode of burial, according to Las Casas, until after the __________ 1 "The Book of Mormon Verified/' p. 22. 158 CUMORAH REVISITED Spanish Conquest. Brinton says: "The sepulchral structures of the Aymaras also differed from those of the Incas. They were not underground vaults, but stone structures erected on the surface, with small doors through which the corpse was placed in the tomb. They were called chulpas, and in construction resembled the tolas of the Quitus." -- The American Race, p. 220. As the mummies from these sepulchres are the bodies of Aymara Indians, and as the color of the hair in this tribe is naturally black, we are warranted in our conclusion that the light color of the hair upon their heads is due to external chemical causes. From Arica, Peru, and its vicinity, the tombs have yielded up a great number of these mummies. The burial-places in this locality are of circular form with a diameter of from three to five feet and a depth of from five to six, and are often surrounded by cromlechs of rough stones or are surmounted with mounds. Some of the bodies from these sepulchres have been preserved by being covered with a resinous substance; others have simply been dried before inhumation. They were seated on slabs of stone, with the knees drawn up against the breast, and the head resting on the knees, and were clothed in coarse linen cloth sewn with cactus thorns, and were surrounded by the implements, utensils and ornaments which they had made use of during life. These consisted of distaffs filled with wool, toys, balls of thread, vases, wooden needles, combs and shell money, and such provisions for the journey of the soul as maize and cocoa leaves. As identically the same kind of sepulchres has been employed by historic tribes, and as the same kinds of ornaments, utensils and implements have been used by them, we have two strong links connecting these mummies with the race now living. [159] The mummies from Kentucky and Tennessee, which have been found in the saltpetrous caves of those States, also are evidently only the bodies of North American Indians. That historic tribes employed these caves as depositories for their dead will probably not be denied, as their remains have from time to time been found in them.1 These bodies, like those from Peru, were placed in a sitting posture and were surrounded by implements of agriculture, hunting and warfare, and were dressed and ornamented exactly as the North American Indians dressed and ornamented their dead. The articles found with these bodies were bows and arrows, pottery, fishing- nets, cloths, mats, cane baskets, beads, wooden cups, bark moccasins, turkey feather fans, dressed deerskins, and other things of like character, showing that they belonged to a primitive hunter race and not to a civilized people like the Nephites.2 When we come to consider that in no way but in color of hair did these mummies differ from the Cherokees and other tribes which inhabited this territory at the time of its settlement by the whites, and that the chemicals found in these very caves will change the hair from black to sorrel or foxy, there is no good reason for believing that these mummies belonged to any other but the red race. On the light-haired mummies from the country of the Cliff Dwellers, Elder Stebbins writes as follows: "When at the World's Fair last summer I saw some relics of that people. The professor who had charge made plain the difference between the skulls of the Cliff Dwellers and those of the Indians, showing the remarkable similarity between the heads of the Cliff Dwellers and the heads of the Caucasian race to-day. Also in the __________ 1 "Cherokees in Pre-Columbian Times," p. 35. 2 "American Antiquities," p. 30, 31. 160 CUMORAH REVISITED Utah Building I saw a mummy, a well-preserved mummy of a Cliff Dweller; and upon all the skulls the hair was as fine as the hair of the white people of our time, and some was both fine and light colored. Indian hair is all dark, all coarse. The skulls were shaped like the skulls of white people, a very distinct and different people from the Indians." -- Lectures, pp. 103, 104. But Mr. Stebbins' conclusions are not shared by the greater body of archaeologists to-day. When we come to examine carefully these light-haired mummies and the evidences of their antiquity, culture and relationship, we find nothing to justify the conclusion that they represent a race distinct from the Pueblos and kindred tribes which now inhabit those parts. Even if it should be proved that the natural color of their hair was light, it would not establish their connection with the Caucasian race, for, as we have seen, the tribes of that locality are noted for the great number of light-haired individuals which they have among them, while some have skulls that are very well formed. And even if the bodies of white men should be found in the cliff dwellings, it should cause no surprise, for it is now known that the Cliff Dwellers were here as late as the year 1735 A. D. As Coronado first visited the "Seven Cities of Cibola" in 1540, we have nearly two hundred years during which white men might have been adopted among this people and their dead bodies deposited in their burial-places. I do not state this as a fact, but suggest it