CHAPTER III.
TAHAN OR ALIASKA, AND ITS DISCOVERY.
DURING the dynasty of Leang, in the first half of the sixth century, the Chinese often heard of a land situated 5000 of their miles to the eastward of the Painted People, who dwelt in the Aleutian Islands, and named it Tahan, or Great China. The direction and distance indicate the great peninsula Aliaska. They probably named it Great China from their having heard of the continent which extends beyond. It was in a precisely similar manner, according to the legend, that the Irish, who in earlier ages, long before the time of Columbus, were cast away on the American shores, named the country Great Ireland. 1 They reported that the newly-discovered nation altogether resembled the Painted People, but spoke an entirely different language. The Tahan bore no weapons, and knew nothing of war and strife. 2

Beyond Aliaska the Chinese discovered, at the end of the fifth century, a land which Deguignes, in fact,



p. 25

afterwards sought for on the north-west part of the American Continent. The conjecture of that keen-witted scholar was subsequently fully verified, and we are now able to determine those parts of America described by the Chinese. The zealous inquiries relating to a state of civilisation long passed away, and to such of its remains as yet exist in the New World, have led in our days to results of which the inquirer of the eighteenth century could have had no intimation. We will now give a literal translation of the Chinese report, and afterwards its explanation.

THE KINGDOM OF FUSANG, OR MEXICO.
"During the reign of the dynasty Tsi, in the first year of the year-naming, 'Everlasting Origin' (A.D. 499), came a Buddhist priest from this kingdom, who bore the cloister-name of Hoei-schin, i.e., Universal Compassion, 1 to the present district of Hukuang, and those surrounding it, who narrated that Fusang is about twenty thousand Chinese miles in an easterly direction from Tahan, and east of the Middle Kingdom. Many Fusang trees grow there, whose leaves resemble the Dryanda cordifolia; 2 the sprouts, on the contrary,



p. 26

resemble those of the bamboo-tree, 1 and are eaten by the inhabitants of the land. The fruit is like a pear in form, but is red. From the bark they prepare a sort of linen which they use for clothing, and also a sort of ornamented stuff." (With regard to this, the Year-Books of Leang have a variation: instead of the character KIN (11, 492 B.), meaning "embroidered stuff," or embroidered and ornamented stuff in general, we have MIEN, which signifies "fine silk.") "The houses are built of wooden beams; fortified and walled places are there unknown."

OF WRITING AND CIVIL REGULATIONS IN FUSANG.
"They have written characters in this land, and prepare paper from the bark of the Fusang. The people have no weapons, and make no wars; but in the arrangements for the kingdom they have a northern and a southern prison. Trifling offenders were lodged in the southern prison, but those confined for greater offences in the northern; so that those who were about to receive grace could be placed in the southern prison, and those who were not, in the northern. Those men and women who were imprisoned for life were allowed to


p. 27

marry. The boys resulting from these marriages were, at the age of eight years, sold as slaves; the girls not until their ninth year. If a man of any note was found guilty of crimes, an assembly was held; it must be in an excavated place." (Grube, Ger. "a pit;" possibly within an embankment or circle of earth.--C. G. L.) "There they strewed ashes over him, and bade him farewell. If the offender was one of a lower class, he alone was punished; but when of rank, the degradation was extended to his children and grandchildren. With those of the highest rank it attained to the seventh generation."

THE KINGDOM AND THE NOBLES OF FUSANG.
"The name of the king is pronounced Ichi. The nobles of the first-class are termed Tuilu; of the second, Little Tuilu; and of the third, Na-to-scha. When the prince goes forth, he is accompanied by horns and. trumpets. The colour of his clothes changes with the different years. In the two first of the ten-year cyclus they are blue; in the two next, red; in the two following, yellow; in the two next, red; and in the last two, black."

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
"The horns of the oxen are so large that they hold ten bushels. They use them to contain all manner of

p. 28

things. Horses, oxen, and stags are harnessed to their waggons. Stags are used here as cattle are used in the Middle Kingdom, and. from the milk of the hind they make butter. The red pears of the Fusang-tree keep good throughout the year. Moreover, they have apples and reeds. From the latter they prepare mats. No iron is found in this land; but copper, gold, and silver are not prized, and do not serve as a medium of exchange in the market.

