The New York herald. [volume], September 10, 1922, SECTION SEVEN, Page 20, Image 104

About The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
The Mystery of America
By STERLING HETLIG.
IT Is not often that you see a man of
92 who, after a lifetime of original
research, is still writing and has new
books in preparation. Such is Henry
Vignaud, an American in Paris, of old
Louisiana family and the most distin
guished of living Americanists.
He would be a striking figure to-day if
only from the fact that he came to France
in 13S3 as secretary' to the Confederate
diplomatic commission of Mason and Sli
dell. In 1372 he was connected with the
Alabama Claims Commission at Geneva.
And for fifty years since he served with
our diplomatic establishment in Paris, fre
quently acting as charge d'affaires, and
remains to-day honorary counselor of the
embassy.
But when you remember that Henry
Vignaud is also author of twenty-four
works relating to the discovery of America,
and several of them of giant proportions;
that in his long diplomatic service he had
access to collections and enjoyed personal
relations with the great on both sides of !
the Atlantic; that he has long been cor
responding member of the French Insti- 1
tute, president of the Society of Ameri- '
canists of Paris, honored guest at learned
International congresses. in technical
touch with specialists of the subject?why.
then, it is easy to see how the Mystery of
America, which h* .sums up and decides
ofi in the ripe experience of his ninety
sggond year. Is of Interest to all Ameri
calls.
\Vho were the aboriginal Americans'.' :
Where did the Indians come from? Did |
ttjpy spring from the soil or emigrate from
elgewhere? Were their ancestors black,
yellow or white?or neither? And the
mystery thickens with the extinct civili
zations of Mexico and Central and South
America, which have left such grand and
Inexplicable monuments behind them.
The specialists are not agreed.
They have explored, dug and photo
graphed; compared hieroglyphics, language
roots and human skulls; sounded ocean
depths, compared land fossils and criti
cized obscure Spanish and Indian authors
of the Conquest, to form conflicting
theories.
Trie astonishing thing about H. nry Vig
naud is that in addition to his own re
,searches he has specialized on all these
specialists, and is ?s deeply versed in
modern sensational theories, like Enoch's
"The Secret of the Pacific" < London, 1912)
and Gaffarel's "The Phoenicians in Amer
ica" (Xan<y. I1*?.".!, as with grand old
deadwood like George Jones's "Identity of
the Aborigines with the Tyrians" (Sew
York. London and Paris, 1843) and John
Banking's "Conquest of Peru by the Tar
tars of Kubla-Khan" < London, 1829).
For the twenty years that I have en
Joyed Mr. Vlgnaud's personal friendship I
have admired and wondered at the monu
mental library i absolutely complete, I
think) that he has collected and whose ul
timate destination, legally fixed already,
is for a great American university.
So. now, to look them over with Henry
Vignaud!
Man did not spring from' the American
soil.
Agassiz. Haeckel, Bory St. Vinqpnt. Mor
ton. Meigs and others thought that he
had done so. Huxley was strong for an
antarctic continent as spot of origin, and
as 1 *te as Osborn. the eminent American j
naturalist ("The Age of Mammals." N'. Y.,
1910). the idea h;is been flirted with. The
big bump came, however, with the alleged
discovery of Ameghino, learned South
.American naturalist, who proved by bones !
found on the pampas of the Argentine
that all humanity had sprung from down
there;
But a Government commission of our
Bureau of American Ethnology, led by
Hrdlicka and Bailley Willis, the g'-ologist.
wiped out this theory, which had enjoyed
considerable vogue.
In France. Dr Kivet and Prof. Verneau
polished off the last hopes of American
soil origin, in any case. Man did not
originate in it, for the fundamental reason
that no authentn fossil bones can be pro
duce,! showing men in America as different
from those existing actually.
Mm came to America. How?
It is astonishing how many emigration
routes have been found! tl>?Bering
Btrait was formerly an isthmus. Scharff.
Lucas and Gill and Osborn are for it
(2)?Land united Alaska to the Aleutian , single science but reconciling all as much
Isles and Kamchatka. (3)?A north At- as possible, cannot go back even that far.
lantic continent united America and Eu
rope by Greenland and Labrador. It in
cluded the British Isles, and the climate
was temperate. Lapparent, the geologist,
claims that it did not sink until the
Pleistocene (200,000 years ago) and that
man could have remembered it.
There was (4) another Atlantic conti
nent from the Mediterranean to the
Antilles. This was the Lost Atlantis of
Plato. Ignatius Donnelly and Pierre Benoit
Then <?) the Africano-Brazilian continent
If man were in America in the stone
age of the Old World how had he not
multiplied beyond the scattered populations
discovered in 1492?
Worse, how had they not made more
progress up to a date when Chinese and
other Asiatics, not to mention Europe, had
attained high civilization? As early as
B. C. 2,000, says Mr. Vignaud. the Chinese
formed civilized communities; "and yet
earlier modern investigations indicate the
of Haug. (8)?An Australian-Pacific conU- yel,ow race a? havin* attained ??1
nent. extending to the west coast of South How did those who had gone to
America. The South Sea Islands are its t -America, w here nothing opposed their
vestiges Clark claims that America re- development, remain so far behind?
ceived much of its population by this route.
It is ' The Secret of the Pacific" in which
Reginald Enoch cites vast ruined South
Why does he make this reference to the
yellow race? Because the Indians of both
Americas, although their languages have j
ll
Henry Vignaud.
Sea Islands monuments to set up this spot
as the world's center of civilization!