as a possibility. Some Mormons claim that the Cliff Dwellers were the Gadianton robbers spoken of in the Book of Mormon who fled to the mountain fastnesses in order to escape the hand of the law, and who sallied forth from time to time to plunder the peaceable Nephites. "These bands of robbers," says Elder Phillips, "are frequently mentioned [161] in the Book of Mormon; they lived in the time of the later civilization, the Nephites, and their remains are doubtless the same that are known now as "ruins of the Cliff Dwellers,' which are found in a variety of places." -- Book of Mormon Verified, p. 25. But this claim is met by the undeniable fact that the Cliff Dwellers were not warlike freebooters, but peaceable agriculturists, who built their houses and grain-bins in the cliffs to protect themselves and their possessions from savage marauders, of whom, it is certain, the Apaches were a tribe. Mr. Stebbins is not so certain on the nationality of the Cliff Dwellers as Mr. Phillips, and admits that he does not knew whether they were Jaredites or Nephites, but adds: "Only their remains are found; but all unite in saying that they were altogether different from any of the tribes of Indians that were in North America, or that even dwelt in Mexico or Central America, at least in any recent age." -- Lectures, p. 104. It is amazing with what ease and satisfaction Mormon writers make claims which they know, or ought to know, are utterly at variance with the established facts of archaeology. Had Mr. Stebbins given the subject the critical study that it deserves, he never would have written as he did, for "all" do not unite in saying that the Cliff Dwellers were different from the Indian tribes of Central America, Mexico and the United States. I have taken the pains to read a number of works on the subject, and have found that the opinion that the Cliff Dwellers were the direct ancestors of the Pueblos and kindred tribes is held by the very great majority of our archaeologists to-day, instead of the theory that they were a white race of foreign extraction. In support of this, I now give a number of quotations from the works of leading 162 CUMORAH REVISITED archaeologists. These explode the theory that the Cliff Dwellers were blue-eyed, blond-haired Gadiantons. "As already stated, it appears certain that the Cliff Dwellers and the inhabitants of the pueblos belonged to the same race, and that this did not materially differ from the Moquis and Zunis of the present day." -- Prehistoric America, p. 255. "Not only do the ruins of this group bear no resemblance to those of the south, but they represent in all respects buildings like those still inhabited by the Pueblo tribes and the Moquis, and do not differ more among themselves than do the dwellings of the peoples mentioned. Every one of them may be most reasonably regarded as the work of the direct ancestors of the present inhabitants of the Pueblo towns, who did not differ to any great extent in civilization or institutions from their descendants, though they may very likely have been vastly superior to them in power and wealth. Consequently there is not a single relic in the whole region that requires the agency of any extinct race of people, or any other nations,... than those now living in the country." -- Native Races, Vol. IV., pp. 683, 684. "I would emphatically say that there is nothing in any of the remains of the pueblos, or the cliff houses, or any other antiquities in that portion of our continent, which compels us to seek other constructors for them than the ancestors of the various tribes which were found on the spot by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, and by the armies of the United States in the middle of the nineteenth. This opinion is in accordance with history, with the traditions of the tribes themselves, and with the condition of culture in which they were found." -- The American Race, p. 115. "I have included the Pueblo Indians of North America [163] under the type of Asiatic Americans. There is little room for doubt that they are descendants of the builders of the cliff dwellings, which have been so happily described and illustrated by Jackson and Holmes, in connection with Dr. Hayden's survey of the Territories."— Preadamites, pp. 340, 341. "There is not much room left to doubt that the present Pueblo Indians are the direct descendants of the ancient inhabitants of southern Colorado and New Mexico."—Dr. E. Bessels, Ibid, p. 161. "There is no warrant whatever for the old assumption that the 'cliff dwellers' were a separate race, and the cliff dwellings must be regarded as only a phase of pueblo architecture." -- Cosmos Mindcleff, in i6th Ann. Rept. Bu. Am. Ethno., p. 191. "The kinship of Cliff Dwellers and Pueblos was long ago recognized by ethnologists, both from resemblances of skulls, the character of architecture and archaeological objects found in each class of dwellings." -- J. W. Fewkes, in 17th Ann. Rept. Bu. Am. Ethno., p. 532. "The ancient peoples of the San Juan country were doubtless the ancestors of the present Pueblo tribes of New Mexico and Arizona." -- W. H. Holmes, Ibid, p. 532. "It appears to be generally conceded that the modern Pueblo Indians are descendants of the cliff dwellers and people who built the