"Marriage is determined upon in the following manner:--The suitor builds himself a hut before the door of the house where the one longed for dwells, and waters and cleans the ground every morning and evening. When a year has passed by, if the maiden is not inclined to marry him, he departs; should she be willing, it is completed. When the parents die, they fast seven days. For the death of the paternal or maternal grandfather they lament five days; at the death of elder or younger sisters or brothers, uncles or aunts, three days. They then sit from morning to evening before an image of the ghost, absorbed in prayer, but wear no mourning-clothes. When the king dies, the son who succeeds him does not busy himself for three years with State affairs.

"In earlier times these people lived not according to the laws of Buddha. But it happened that in the second year-naming 'Great Light,' of Song (A.D. 458), five beggar-monks from the kingdom of Kipin went to

p. 29

this land, extended over it the religion of Buddha, and with it his holy writings and images. They instructed the people in the principles of monastic life, and so changed their manners."

AMAZONIA.
The same Buddhist monk who gives this account of the land Fusang, tells us of a country of women. "This land," he writes, "lies about a thousand Chinese miles in an easterly direction from Fusang, and is inhabited by white people with very hairy bodies." 1 The entire story is, however, intermixed with so much fabulous matter, that it is not worth translating. It is, however, worthy of remark, that since the earliest times every civilised race which has left us written records of its existence spoke of a land of women, which was always placed farther and farther to the north-east, until we find it ultimately placed in America. 2 It is hardly necessary to say that such a land of women could never have existed. It is, however, possible that among various tribes here and there the women may have had separate dwelling-places; perhaps apart upon an island, and held intercourse with the men only from time to time. The Arabs, particularly Edrisi, speak



p. 30

of such an arrangement, but thought that this land of women lay in an altogether different direction. 1 The knowledge of the Arabs and Persians of the east and north-eastern parts of the world extended only to Japan and the eastern shores of China. "To the eastward of Japan," asserts Abulfeda distinctly, "the earth is uninhabited."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnotes
24:1 Münchener Gelehrte Anzeigen, viii. 636. This must have been the land extending from the two Carolinas to the southern point of Florida.

24:2 Leang-schu and Mantuanlin, a. a. o.

25:1 According to King-tschu it signifies "an old name." King-tschu is the sixth of the nine provinces which are described in the tax-roll of Ju, which contains the sixth of the included divisions of the Annual Book. It extended from the north side of the hill King. Compare Hongingta, the celebrated expounder of King in the times of Tang, with the already-mentioned extracts from the Annual or Year-Book.

25:2 In the Leang-schu we find an error in the writing (a very common p. 26 occurrence in Chinese transcriptions): instead of the character TONG; (4, 233 Bas.), we have Tang (11, 444 B.), which signifies copper, and according to which we must read, "Their leaves resemble copper," which is evidently an error.

26:1 This is the case also in China with the bamboo sprouts, on which account they are called sun (7, 449 B.); i.e., the buds of the first ten days, since they only keep for that time.

29:1 The reports are given in the Kansse, bk. 79, p. 6; Leang-schu, bk. 64, p. 49; and from these much more correctly in the Encyclopædia of Mantuanlin, bk. 327, a. A.

29:2 The Japanese have in their facetiæ an account of such a country.--C. G. L.

30:1 Edrisi, ii. 433, edition Jaubert.

CHAPTER IV.
REMARKS ON THE REPORT OF HOEI-SHIN.
THE land west of the Indus, known to us at the present day under the names of Avghanistan and Beloochistan, was converted, shortly after the death of the Indian reformer Buddha, to his doctrine, which spread the system of castes, and was founded upon the principle of universal love.