"Knoch w a distinguished archaeologist and
knows South America well," says Henry
Yijrnaud courteously.
Then (7) there was an Americano-Afri
cano-Australian continent, urged by Mar
cou, eminent French geologist. It is more
or less (8) the Austro-Indo-Madagascar
continent of Haug, the "Gandvana" of
Suess. which united New Zealand, Ecua
dor. Chile and Bolivia. And. strongest <9),
the Antarctic continent which our Oaborn
believes in.
Which route did our aboiigines take?
All American Indians, north and south,
"form one race group, sharply character
ized. whose language cannot be linked up
with any of those of the Old World."
Also, when the Spanish arrived among
their most cultured representatives in
Mexico and South America, who "had a
social organization, a cult, an army, va
ried industries, grandiose architecture, a
system of writing and an astronomical cal
endar. it w:ts found that they were igno
rant of the principle of the wheel (that
means of practical transport so universal
and ancient that it cannot be dated).
They had no knowledge of sails or oars;
I they had no Idea that milk was food; they
possessed no lamps, and had neither
horses, cattle nor a knowledge of iron."
Brinton says that man. in America, goes
Hack to the glacial period' But the great
Marceilin Boule, studying human remains
in America, will not date man's arrival
there earlier than "the aurora of the
present geological period!"
Mr. Vignaud. not working with one
no such relation, are distinctly of tho
Asiatic yellow race type!
White, yellow, black, these stick! IYob
ably a parent type preceded them. Stuart
<Chapin (X. Y? 1913) claims that the orig
inal type of all is the white man. W. L?. ,
Duckworth (Cambridge, 1901) supposes a
lost type, from -which have come the white
and the yellow, but not the black. But
according to a very learned Australian,
Griffith Tayor. ths parent, of us all is the
black man, and yellow gave birth to white
(Geographical Keview, X. Y.. Jan.. 1921).
As a fact, the aboriginal Americans did not,
get rid of their yellow Mongolian charac
teristics.
"In 1912 an American anthropologist !
profoundly versed in these subjects," says
Mr. VIgnaud, "l?r. Hrdlicka, explored
Asiatic Siberia" in this sense and "found j
even more than he had looked for." On
the Yenisei River, particularly, among sur
vivors of the purest old populations ho
found types identical with those of our
Xorth American Indians. The identity ex
tended even to mentality, manner of dress,
&c. (International Congress of Prehistoric
Archaeology, Geneva, 1912).
Holmes, Brinton and the majority of
American specialists have come to take
this vi \v. In France Marcellin Boule. Ver
neau. Rivet and Capitan hold to it. So,
too, thought Humboldt, Quatrefarges,
Ha my and Xadaillac. The only differences
are :is to purity of race. Some think that
Malayo-Polynesian emigrations modified
considerably the primitive yellow type.
Mr VIgnaud takes small stock In It but
- they came from northern Asia.
They came in successive small end
tions. They did not have the plow, the use
of cereals, nor knowledge of iron. Neither
had they flocks. Hunting and fishing they
must ever pass onward. The Eskimos
formed the first emigration, and special
Continued on Page Twenty-three.
THE MOTHER
OF ALL LIVING
By Robert Keable, Author of
"Simon Called Peter"
The Sew York Times says: "Far
and away the most interesting
character in the book is the
vivid, passionate, intelligent,
widely read, ruthless and strong
willed, but generous, fascinating
Pamela, who dabbled in strange
arts and ran strange risks, be
sides playing an ugly game from
excellent motives."
?Louise M. Field.
All bookstores. Si: postage extra.
E. P. Dutton & Co., 681 5th Ave., N. Y.
Third Large Printing!
A Best Seller
ROBIN
By FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
"The crowning work of
Mrs. Burnett's long and
busy career."?John Clair
Mi not, Boston Herald.
Unforgettable!
The HEAD
OF THE HOUSE
of COOMBE
By FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
Each, cloth $2.00; leather $2.50
STOKES, Publisher
WORLD'S GREATEST
THOUGHT DISCOVERY
"Mass ? Intellectual ? ITv.ssure anil thi' Alpha
Matho Vibratory S<-ale"?a 4 K-page booklet showing
the (treat llrain Wave Cycle and what Is Thought,
which foretold the EIGHT CONSECUTIVE games
of 1921 World s Baseball Series and Thousands of
results in all lines of human endeavor?ITioc $1.00.
2nd Edition: Sold around the World
MAX STJA U F F E R
918 W". Terrell Ate., F'ort Worth, Texas. l\ S. A.
N hiwl <U; Iteeords.
AiWifnn and Mrtn
nry Boiik?, Uriling
Tnrtfoliox, Iliarir-..
stationery.
Tirtarea ? frii, rd
and a n f r a m e d?
l|uuint Hit* of China
and I' o t I f r I fnr
Itooni dr*'oration.
lancnaitr Hooka ?
t.raminar*. Text
Hooka for thr Htady
of French. Italian,
-paniah. (irnnan.
Vrt and Architecture,
DriiKil, Interior
Peroration, Kurni
lure, Rug*. Tape*
try. Tottery and
1'orcelain.
Brentano's
Itookotllcri to thr
U'orU
I I IT 11 AVER K
NKIV YORK.
BOOKS BOUGHT
Entire Libraries or Single Vol
umes. Highest prices paid. Rep
resentative will call. Cash paid
and books removed promptly.
WOMRATH & PECK, Inc.,
Formerly Henry Malkan. Inc..
41 K road way. Phone Broad 3900.