clustered villages on the mesas and plateaus which have been mentioned." -- American Archaeology, p. 229. "Directing our attention now to still another region, we find in the Southwest a vast deal that is absorbingly interesting. Fortunately, the people were, many of them, still there when the first Spaniards came into the country 164 CUMORAH REVISITED in 1540, so that we have data to prevent the attributing the works found there to some mysterious race. It has been attempted in the case of the 'Cliff dwellers,' but the investigations of competent ethnologists have effectually settled that matter, and checked the romantic tendency except in the case of a few who will not learn." -- North Americans of Yesterday, p. 176. Lumholtz found in the wild and uninhabited regions of the Sierra Madre, in Chihuahua, a number of imposing remains of the Cliff Dwellers. These consisted of buildings of stone perched on the mountain-tops and often surrounded by fortifications, cavate structures, often three stories high and provided with windows and doors, and stone terraces built across narrow glens. Burial caves, containing mummies, were also discovered. These mummies bore a wonderful likeness to the Moki Indians. Thomas speaks of them as follows: "These mummies, some of which still retained the hair and eyebrows, are of low stature, and bear a marked resemblance to the Moki Indians, who, as well as the Zunis, have a tradition that their ancestors came from the south." -- American Archaeology, p. 222. And still further, as identifying the Cliff Dwellers with present existing tribes, we have the identity between their implements, utensils, ornaments and articles of food and those of the Pueblos. Nordenskiold, while making an exploration in the vicinity of the "Step House," on the Mesa Verde, discovered a number of graves containing mortuary remains. These remains consisted of eight bodies, partly or wholly mummified, buried in shallow excavations with their knees drawn up against their breasts, and with them such articles and materials as bowls, mugs, osier matting, arrow shafts, cornhusks, pieces of flint, a basketful of cornmeal and the entire [165] shell of a pumpkin. A visitor at a Pueblo village two centuries ago would have seen such articles in actual use. That a number of the cliff dwellings have been deserted since the coming of the Europeans is established beyond question or doubt. When the Spaniards first visited that part of the country the towns on the southern Gila and its tributaries were abandoned, while those farther north were found by Coronado to be in a somewhat flourishing condition. In 1735 the Cliff Dwellers were still in existence, for in that year Pedro de Ainza led an expedition from Santa Fe against the Navajos and discovered a people living in stone houses "built within the rocks" and guarded by stone watch-towers. And with this the traditions of the natives agree. Brinton declares that the Apaches still retain a tradition of having driven out the Cliff Dwellers, and that one of their gentes is named from them "stone-house people." [1] On the contrary, Mr. Stebbins declares: "As for the age in which the Cliff Dwellers lived there is no clew to it. Neither the Spaniard nor any other European found even one living person of the race; none have been seen, and no tradition reaches back to the days of the Cliff Dwellers." -- Lectures, p. 104. Like many another of his assertions, it takes but little investigation to discover its falsity. AMERICAN CRANIOLOGY. It is claimed that there is a superiority in the structure and shape of the crania of the ancient Americans over those of the Indian race; that the former indicate an intellectuality on the part of the ancient races that the latter do not possess. Mr. Stebbins asserts: "There appears to be abundant proof of the superiority of the __________ 1 "The American Race," p. 115. 166 CUMORAH REVISITED ancient Americans in color, in skull structure and shape, and as to the fineness and light shades of hair." -- Lectures, p. 176. But this is only another of Mr. Stebbins' baseless assertions, for craniometry does not reveal a superiority of the ancient American skulls over those of the existing race, but clearly establishes that in skull structure and shape the ancient Americans were precisely like those now living. On certain skulls found in California, Illinois, Argentina and Brazil, which have been credited with a very high antiquity, Brinton writes: "All these are credited with an antiquity going back nearly to the close of the last glacial period, and are the oldest yet found on the continent. They prove to be strictly analogous to those of the Indians of the present day." -- The American Race, p. 36. The peculiarities of these crania, and those in which they conform to those of the present native population, are wide malar arches, low orbital indices, medium nasal apertures and broad faces. [1] In connection with his own, Brinton gives the conclusion of the distinguished Swiss anatomist, Dr. J. Kollman, which is that "the variety of man in America at the close of the glacial period had the same facial form as the Indian of to-day, and the racial traits which distinguish him now, did also at that time." And this is the opinion of the learned Charles