It bears in the reports of the Chinese Buddhists the name Kipin, which appears in the different forma of Kaphen, Kaphes, and Kaphante, in the description of rivers and cities in Gedrosia and Arachosia by several of the older writers. 1 Here the third leader of the religion of the King's Son of Kapilapura had chosen his seat, 2 and here his disciples flourished in great power, as their numerous monuments and ruins indicate, until the seventh and eighth centuries, when the fanatic Moslem promulgated the doctrines of their own prophet with fire and sword.



p. 32

[paragraph continues] To its holy city came many of the monks of Middle Asia and China, and from Kophene again the religion extended itself to many parts of the world, even to North America and Mexico.

How these American lands were named by their inhabitants we know not, as seems indeed to be generally the case with most new discoveries of this nature. We know only that they received the name Fusang, which was that of a tree common to these countries and Eastern Asia, or, it would more probably appear, that of an Asiatic tree resembling it in one or more particulars; for it seems to be a natural and usual circumstance to name a newly-discovered land after some striking peculiarity of the kind. The Norsemen, who landed in America five hundred years after these Buddhist priests, named it in a similar manner Winaland--Wine or Vine land--from the number of wild grapes which grew there. On account of the great distance of the land Fusang, no missionaries went there afterwards. And yet the story of this land, so full of marvels, has not yet disappeared from the memories of Chinese and Buddhist inquirers into the wonders of the olden time. Many of them have frequently mentioned it in their works, and have even drawn maps of it, 1 and taken the pains, in their thoughtless, unreflecting manner, to collect all the accounts which we have here given. Also, at a later period, their mythical geographers and poets often availed themselves of this piece of knowledge, and,


p. 33

as was the case in the West 1 with the land of Prester John, spun it out into all manner of strange tales. But these beautiful and romantic fancies about the land and tree Fusang can have no more weight with the impartial seeker into the truth of historical tradition than the legends of Alexander and of Charlemagne with the student of Arrian and Eginhard. 2

The distance of the land from Tahan or Aliaska, which extends, according to the estimate before given, from the fifty-seventh to the fifty-eighth degree, leads us necessarily to the north-west coast of Mexico, and the vicinity of San Blas. Not less decisively do the Buddhist-Chinese reports indicate this part of the world. But before we can avail ourselves of these later accounts of the Aztecs, a difficulty must be removed, which would otherwise annihilate the complete mass of proofs.

THE OLDEST HISTORY OF MEXICO.
The information given by our Buddhist travellers goes back into times long anterior to the most remote periods alluded to in the obscure legends of the



p. 34

[paragraph continues] Aztecs, resting upon uncertain interpretations of hieroglyphics. One fact is, however, deeply rooted in this trembling soil of Old America: the races of barbarians which successively followed each other from the north to the south always murdered, hunted down, and subdued the previous inhabitants, and formed in course of time a new social and political life upon the ruins of the old system, to be again destroyed and renewed in a few centuries, by a new invasion of barbarians. The later native conquerors in the New World can, of course, no more be considered in the light of original inhabitants than the present races of men in the Old World.

THE RUINS OF MITLA AND PALENQUE. 1
The ruins named after the adjacent places, Mitla and Palenque, situated in the province Zzendales, near the limits of the municipality of Cuidad Real and Yucatan, have been supposed by enthusiastic scholars to possess an antiquity anterior, by thousands of years, to the coming of our Lord. Prejudiced and ignorant visionaries have imagined this to be the home of all spiritual cultivation, and even to have discovered here traces of Buddhism. The Tolteks--a word signifying architects


p. 35

[paragraph continues] --appeared about the middle of the seventh century, and one of their literary productions, known as "The Divine Book," existed, according to an unauthenticated legend, until the time of the Spaniards. The Aztecs, on the contrary, came to Anahuac, or "The Land near the Water," during the reign of Frederick the Second. 1 The savage invaders evinced at first the greatest hostility to the religion and social institutions of the conquered race, but feeling ultimately themselves the want of a regular system, they erected a new edifice upon the old ruins. This may prove advantageous in an intellectual or intelligent (subjectiv), as well as a material point of view, since we can thus avail ourselves of a knowledge of the laws, manners, and customs of the Aztecs, in order to obtain a clearer conception of the condition of the earlier races who inhabited this land. 2 The most learned historian of New Spain has already recognised in every particular, and in connection with the results of the most recent inquiries, the original affinity of the numerous Mexican languages.

