Identifier: mexicoitsancient01enoc (find matches)
Title: Mexico, its ancient and modern civilisation, history and political conditions, topography and natural resources, industries and general development;
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Enock, C. Reginald (Charles Reginald), 1868-1970
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Scribner
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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k-sculpture, idols, painted caves, calendar stones,sacrificial stones, habitations, canals, pottery, mummies,cenotes, or wells, &c. The northernmost point where anymonument in stone is encountered is at Quemada, in theState of Zacatecas, which seems to mark the limit ofthe stronger civilisation of Southern Mexico, in contrastto the less virile civilisation which seems to be indicatedby the clay and adobe structures of the northern part ofMexico and of the adjoining territory embodied at thepresent day in Arizona, California, and New MexicO;beyond the Rio Grande. But once more we ask, Where did these peoplecome from originally ? It has been said that theorigin of the people of a continent belongs not to therealm of history but of philosophy. Well may it be so,but we are not content. What was the origin of the firstpeoples of the Americas, and where did the principle oftheir barbaric civilisation come from ? There were thefables of the lost continent of Atlantis—of which, geologi-
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THE DAWN OF MEXICO 35 cally, part of North America is a portion—to be con-sidered : and perchance, so thought the earher thinkers,these peoples, remnants of its population. But thegenerally accepted theory assigns Eastern Asia as thesource, and analogies are adduced in architecture, customs,religions, physiognomy, and a multitude of conditions. Asto language, careful study has shown, on the other hand,that none of the numerous indigenous tongues of thepresent-day Mexican aborigines bear any resemblancewhatever to Asiatic tongues, except that some like-ness between Otomie and Chinese is traced : whilstsome points of similarity are adduced with the speech ofthe Esquimaux. Last century an Englishman—LordKingsborough—spent a fortune in endeavouring to provethe theory, which had been advanced a hundred yearsearlier, that these emigrating tribes of the Mexican plateauwere those lost ten of Israel! And he published a magnifi-cent work, reproducing the best examples of their picture-wri

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