PREFACEO



xi



grated to the Western Continent, than to offer a faithful
comparison of the Indians with the Asiatics, in religion,
language, manners, habits and customs. On the autho-
rity of writers and travellers, ancient and modern, and
of distinguished ability, whose observations, in Asia, and
America, written at different periods, should merit the
greatest confidence and attention from the scientific and
the curious, we have ventured to prove beyond the pos-
sibility of doubt, that the North American Indians are
of Asiatic origin.
  As it is generally allowed that the uniformity or
agreement of the manners and customs of two nations,-
is the most authentic monument of their original con-
nection, we have offered an extensive catalogue of
coincidences, so singular and indicative of the identity



of people, that we will, at once, be induced to F
this theory to be the most rational of all the s
that have been formed on the subject. If we
therefore, with many customs, religious, m
and civil, practised only by some nations ix
and followed up by the earliest inhabitants of th
tern Continent, we may fairly conclude that the
gines of this country must have derived their
from those Asiatic tribes to whom they bear the f



Believe,
;ystems
3 meet,
Riiitary,
i Asia,
Le Wes-
Abori-
orrgan
rreatest



resemblance in language, religion, manners, habits and
customs.