Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898: Volume 54, November 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
If we now turn to China as a possible region from which migrations may
have come in the past, we have only to study the historical records
of that ancient people to realize how hopeless it is to establish
any relationship. Let one study the Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese
(1121 B.C.--translated by Gingell), and he will then appreciate the
wonderful advancement of the Chinese at that early date--the organized
government, the arts, customs, manufactures, and the minute observances
and regulations concerning every detail of life. With these records
before him he may search in vain for the direct introduction of any art
or device described in this old Chinese work. A few similarities are
certainly found between the East and the West, but these arise from the
identity in man's mental and physical structure. With two legs only,
for example, it is found difficult to sit on a seat comfortably in more
than a few ways. One may sit with both legs down, with one leg under,
with legs crossed _à la_ Turk, or the unconventional way throughout
the world with one leg over the other at various angles. It would seem
with this limited number of adjustments that any similarities in the
attitude of certain stone statues in America and Asia could have but
little weight. Prof. F. W. Putnam believes that he has established an
Asiatic origin of certain jade ornaments found in Central America. If
this conclusion could be sustained, we should then have evidences of
contact with an Asiatic people in the stone age, which in itself was
one of great antiquity for the Chinese, and one long antedating the
origin of Buddhism. In the Chinese work above alluded to the whetstone
is mentioned for sharpening swords, and the craft employed in polishing
the musical stone. Confucius also refers to the musical stone in his
Analects. This is as near as we get to the use of stone eleven hundred
years before Christ. It is to the merit of Putnam to have first called
attention to the fact that many of the jade ornaments, amulets, etc.,
of Central America had originally been portions of jade celts. The
discovery is one of importance, whatever explanation may be reached as
to the origin of the stone. In Costa Rica these celt-derived ornaments
have been cut from celts composed of the native rock, and it would
seem that these old implements handed down in the family led to their
being preserved in the form of beads, amulets, etc., much in the same
spirit that animates us to-day in making paper-cutters, penholders, and
the like from wood of the Charter Oak, frigate Constitution, and other
venerated relics. Among other evidences of contact the existence of the
Chinese calendar in Mexico is cited. Dr. Brinton shows, however, that
the Mexican calendar is an indigenous production, and has no relation
to the calendar of the Chinese. In a similar way the Mexican game of
_patolli_ is correlated with the East Indian game of _parchesi_ by Dr.
E. B. Tylor. Dr.
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