The pyramidic-symbolic form of many of the Mexican monuments appears, indeed, to have a resemblance with the religious edifices of the Buddhists for places of interment; but neither their architecture nor ornaments, according to Castañeda's drawings of Mexican antiquities, indicate any East Indian symbol, unless we



p. 36

are willing to admit their eight rings or stories as such. 1 According to a Buddhistic legend, the remains of Schakia were placed in eight metallic jars, and over these as many temples were erected. 2 But if Buddhism ever flourished in Central America, it certainly was not the pure religion of Schakia as it now exists in Nepaul, Thibet, and other parts of Asia, but a new religion, built upon its foundations. For the missionaries of Schakiamunis were in a manner Jesuits, who, the more readily to attain their aim, either based their doctrines upon, or intermixed them with, the existing manners and customs. The myth of the birth of the terrible Aztec god of war may possibly be a faded remain of the old Indian religion. Huitzilopotschli of Mexico was born in the same wonderful manner as Schakia of India; his mother saw a ball floating in the air, but one of shining feathers, placed it in her bosom, became pregnant, and gave birth to the terrible son, who came into the world with a spear in his right hand, a shield in his left, and a waving tuft of green feathers on his head. Juan de Grijalva, the nephew of Velasquez, was so much struck with the many instances of a high state of civilisation, and particularly with the magnificent buildings of Mexico, that he named the



p. 37

peninsula New Spain, which term has since been extended to a much greater portion of the New World.

FUSANG, MAGUEY, AGAVE AMERICANA.
We know that the flora of the north-western part of America is closely allied to that of China, Japan, and other lands of Eastern Asia. 1 We may also assume that the Fusang-tree was formerly found in America, and afterwards, through neglect, became extinct. Tobacco and Indian-corn seen always to have been as natural to China as to the New World. 2 It is, however, much more probable that the traveller described a plant hitherto unknown to him, which supplies as many wants in Mexico as the original Fusang is said to do in Eastern Asia--I mean the great American aloe (Agave Americana), called by the Indians "Maguey," which is so remarkably abundant in the plains of New Spain. From the crushed leaves, even at the present day, a firm paper is prepared. Upon such paper those hieroglyphic manuscripts alluded to by the Buddhist missionary, and destroyed by the fanatic Spaniards, were written. From the sap an intoxicating drink is made. Its large stiff leaves serve to roof their low huts, and the fibres supply them with a variety of thread and ropes. From the boiled roots they prepare an agreeable food, and the thorns serve for pins and



p. 38

needles. This wonderful plant, therefore, provides them with food, drink, clothing, and writing materials; being, in fact, so fully satisfactory to every want of the Mexicans, that many persons, well acquainted with the land and its inhabitants, have asserted that the maguey-plant must be exterminated ere sloth and idleness, the two great impediments which hinder them from attaining a higher social position, can be checked.

METALS AND MONEY.
The use of iron, now found so plentifully in New Spain, was, as the Buddhist correctly remarked, unknown in Mexico. Copper and brass supplied its place, as was indeed the case at an early period in other countries. The natives prepared, according to Antonio de Herrera, two sorts of copper, a hard and a soft, the former of which was used to manufacture cutting tools and agricultural instruments, and the latter for pots and all manner of household implements. They understood the working of silver, tin, and lead mines; but neither the silver nor the gold which they picked up on the surface of the earth, or found in the beds of rivers, served as a circulating medium. These metals were not particularly prized in that land. Pieces of tin in the form of a common hammer, 1 and bundles of


p. 39

cacao containing a determined number of seeds, were the usual money.

LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF THE AZTECS.
The laws of the Aztecs were very strict, yet in the few remaining fragments of their hieroglyphical pictures we find no trace of the regulations of the land "Fusang." There existed, however, in the days of Montezuma, an hereditary nobility, divided into several ranks, of which authors give contradictory statements. Zurita speaks of four orders of chiefs, who were exempted from the payment of taxes, and enjoyed other immunities. 1

Their method of marrying resembled that practised at the present day in Kamtschatka. We have no account of their mourning ceremonies, but know that the king had a particular palace in which he passed the time of mourning for his nearest relatives. 2 On the festivals of the gods they sounded horns and trumpets this may have been done by the companions of the king, as to a representative of the godhead. 3

The Aztecs reckoned according to a period of fifty-two years, and knew very exactly the time of the revolution of the earth about the ann. The ten-year cyclus spoken of in the Chinese report may have been a subdivision of the Aztec period, or have even been




p. 40

used as an independent period, as was the case with the Chinese, who term their notations "stems." It is worthy of remark that among the Mongols and Mantchous these "stems" are named after colours, which perhaps have some relation to the several colours of the royal clothing in the cyclus of Fusang. 1 These Tartaric tribes term the first two years of the ten-year cyclus "green and greenish;" the two next "red and reddish," 2 and so, in continuation, yellow and yellowish, white and whitish, and finally black and blackish. It appears, however, impossible to bring this cyclus of the Aztecs into any relation with those of the Asiatics, who universally reckon by periods of sixty years.

DOMESTIC ANIMALS.
The Aztecs had no beasts of draught or of burden. Horses were not found in the New World. The report of the Chinese missionary has, therefore, no connection with the later Mexican reigns. Two varieties of wild oxen with large horns ranged in herds on the plains of the Rio del Norte. 3 These might have been tamed by the earlier inhabitants, and used as domestic animals. Stag's horns have been found in the ruins of Mexican buildings; and Montezuma showed the Spaniards, as curiosities, immensely large horns of this description.




p. 41

[paragraph continues] It is possible that the stags formerly ranged from New California, and other regions of North America, where they are still found in great numbers, to the interior of Mexico. To a native of China it must have seemed remarkable that the Mexicans should have prepared butter from hind's milk, since such a thing has seldom been done in China, either in ancient or modern times. When the inhabitants of Chusan saw the English sailors milking she-goats, they could not retain their gravity. It is indeed possible that the Chinese have described an animal similar to the horse with the character Ma, or horse, for changes of this nature are of frequent occurrence. 1 In such a manner many names of animals in the Old World have been applied to others of an entirely different nature in the New. The eastern limits of the Asiatic Continent are also the limits of the native land of the horse, and it appears that it was first taken in the third century of our era from Korea into Japan. But let the error in regard to the American horses have come from what source it will, the unprejudiced, circumspect inquirer will not be


p. 42

determined on account of it to declare the entire story of Fusang-Mexico an idle tale. It appears to me that this description of the western coast of America is at least as authentic as the discovery of the eastern coast, as narrated in Icelandic sagas.


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Footnotes
31:1 Mannert: Geographie der Griechen and Römer, v., Abtheilung ii. 19, 20, 53, and 55.

31:2 Vide History of Buddhism, which bears the title Tschi-jue-la, i.e., the Indian Guide, iii. 5, v.

32:1 Fa-kiai-ngan-litu, i.e., More Certain Tables of Religion, i. 22.

33:1 Vide Relation des Mongols ou Tartares, by the priest Jean du Plan de Carpin, Légat du Saint Siége Apostolique, &c., during the years 1215-47, given in the notice published by the Société de Geographie, under the above-mentioned title; the travels of Sir John Mandeville, and Jacques de Vitry; the works of Matthew of Paris, Joinville, Marco Polo; and more particularly the old legend of Prestre Jehan, reprinted in "Le Monde Enchantée," par M. Ferdinand Denis, Paris, 1843, p. 184.--C. G. L.

33:2 Vide Turpin's Chronicle, Warton; "The Book of Legends," by O’Sullivan, Paris, 1842; also "The Romance of King Alisander," Weber's "Metrical Romances."--C. G. L.

34:1 Antiquités Mexicaines, ii. 73, and Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, ii. On the subject of the early Mexicans, the reader may consult Prescott's "History of the Conquest of Mexico,"--a work as much distinguished by substantial erudition and critical tact, as by its simple, truly historical statements. (Ebenso ausgezeichnet durch gründliche Gelehrsamkeit and kritischen Tact, wie durch einfache ächt geschichtliche Darstellung.)--CARL F. NEUMANN.

