The Dawn of Canadian History : A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada

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Stephen Leacock. The Dawn of Canadian History : A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada

CHAPTER I. BEFORE THE DAWN

CHAPTER II. MAN IN AMERICA

CHAPTER III. THE ABORIGINES OF CANADA

CHAPTER IV. THE LEGEND OF THE NORSEMEN

CHAPTER V. THE BRISTOL VOYAGES

CHAPTER VI. FORERUNNERS OF JACQUES CARTIER

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

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It was necessary to form some idea, if only in outline, of the magnitude and extent of the great geological changes of which we have just spoken, in order to judge properly the question of the antiquity and origin of man in America.

When the Europeans came to this continent at the end of the fifteenth century they found it already inhabited by races of men very different from themselves. These people, whom they took to calling 'Indians,' were spread out, though very thinly, from one end of the continent to the other. Who were these nations, and how was their presence to be accounted for?

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Nevertheless, it appears to be impossible to say whether or not an early branch of the human race ever 'migrated' to America. Conceivably the race may have originated there. Some authorities suppose that the evolution of mankind occurred at the same time and in the same fashion in two or more distinct quarters of the globe. Others again think that mankind evolved and spread over the surface of the world just as did the various kinds of plants and animals. Of course, the higher endowment of men enabled them to move with greater ease from place to place than could beings of lesser faculties. Most writers of to-day, however, consider this unlikely, and think it more probable that man originated first in some one region, and spread from it throughout the earth. But where this region was, they cannot tell. We always think of the races of Europe as having come westward from some original home in Asia. This is, of course, perfectly true, since nearly all the peoples of Europe can be traced by descent from the original stock of the Aryan family, which certainly made such a migration. But we know also that races of men were dwelling in Europe ages before the Aryan migration. What particular part of the globe was the first home of mankind is a question on which we can only speculate.

Of one thing we may be certain. If there was a migration, there must have been long ages of separation between mankind in America and mankind in the Old World; otherwise we should still find some trace of kinship in language which would join the natives of America to the great racial families of Europe, Asia, and Africa. But not the slightest vestige of such kinship has yet been found. Everybody knows in a general way how the prehistoric relationships among the peoples of Europe and Asia are still to be seen in the languages of to-day. The French and Italian languages are so alike that, if we did not know it already, we could easily guess for them a common origin. We speak of these languages, along with others, as Romance languages, to show that they are derived from Latin, in contrast with the closely related tongues of the English, Dutch, and German peoples, which came from another common stock, the Teutonic. But even the Teutonic and the Romance languages are not entirely different. The similarity in both groups of old root words, like the numbers from one to ten, point again to a common origin still more remote. In this way we may trace a whole family of languages, and with it a kinship of descent, from Hindustan to Ireland. Similarly, another great group of tongues—Arabic, Hebrew, etc.—shows a branch of the human family spread out from Palestine and Egypt to Morocco.

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