History of the city of Paterson and the County of Passaic, New Jersey, Part 5

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 466

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"And YHVH Elohim formed Adam, i. e., Man, there- fore is written: 'YHVH Elohim, created Adam,' with the full Name, like we have stated, that he is perfect and com- prises all. We have learned: On the sixth day Man was created at the time when the Kiseh, i. e., Throne, was per- fected, and is called Kisek Throne; it is written: 'The Throne had six steps' (I Kings, x, 19), and therefore Man was created on the sixth (day) because he is worthy to sit on this Throne. And we have learned: When Man was created everything was established, everything which is Above [Ideal] and Below [Concrete], and all is comprised in Man."1

On the other hand, such modern materialists as Haeckel will not tolerate the idea of a Creator, but insist that Man, in common with all animate beings, has developed from a simple cell, or bit of protoplasm.

Whence came the cell ? Whence the protoplasm ?

As widely different as these two views of the origin of Man, are the opinions of writers as to the origin of the cop-

per-colored natives of America. From a time soon after the discovery of this continent it was a favorite conjecture of students and travelers that in the new world the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel had found a refuge.1 Innumerable volumes have been written in support of this view. Some travelers, from an imaginary resemblance of certain Indian words to those in other languages, have leaped to the con- clusion that they were allied to or descended from the Romans, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Welsh, or other nations, according to the fancy or whim of the hearer. But the old method of making the facts fit a theory has given way to the modern spirit of scientific research, which aims to be sure of its facts before it attempts deductions. Schol- ars are generally agreed that there are no data yet come to light which enable us to say when, whence or low the American continent was first peopled. Some scientists have inclined to the belief that the natives were autochthon- ous. That is, admitting the correctness of the evolution theory, the several races of men in different parts of the world were evolved independently from a common type of ancestor-the "missing link." The civilization of Peru and that of Mexico arose and developed independently of each other, and were widely different in character-in relig- ion, government, customs and language. That of Peru seems to have come from the South, possibly from islands now sunk in the Pacific; that of Mexico from the North. Were the Mound Builders an earlier and different race from the American Indians, or were they the Cherokees, who built mounds in Georgia and other Southern States within the last three centuries ? The study of anthropology and eth- nology is of the profoundest importance to us, who are all interested in learning the origin, whence we may infer the destiny, of the human race. Anthropology and its attend- ant handmaidens, Ethnology, Archæology, Linguistics, Mythology, are every day bringing us nearer the solution of the ancient problem.

One of the most important contributions to the history of man in America was the discovery in the Trenton gravel, in 1875, by Dr. Charles C. Abbott, of Trenton, of certain rude stone implements inferior in make to those of the Indians. He and other explorers have since discovered many such specimens in situ at Trenton, several feet below the surface. These implements were found in such posi- tions as showed that the people who dropped them there must have lived near the close of the last Glacial epoch, if not before; that is, when the climate of this part of Amer- ica resembled the Arctic regions of to-day. In the same drift, as already mentioned, the tusk of a mastodon has been found. Bones of the Greenland reindeer, the walrus, the caribou, the moose and the musk-ox have come to light in the same region, together with some human remains. All these facts go to show that New Jersey was inhabited at this period, and by a race much lower in civilization than the Indians of the time of Columbus. The inferences are

1 The Zohar, III., 48 a, Brody edition ; quoted in " Qabbalah. The Philosophical Writings of Solomon Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol or Avice- bron And their connection with the Hebrew Qabbalah and Sepher ha- Zohar," etc., by Isaac Myer, LL. B., Philadelphia, 1888, p. 424. The Sepher ha-Zohar, Book of Illumination, or Splendor, or ancient Qabba- lah, is a mystical, running commentary on the Pentateuch or Thorah, based on the Sod, or Secret Doctrine, which perhaps antedates the Chris- tian era. Many of the Rabbis believed the Hebrew text of the Penta- teuch had a secret, hidden meaning, for the Illuminati or Enlightened, and another meaning for the ordinary reader.

1 That eminent philanthropist, patriot and student, Elias Boudinot, LL.D., of Burlington, wrote such a work: " A Star in the West; or, a Humble Attempt to Discover the long lost Ten Tribes of Israel, prepar- atory to their return to their beloved city, Jerusalem." Trenton, N. J., 1816.