35:1 The chronological accounts of the different authors contradict each other; those of the learned Clavigero always appear to be the most correct.--PRESCOTT, i. ii.

35:2 Clavigero, Storia Antica del Messico, i. 153.

36:1 These circles suggest the eight rings of Odin, preserved in the eight arches of Norse towers. The ring of Odin produced every eighth night eight similar rings. It may be worth remarking in this connection, that the small pot-bellied phallic images in gold found in the graves of Central America, bear an extraordinary resemblance to a similar figure found in Ireland, and depicted on Etruscan vases.--C. G. L.

36:2 Asiatic Researches, xvi. 316.

37:1 Prescott., i. 143.

37:2 A very doubtful assertion, as regards tobacco. Vide communications in "Notes and Queries for China."--C. G. L.

38:1 Do not these hammer-shaped Mexican coins bear a resemblance to the well-known shoe-shaped ingots of Sycee silver current in China? As regards the copper, recent discoveries indicate that it. was brought by the Mexicans from the shores of Lake Superior. The highest northern traces of Mexican art and influence are, I believe, to be found in Tennessee.--C. G. L.

39:1 Prescott, i. 18.

39:2 Mithridates, iii. 33.

39:3 Bernal Dias; Historia de le Conquista, pp. 152, 153. Prescott, iii. 87, 97.

40:1 Gaubil: Observations Mathématiques, Paris, 1732, ii. 135.

40:2 The second couple being termed red agrees with that of the Fusang cyclus.--C. G. L.

40:3 Humboldt: Neuhispanien, ii. 133.

41:1 It is usual for all ignorant or unscientific people to give to animals for which they have no name that of some other creature with which they are familiar. Thus the gipsies speak of a fox as a weshni juckal, or wood-dog; of an elephant as a boro nakkescro gry, or great-nosed horse; of a monkey as a bombaros, and a lion as a boro bombaros, or big monkey, from their connection in menageries. Professor Neumann was probably ignorant of the fact, to which I allude more fully in another place, that the fossil remains of many horses found in America are of so recent a period, according to Professor Leidy, that they were probably coeval with man.--C. G. L.

CHAPTER IX.
TRAVELS OF OTHER BUDDHIST PRIESTS (FROM THE FOURTH TO THE EIGHTH CENTURY).
PERHAPS the strongest link in the chain of circumstantial evidence which can be adduced to prove that Hoei-shin and others penetrated to California and Mexico, is one which has been almost neglected by Professor Neumann, so lightly does he touch upon it. I refer to the zeal with which Buddhist monks wandered for centuries forth from China, through regions so remote, and among perils of so trying a nature, that the journey of Hoei-shin and of his predecessors seems, when we study the route, and allow that they probably travelled in summer, comparatively a pleasure-trip. The result of these missionary enterprises was fortunately a large collection of published "Voyages and Travels," several of which are still extant. Of late years the interesting nature of these works has caused the translation of several of the more important into European languages; and of these I propose to make some slight mention, supposing that a little account of such writings would be acceptable, as bearing on the character of the first discoverers

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of America. For, little as we have of the record of Hoei-shin, its general resemblance to that of the other Buddhist missionary travellers is so striking, that no one can fail to detect a marked family likeness.

Chief in the work of translation from these journals is the celebrated Chinese scholar Stanislas Julien, whose versions of Buddhist travels into French fill over 1500 octavo pages. From these works it is evident that it was a special matter of pride among those missionaries to excel their predecessors in the extent of their journeys, and in the zeal or success with which they distributed the doctrines and sacred images of Buddha. References to these sacred images abound in Buddhistic works, indicating that immense numbers must have been carried to all places where the missionaries penetrated. One of these works of pious adventure is the very interesting "History of the Life of Hiouen-thsang, and of his Travels in India, from the year 629 to 645. Followed by documents and geographical explanations, drawn from the original narrative. Translated by Stanislas Julien, Member of the Institute of France, &c. Paris, 1853."