Darwin, based upon the report of Dr. Lund concerning certain skulls from the caves of Brazil. He says that a naturalist would hear "on the authority of an excellent observer, Dr. Lund, that the human skulls found in the __________ 1 "The American Race," p. 36, [167] caves of Brazil, entombed with many extinct mammals, belonged to the same type as that now prevailing throughout the American continent." -- Descent of Man, pp. 164, 165. But not only are these peculiar cranial characteristics, which in a very general way, when taken together, may be said to distinguish the American from the other races, traceable to a remote antiquity, but the very diversities that now exist have always existed. Craniologists, according to their measurements, divide human crania into three classes: brachycephalic, mesocephalic and dolico- cephalic. The proportional measurement of a skull is called its cephalic index, which is the ratio between its width and length, taken antero-posteriorily. If the width of the skull is 78 per cent., or over, of its length, it is said to be brachycephalic, or short-headed; if it is between 78 per cent, and 74 per cent., it is mesocephalic, or middle-headed; and if it is 74 per cent., or under, it is dolicocephalic, or long-headed. These various types of crania have existed contemporaneously and not consecutively, and it is far from the truth to say that the ancient Americans were of one type and that the Indians are of another. A few facts relative to American crania will set this matter before the reader in its proper light. Of the oldest American skulls that have been discovered that from Argentina is brachycephalic, while those from Brazil are dolicocephalic. That the latter are skulls of the present American race Brinton affirms: "The skulls and human bones which were discovered by Dr. Lund in the caves of Lagoa Santa in immediate juxtaposition to those of animals now extinct, came from a region occupied by the Tapuyas, and are in all respects parallel to those of the tribe to-day. This would assign 168 CUMORAH REVISITED them a residence on the spot far back in the present geologic period." -- The American Race, p. 237. The ancient peoples of Peru possessed skulls of varying type. Of 245 crania from that country in the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 168 are brachy- cephalic, 50 are dolicocephalic and 27 are mesocephalic. Of thirteen from near Arica all are dolicocephalic except one. And ninety-three out of 104 from Pachacamac are brachycephalic, the rest being mescocephalic. [1] The same diversity exists among mound crania. Thus, of two skulls from one burial-place, found by Putnam, one is brachycephalic and the other is dolicocephalic. Of eight skulls from the Red River mound three are bracycephalic. Three out of four crania from Chambers' Island, Wisconsin, are also short. Out of ten from Fort Wayne one is long and the rest are either short or intermediate. Of sixty-seven examined by Carr, which were taken from the stone-graves of Tennessee, 19 are brachycephalic, 5 are dolicocephalic, 18 are mesocephalic and 15 are artificially depressed. Moorehead took from Hopewell's Earthworks, Ohio, sixty-nine skeletons, of which 30 were short-headed, 10 long-headed, 4 intermediate and the remainder so far decayed that the cephalic index could not be obtained, [2] and he states that in the mound-building and stone-grave areas of Ohio cranial forms "as wide apart as those of the Caucasian and Ethiopian are not uncommon." [3] And from the aboriginal cemetery near Madisonville, Ohio, come fourteen hundred crania, of which twelve hundred are brachycephalic and the remainder dolicocephilic. [4] Thus we see that among the ancient inhabitants all types of skull, both high and low, were to be observed. __________ 1 "The American Race," p. 210. 2 "Primitive Man in Ohio," p. 222. 3 "Primitive Man in Ohio," p. 206. 4 "Primitive Man in Ohio," p. 210. [169] But identically the same variations are observed among existing tribes. The Mayas of Yucatan are brachycephalic, their neighbors, the Otomies, are markedly dolicocephalic. [1] Among the Iroquois and Cherokees dolicocephalism prevails, while their congeners, the Hurons, are prevailingly brachycephalic. [2] The Yumas are generally short-headed, but their crania have been found with a cephalic index as low as sixty-eight. [3] And Brinton informs us that of seventy-seven Algonkin crania in the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 53 are dolicocephalic, 14 mesocephalic and 10 brachycephalic. [4] By these facts we observe that not only those features common to the American crania of the present day are traceable to the remotest antiquity, but that even the existing diversities may be followed back to the earliest period. And this clearly refutes Mr. Stebbins' baseless claim that the ancient Americans were superior to our modern Indians in "skull structure and shape." Even those who have held that the "veritable Mound Builders" were a race superior to the North American Indians have been forced to concede that their crania are of the Indian type. Foster says: "Hitherto our knowledge of the Mound Builders' crania has been exceedingly scant—restricted to less than a dozen specimens—which, if authentic, clearly indicate for the most part the Indian type." -- Prehistoric Races, p. 275. Bancroft says: "Very few skulls or bones are recovered __________ 1 "The American Race," pp. 135, 136. 