HISTORY OF PATERSON.

strong that the Eskimo accompanied the advance of the great ice sheet, and probably retreated with it northward. 1 Palæolithic man appears to have inhabited Europe, as far south as Aquitaine, in France, during the Glacial period, and the Palæolithic implements picked up in the Trenton gravel very closely resemble those found in France. This is regarded by many as substantiating Haeckel's view2 that America was first peopled from Asia via Bering Strait, which has been ascertained to be a feasible route. 3 But it is a curious and suggestive fact that so far not an arrow head, nor grooved ax, nor stemmed scraper has been found in the Trenton gravel, all the implements being of the very simplest make, 4 showing that the primitive dwellers on the Delaware had not even reached that stage of civilization when the bow and arrow were known to them,5 whence F. W. Putnam infers that these men belonged to a race distinct in type from the Eskimos, 6 and earlier than they. It is evident that here we are getting back into a remote antiquity. Whoever were the fashioners of these rude stone implements, it is certain

1 Report on the Palæolithic Implements from the Glacial Drift near Trenton, by Dr. C. C. Abbott, Ninth Annual report of Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Mass., 1876, P. 35; The Stone Age in New Jersey, by Dr. C. C. Abbott, Washington, 1877 (pp. 246-380, with 223 figures of stone implements, from Smithsonian Report, 1877); Second Report on the Paleolithic Implements from the Glacial Drift, in the Valley of the Delaware River, near Trenton, N. J., by Charles C. Abbott, M. D., Salem, 1878 (pp. 225-257 from Eleventh Annual Report of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology, Cambridge, 1878) ; American Naturalist, Salem, Mass., 1872, Vol. VI., p. 147, and 1873, Vol. VII., pp. 204-09; Primitive Industry : or Illustrations of the Handiwork, in Stone, Bone and Clay, of the Na- tive Races of The Northern Atlantic Seaboard of America, by Charles C. Abbott, M. D., Salem, Mass., 1881. In this handsome octavo volume of 560 pages Dr. Abbott gives fuller details of his discoveries of the relics of palæolithic man in New Jersey. See also "The Argillite Implements Found in the Gravels of Delaware River," by H. W. Haynes, in Pro- ceedings Boston Society of Natural History, January, 1881, and other papers in the same Proceedings, and in the American Antiquarian, Vol. VI., p. 137, and Vol. X., p. 125; in Science, Vol. IV., pp. 469, 522, by Haynes, Prof. J. D. Whitney, Lucien Carr, Prof. F. W. Putnam, Prof. H. Carvill Lewis and others. " There is much to be said in favor of the tbeory that the Eskimos of the north are the lineal descendants of the pre-glacial men whose implements are found in New Jersey, Obio and Minnesota."-Wright, " The Ice Age in North America," p. 388. See also Abbott, in Science, 1883, Vol. I., 359, and Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Vol. XXXVII.

2 Haeckel's view is that the human race was first developed on a now sunken continent in the Indian Ocean, which he calls "Lemuria ;" thence issued in successive migration the first few races, as they were developed, spreading over the earth. Among these were the Mongols, occupying all of Asia, except India, and also extending into Northern Europe (the Finns, whence, according to other writers, the Finnians or Fenians, the primitive inhabitants of Ireland); from the Mongols issued tbe Hyperboreans of Northwestern Asia and the Eskimos of the Arctic regions of North America (No. 8 in the scale), and from the Eskimos tbere issued (No. 9) the Americans .- History of Creation, New York, 1876, Vol. II., frontispiece.

3 First Annual Report U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, 1877, pp. 95-8.

4 Essays of an Americanist, by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, Philadelphia, 1890; P. 53.

5 " Tbe Bow and Arrow Unknown to Palæolithic Man," by H. W. Haynes, in Proceedings Boston Society of Natural History, Vol. XXIII.

