Origin of the Indians

ORIGIN OF THE INDIANS.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the identity of the Navajo tribe of Indians and the Tinneh Indians of Alaska has now been established. The conclusion is based upon correspondence in pronunciation and meaning of many words used by the two tribes, and also by the Navajo tradition, handed down from one generation to another, that the tribe at one time inhabited a very cold country. The Zuni Indians of New Mexico are thought to be the descendants of the ancient Aztecs, they being as different from other North American tribes, as these are from the Caucasians, taking their customs, mode of living and physical characteristics into consideration.

The writer in the Chronicle asserts that the Redmen of America, particu­larly those dwelling on the Pacific coast indisputably are of Asiatic origin. The nearer, he says, we approach the point of contact between the two continents of North America and Asia the stronger is the resemblance in physi­ognomy, physique and customs of the two peoples, while the differentiation is easily accounted for by the influences of the environment through the centuries. Environment has made the red man of the prairies a tent-dweller and a nomad, because he has depended from time immemorial upon the chase for his subsistance. For the same reasons he is more highly developed physi­cally than his brother near the seaboard, who has been forced by environment to rely upon the fish of the sea and the rivers and the fruits of the forest for his subsistence.

The writer points out that Mexico, Central and South America contain antiquities which are highly suggestive of Egyptian origin. He says:

“They embrace pyramids, sphinxes and hieroglyphics which correspond so closely to those of the ancient Egyptians that a conviction of their relation­ship is irresistible. Of course, the assumption of the Egyptian origin of the earlier inhabitants of the two Americas meets with many difficulties, owing to the wide expanse of ocean which separates the Old World from the New, and the absence of evidence that the ancient inhabitants of the Nile valley were an adventuresome race. It is helped out, however, by the tradition concerning the lost continent of Atlantis, which is supposed to have been densely popu­lated and which, prior to the great cataclysm which submerged it in the bed of the Atlantic ocean, joined the two Americas to the continent of Africa. In the light of this tradition, there is little difficulty to account for the origin of the builders of the prehistoric pyramids and statues and the hieroglyphic writings on stone found on these western continents. If the existence of the continent of Atlantis is conceded, the western migration of the ancient Egyptian race is easily accounted for.”

The origin of the American Indians, though a constant subject of investiga­tion, remains a profound mystery to ethnologists. But it is noticeable that the clues they have obtained all point to the fact that there has, at some time in the dim past, been communication between the western and eastern hemi­spheres. This fact established, it should not be difficult to accept the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon.—Deseret News.