"From the fourth century of the Christian era to the tenth," says Julien, "the Chinese pilgrims who went into the countries west of China, and particularly into India, to study the doctrine of Buddha, and bring back the books containing it, have published a great number of narratives, itineraries and descriptions, more or less

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extended, of the countries which they visited. . . . Unfortunately the greater part have perished, unless they remain buried in some obscure convent in China." Thus we cannot sufficiently regret the loss of "The Description of Western Countries," by Chi-tao’-an, 1 a Chinese Shaman, who became a monk in 316, and consequently preceded Fa-hien, who did not go forth until the year 339 of our era. But the loss most to be regretted is, unquestionably, "The Description of Western Countries, in Sixty Volumes, with Forty Books of Pictures and Maps," which, edited in accordance with an Imperial decree, by many official writers, after the memoirs of the most distinguished religious and secular authors, appeared in the year 666, with an introduction written by the Emperor Kao-thsang, the cost being defrayed by Government. This work was entitled, in the original Chinese, Si-yu-tchi-lou-chi-kouen, Hoa-thou-sse-chi-kiouen ("A Description of the Western Countries, in Sixty Books, with Forty Books of Illustrations and Maps," as above). M. Stanislas Julien was apparently not, aware that a copy of this work was kept in the Royal Palace at Pekin, as any book written, though only in part, by an Emperor, would naturally be, in accordance with Chinese custom. It was, however, unfortunately burned in the "looting" of the Summer Palace, in which perished such masses of valuable


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historical and literary material, never to be recovered. This work has been called a description of the Chinese Empire, but from the exact account of it which has been published, it was evidently the one spoken of by Julien. In fact, a carefully-detailed description of the Chinese Empire in the seventh century, fully illustrated, must have been in great part quite the same as "A Journey to the West," and it is not likely that two works of such magnitude, and on almost the same subject, were published contemporaneously at such enormous expense as they must have involved. "It would be worth while," Julien continues, "for the Catholic missionaries who live near Nankin to seek for this work in the valuable library of that city, where my friend, the late Mr Robert Thom, former British Consul, discovered, and persuaded me to copy, ten years ago, 232 volumes in quarto, of texts and commentaries, which for centuries were to be found no longer in any other Chinese library. At present there are only six works of this kind--i.e., Buddhist travels--in the original text, and duplicates of these are to be found in France and Russia. Their names and dates are as follows:

I. Memoir of the Kingdoms of Buddha. Edited by Fa-hien, a Chinese monk, who left the Kingdom of the West in the year 399 of our era, and visited thirty kingdoms.

II. Memoir of Hoei-seng and of Song-yun, envoys to

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[paragraph continues] India in 518, by order of the Empress, to seek for sacred books and relics.

III. Memoirs of Western Countries. Edited in the year 648 by Hiouen-thsang. This work was written originally "in the language of India. It embraces a description of one hundred and thirty-eight kingdoms; although, according to a Chinese authority, Hiouen-thsang had only been in one hundred and ten." The extraordinary number of countries visited by this missionary, and his manifest desire to make his travels appear as extended as possible, give a strong colour of probability to the assertion that these monks went wherever they could, and explored the remotest regions, deterred by no dangers. Since they brought the religion of Buddha to distant places in Siberia, as the curious black Buddhistic books from that country now in St Petersburg prove, and to Kamtschatka and the Aleutian Islands, nothing is more probable than that such zealous propagandists should have gone a step beyond, and have arrived in a part of the North American Continent where reports of Aztec or other civilisation must have lured them still farther on.

IV. History of the Master of the Law of the Three Collections of the Convent of Grand Benevolence. This work, the first editing of which was by Hoei-li, continued and edited by Yen-thsang, both contemporaries of Hiouen-thsang, contains the history of his remarkable journey, accompanied by very interesting biographical details wanting in the original narrative.

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V. The History and the Journeys of Fifty-six Monks of the Dynasty of Thang, who went to the West of China to seek the Law.