6 Wright's " The Ice Age in North America," 569. It has been con- jectured from the inferior maxillary bones found in caves in France that Palæolithic man was speechless, but the latest investigators do not believe this.

that they must have fished and hunted south of the Glacier: border while the whole country north of them was covered with an ice sheet. How long ago was that ? Not less than ten thousand years. Perhaps a thousand centuries.1 Con- trary to the rule of human progress there is an abrupt. transition in the Trenton gravel, from the rude argillite implements of the palæolithic man to the skillfully-chipped flint arrow-heads of the neolithic period. Were the older people exterminated by the mighty glacial floods ? Or, were they driven away by the later comers? Perhaps they had retreated with the Glacier centuries before their suc- cessors arrived on the scene. Certain it is, that this primi- tive people who hunted and fished in New Jersey during and before the existence of "Lake Passaic," and who often gazed with simple awe upon the mighty cataract which we call the Passaic Falls,2 had vanished from this neighbor- hood ages before the first white man set foot on our shores. It may be that he has left unsuspected traces behind him, and that the industrious explorer will find in the valley of the Passaic relics of this forgotten race, such as have re- warded the search in the Delaware drift.

The same scientific method which has been applied of late years to the gathering of the facts concerning the geo- logical history of the earth, and the manners and customs of primitive man, has been more recently devoted to the study of the American races. One result has been to dismiss as unworthy of consideration all the fanciful hypotheses which traced affiliations between the peoples of the eastern and western continents. Most modern scientists agree with the Marquis de Nadaillac : "The present peoples of America, like those of Europe, are the issue of the intermixture of several races. The crossings are true modifications of fund- amental types. The men of the primitive races have re- sisted these modifications ; they have not yet completely dis- appeared, and in spite of variations from one extreme to the other, an attentive study frequently enables us to recognize a

1 In the Smithsonian Report for 1868, p. 33, Prof. Henry quoted with sympathetic approval the sentiments of the Bishop of London, uttered in a lecture at Edinburgh : " The man of science sbould go on honestly, patiently, diffidently, observing and storing up bis observa- tions, and carrying his reasonings unflinchingly to their legitimate conclu- sions, convinced that it would be treason to the majesty at once of science and of religion, if he sought to help either by swerving ever so little from the straight line of truth." Many Biblical scholars believe that the chronology of Archbishop Usher, which bas been printed in the margins of the Bible for the last two centuries (taken from his " Annals of the World," 1658), and which foots up 4,004 years as tbe precise age of the world to the time of Christ, is based on an erroneous interpretation of the patriarchal genealogies, which related to the found- ing of tribes or nations, instead of to the lives of individuals. Tbe subject has been fully treated in this light by the Duke of Argyll, in " Primeval Man," pp. 91, et seq .; by Prof William Henry Green, of Princeton Theological Seminary, in numerous articles in periodicals, and by other competent authorities. See Lange's Commentary on Genesis, New York, 1869, p. 346; " The Prophets of Israel," etc., by W. Robert- son Smith, New York, 1882, pp. 147-9, 402. See also Geikie's "Hours with the Bible," New York, 1885, Vol. I., pp. 83-7.

2 " In former days, long before the sublime and stupendous Falls of Niagara became a place of fashionable resort, the Red Men would draw near to this awful cataract with timid steps, invoking most solemnly the Mighty Spirit which they imagined must certainly reside there."-The Outlines of Primitive Superstitions, etc., by Rushton M. Dorman, Phil- adelphia, 1881, P. 300.

THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT.

predominant type."1 "Doubtless, as with the ancient races of Europe, those of America were made up of diverse ele- ments, of different varieties. A primeval dolichocephalic race appears in the first instance to have invaded the vast regions included between the two oceans. The men of this race were contemporary with the huge pachydermal and edentate animals ; and, as did their contemporaries in Europe, they passed through the various phases of the *. Stone Age. Other races arrived in successive migrations, the first of which doubtless dated from very remote ages, and brought about, amongst the ancient inhabitants of America, modifications, analogous to those produced in Europe by similar migrations."2

As that most accomplished investigator, Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, says : "Anyone at all intimately conversant with the progress of American archeology in the last twenty years must see how rapidly has grown the conviction that American culture was homebred, to the manor born : that it was wholly indigenous and had borrowed nothing-nothing, from either Europe, Asia or Africa. The peculiarities of native American culture are typical, and extend throughout the continent."3

In his excellent work on the Primitive Superstitions of the American Aborigines, Dorman expresses the same opinion : " American agriculture was indigenous. This is proved by the fact that grains of the Old World were absent, and its agriculture was founded on the maize, an American plant. Their agriculture and their architecture show an indigenous origin of their civilization, as does also their mythology. * *

* Fear is the prevailing religious sentiment among all the tribes of America. Religion did not have much moral influence toward ennobling hearts or humanizing manners, but merely excited emotions of fear and increased fanaticism. Prayers were offered for material things, but touched not morals. Among the savage tribes we find very little evidence, if any, of a moral sentiment."4