2 "The American Race,'' p. Si. 3 "The American Race," p. 38. 4 "The American Kace," p. 75. 170 CUMORAH REVISITED sufficiently entire to give any idea of the Mound Builders' physique, and these few show no clearly defined differences from the modern Indian tribes." -- Native Races, Vol. IV., p. 775. And J. C. Nott, speaking of the Choctaws, says: "They present heads precisely analogous to those ancient crania taken from the mounds over the whole territory of the United States; while they most strikingly contrast with the Anglo-Saxons, French, Spaniards and negroes, among whom they are moving." -- Types of Mankind, p. 289. These statements come to us with the force of concessions from men who have believed that the Mound Builders were people distinct from the tribes of North American Indians. Indian skulls have been found that exceed in capacity the skulls of the ancient American races. The average cubical capacity of the Parisian cranium is 1,448 cubic centimeters; that of the American Indian, 1,376, and that of the negro, 1,344. "But," says Brinton, "single , examples of Indian skulls have yielded the extraordinary capacity of 1,747, 1,825 and even 1,920 cubic centimeters, which are not exceeded in any other race." -- The American Race, p. 39. When we come to compare these skulls with those of the ancient Peruvians from along the coast -- from Arica, Chacota and adjacent territory, from which localities many of the light-haired mummies come -- which average but 1,230 cubic centimeters, which is a lower capacity than that of the crania of the Bushmen and Hottentots, we are strongly impressed that some at least of the ancient "civilized people" were inferior "in skull structure and shape" to some of the modern "savage tribes." The reader will have observed by this time that the [171] evidences adduced by the Mormons to prove that the ancient Americans were white are purely inferential, and that their inferences are drawn from some very uncertain sources. The tribes of "white Indians" are far from white, being only of a lighter copper color than their fellows and possess no features in art, culture or religion which would link them to the Nephites. As for the traditions of "white and bearded men," it is not at all certain that they are historical, but even if they are vaguely so the characters which they present could have been neither the Jaredites nor Nephites, for invariably they are described as civilizers of barbarous tribes who had preceded them, and not colonizers of uninhabited wildernesses. The light hair of some of the American mummies is shown to be, with great probability, due to the mineral ingredients in the soils of their burial-places, while the articles found with them and their manner of burial indicate that they belonged to the Indian race. And, lastly, a close and careful comparison of the American crania reveals the fact that the present distinctive cranial features, with the existing diversities, are traceable to a very remote period in the past. Not a single fact can be produced to prove that another race, or other races, besides the red, inhabited this continent during those centuries in which Mormons claim it was inhabited by the Jaredites and Nephites. I close this chapter with the following quotation from Brinton: "These very ancient remains prove that in all important craniologic indicia the earliest Americans, those who were contemporaries of the fossil horse and other long since extinct quadrupeds, possessed the same racial character as the natives of the present day, with similar skulls and a like physiognomy. We reach, therefore, the momentous conclusion that the American race 172 CUMORAH REVISITED throughout the whole continent, and from its earliest appearance in time, is and has been one, as distinct in type as any other race, and from its isolation probably the purest of all in its racial traits." -- Essays of an Americanist, p. 40.
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173 Bancroft remarks: "The theory that the Americans are of Jewish descent has been discussed more minutely and at greater length than any other. Its advocates, or at least those of them who have made original researches, are comparatively few; but the extent of their investigations and the multitude of the parallelisms they adduce in support of their hypothesis, exceed by far anything we have yet encountered." -- Native Races, Vol. V., pp. 77, 78 The first to advance this theory were a number of the Spanish priests of Mexico, of whom Garcia was the most scholarly. He claimed to find evidence sustaining it in the similarities between the Indians and the Jews in character, dress, religion, physical peculiarities, condition and custom. Both, he declares, were liars, despicable, cruel, boastful, idle, dirty, turbulent, incorrigible and vicious. Both were slow to believe. Both showed a lack of charity to the poor, sick and unfortunate. Both were naturally given to idolatry. Both raised their hands to heaven in making an affirmation. Both buried their dead 174 CUMORAH REVISITED
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