Speaking of the Mexican and Central American ruins, Baldwin says : "The more we study them, the more we find it necessary to believe that the civilization they repre- sent was originated in America, and probably in the region where they are found. It did not come from the Old World. *

* * The culture and the work were wholly original, wholly American."5

Much has been written of supposed physiological re- semblances between the Americans and other races, but on

1 Pre-Historic America, London, 1885, p. 480.

2 Ib., 516. In a paper " On the Origin of the Indian Population of America," by B. H. Coates, M. D., read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, April 28, 1834, the learned author anticipated, although with far less knowledge of the subject than we possess to-day, the conclusion of scholars half a century later than his time: " The inference which most commands our confidence, is, that America, like other sections of the world, was peopled from several sources ; and that this was effected by numerous colonies, and in an antiquity so remote as to precede the records of history, the invention of most domestic mechanic arts, and the formation of widely diffused languages."-See Memoirs Hist. Soc. Penn., Vol. III., Part II., p. 38.

8 Essays of an Americanist, 60.

4 Dorman, as cited, pp. 387, 390.

5 Ancient America, by John D. Baldwin, New York, 1872, pp. 184-5.

this subject Dr. Brinton may be again quoted : "The anato- my and physiology of the various American tribes present, in- deed, great diversity, and yet, beneath it all is a really re- markable fixedness of type. * *

* These variations are not greater than can be adduced in various members of the white or black race. In spite of them all, there is a won- derful family likeness among the tribes of American origin. No observer well acquainted with the type would err in taking it for another. * *

* We reach therefore the momentous conclusion that the American race 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."1

Another writer, in concluding an able paper on the Astro- nomy of the Red Man, says : "Inquiry into the astronom- ical knowledge of the Red Men, their arithmetic, division of time, names of months and days, shows that their whole system was most peculiar; and if not absolutely original, must antedate all historic times, since it has no parallel on record. *

* * Assuredly, the astronomical knowledge of the aboriginal Americans was of domestic origin ; and any of the few seeming points of seeming contact with the calen- dars of the old world, if not accidental must have taken place at an exceedingly remote period of time. In fact, whatever may have come from the old world was engrafted upon a system itself still older than the exotic shoots."2

Says that eminent scholar, Prof. Reville : "The social and religious development of Central America was in the strictest sense native and original, and all attempts to bring it into connection with a supposed earlier intercourse with Asia or Europe have failed."3

The most civilized nations of to-day point to their high development in language and literature as the most strik- ing evidence of their progress in culture. Compilers of grammars always take the verb "love" as the best example of a regular conjugation, from which it has been inferred by some scholars that the word has acquired the regular form because it represents a great elevation in the human soul, and a perfect attainment in expressing the emotions. But the language of the Klamath or Modoc Indians of Oregon conjugates the verb in three persons and numbers with all the finest shades of meaning known to the Greek grammar, 4 and Dr. Brinton has shown from a comparison of several American with European languages that in them all, the words used to express the conception of love are based upon the same fundamental notions. "They thus reveal the parallel paths which the human mind everywhere pursued in giving articulate expression to the passions and emotions of the soul. In this sense there is a oneness in all

1 Essays of an Americanist, pp. 39-40.

2 " Some account of the Astronomy of the Red Man of the New World," etc., by William Bollaert, in Memoirs read before the Anthro- pological Society of London, 1863-4, London, 1865, Vol. I., p. 278.

3 Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru (Hibbert Lectures, 1884), by Albert Reville, D. D., of the College of France ; London, 1884, P. II.

4 Grammar and Dictionary of the Klamath Language, by Albert S. Gatschet, U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, 1892.

HISTORY OF PATERSON.

languages, which speaks conclusively for the oneness in the sentient and intellectual attributes of the species."1

The quotations cited are the conclusions reached by ripe scholars after careful study, in the scientific spirit and method, of the American races-their physical characteris- tics, their languages, legends, myths, astronomy, manners and customs. Examined in this way, the legend of Ta-oun- ya-wa-tha, so musically related by Longfellow, loses some of its picturesqueness, perhaps, but the character of that hero stands out boldly as one of the noblest statesmen the world ever saw. Where before his time did man ever dream of a confederation which should embrace all the nations of the earth in one mighty republic, and thus do away with war forevermore? This was the dream of Hia- watha, and by his nobility of character, his self-sacrificing devotion, his energy and shrewdness, he established the Iroquois Confederation of Five Nations, which has main- tained its existence for more than four centuries, and in the Council of which the name of Hiawatha is still preserved as one of the original members. Here in the wilds of America, forty years before Columbus saw the new continent, was thus founded one of the first and purest republics on the face of the earth.2 No wonder that the story of his life appeals to our tenderest emotions as we read the "Song of Hiawatha : "

How he prayed and bow he fasted, How be lived, and toiled, and suffered, Tbat tbe tribes of men might prosper, That he might advance his people.

Thus, too, the innumerable legends of Michabo or Mani- bozho resolve themselves into a Light-myth : " Michabo, giver of life and light, creator and preserver, is no apothe- osis of a prudent chieftain, still less the fabrication of an idle fancy or a designing priestcraft, but in origin, deeds, and name the not unworthy personification of the purest conceptions they possessed concerning the Father of All. To Him at early dawn the Indian stretched forth his hands in prayer ; and to the sky or the sun as his homes, he first pointed the pipe in his ceremonies, rites often misin- terpreted by travellers as indicative of sun worship." 3

1 Essays of an Americanist, 431.

2 " Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family," by L. H. Morgan (Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge), p. 151 ; " The Iroquois Book of Rites," by Horatio Hale, Philadelphia, 1883, pp. 21 et seqq. Tbe name Hiawatha is rendercd by Hale "he who seeks the wampum belt; " by L. H. Morgan, " He who combs," and by Albert Cusick (a living Indian), " One who looks for his mind, which he has lost, but knows where to find it." This suggests the persistence of pur- pose which Mr. Hale ascribes to him .- The Iroquois Trail, by W. M. Beauchamp, S. T. D., Fayetteville, N. Y., 1892, p. 67. "Like similar Iro- quois names the final syllables are pronounced wat-ha by the Indians, and by the Onondagas it is commonly called Hi-e-wat-ha."-Ib., 137. Beauchamp does not think this "Lawgiver of the Stone Age" lived much before 1600 .- Ib., 138 ; Journal of American Folk-Lore, IV., 295- 307. Dr. Brinton and most Americanists preferably accept what Morgan and Hale say about the Iroquois. The most popular account of Hiawa- tha is tbat given by Henry R. Schoolcraft, in " Algic Researches," 1839, and in " Tbe Myth of Hiawatha," etc., Philadelphia, 1856; it was from this account, confusing Hiawatba with the myth-god Michabo, tbat Longfellow drew bis material for his beautiful poem.

3 Mytbs of the New World, etc., by Daniel G. Brinton, M. D., New York, 1868, p. 169; American Hero-Myths, by Daniel G. Brinton, M. D., Philadelphia, 1882, pp. 38, 41 ; "Iroquois Book of Rites," 36.

Michabo was the Great Light, or the Great White One, 1 born of a virgin mother.2 Was this so very different from the worship of the ancient Aryans, who prayed to the Sky-Father-Dyu patar-Dyaush-pitar-Jupiter ?3 Moreo- ver, we are told that Michabo was one of four broth- ers-Wabun, Kabun, Kabibonokka and Shawans-the East, West, North and South, and the winds blowing from those cardinal points. Among the most diverse of the American races similar legends are preserved, evidently re- lating to the four points of the compass, and the unceasing warfare between the Sun and Moon, Light and Darkness, Good and Evil.4 The vague and pathetic stories that are handed down from age to age, of the time when their people had a great prophet, a white man, with a long beard, who has promised to come again and restore that mythical golden age to which all races fondly look back, are only va- riations of the same Light-myth, possibly modified by some historic basis of truth, which may even have been derived from a vanished race. The tales of the miraculous conception of the Light, and even of an immaculate conception, which horrified the early European missionary priests, and the figure of the cross, so often found carved on the massive stone buildings of the Mayas, the Aztecs, and other Central American nations, and frequently depicted by the rude Indian of the north on his buffalo robe or on prominent rocks, are all very reasonably ascribed to the same wide- spread cult among the natives of this continent.5

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History of the city of Paterson and the County of Passaic, New Jersey, Part 5

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914 Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 466

Author: Nelson, William, 1847-1914
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Paterson : Press Printing and Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 466