VI. The Itinerary of the Travels of Khi-nie.



It is worth noting that the authenticity of the great work of Hiouen-thsang, which has been impugned by one or two European writers, has been triumphantly vindicated by M. Julien. And there can be no doubt, that in every instance these journeys were carried out to the end proposed, and that the books are bona fide narratives. They are as authentic as the accounts of modern Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, or other missionaries. It is true that, like Hoei-shin or Herodotus, these monks often narrate extravagant miracles and marvels as they heard them; and it maybe that they lend too ready a faith to them--as did Sir John Mandeville, and most early travellers. But where they said they had been, they had gone. This is apparent enough. And there is no reason for rejecting the story of Hoei-shin, any more than that of his contemporaries, because he narrates hearsay wonders.

Another very interesting work of this school, which will be found more readily accessible to my readers than the somewhat rare and costly translations of M. Julien, is "The Travels of Fah-hian, from 400 to 415 A.D.," and "The Mission of Sung-yun." Both of these were Buddhist pilgrims from China to India, and their two books, rendered into English by Samuel Beal,

p. 92

have been published in one volume by N. Trübner, 57 Ludgate Hill, London. Of the character of these works, something may be inferred from the motto taken from the life of Gaudama, by the Right Rev. P. Bigandet, Vicar-Apostolic of Ava and Pegu, who declares, "It is not a little surprising that we should have to acknowledge the fact that the voyages of two Chinese travellers, undertaken in the fifth and seventh centuries of our era, have done more to elucidate the history and geography of Buddhism in India than all that has hitherto been found in the Sanscrit and Pali books of India and the neighbouring countries." This is very strong testimony as to the general accuracy of observation and truthfulness of the Chinese Buddhist travelling monks, two of whom were probably contemporary with Hoei-shin, and these he may have seen at the court of the Empress Dowager Tai-Hau of the Great Wei dynasty, who favoured such missionaries, sending them afar to advance the faith. It is far from unlikely that men so celebrated for the extent of their travels, and occupied with precisely the same pursuits, should have met and exchanged their experiences. For Hoei-seng and Song-yun, who travelled only nineteen years after Hoei-shin, were, we know, celebrated in their time, their journal having been published by command of an Empress. Therefore it is improbable that Hoei-shin was less celebrated in his time at a court and in a country where travellers and books of travel were, as we have seen,

p. 93

duly appreciated, since an Emperor deigned to write the introduction with his own Imperial hand to the book of one Buddhist missionary monk, and then bad it published in the most magnificent manner at his own expense. We may well call a work magnificent, the fame of which has endured for fourteen hundred years, and must the more deeply regret its wanton destruction by ignorant and reckless soldiers.

The credibility or importance of one of this class of books is naturally enough upheld by that of the rest, and the narrative of Hoei-shin, viewed in this light, acquires additional probability. It is to be regretted that .Professor' Neumann should have omitted as unimportant, or as detrimental to the authenticity of his text, that "fabulous matter" which, he assumes, is not worth translating. Absurd fables occur abundantly in the travels of Hoei-shin's contemporaries, as in those of Herodotus; but being merely given as reports, their very existence may serve to establish an identity of style with that of writers whom no one at the present day regards as untruthful. The study of these Buddhist travels will convince the reader that their authors were singularly alike in their caste of mind and manner of observation, but unquestionably honest. They are as simple as Saxon monks, whom they greatly resemble: all their thoughts and phrases are distinct units.

It may be observed that Colonel Kennon's last remark in his letter is in reference to the "resemblance of immense numbers of North American Indians to the

p. 94

so-called Mongolian tribes." This resemblance has often been remarked by Americans. I was recently indebted to the kindness of the Hon. Charles D. Poston, late Commissioner of the United States of America in Asia, for a work written by him entitled, "The Parsees," which includes observations in India, Japan, and China. In this book, the only comparison made as to similarity of races is the following, in an incident which took place "beyond the Great Wall:"--

"A Mongolian came riding up on a little black pony, followed by a servant on a camel, rocking like a windmill. He stopped a moment to exchange pantomimic salutations. He was full of electricity, and alive with motion; the blood was warm in his veins, and the fire was bright in his eye. I could have sworn that he was an Apache; every action, motion, and look reminded me of my old enemies and neighbours in Arizona. They are the true descendants of the nomadic Tartars of Asia, and preserve every instinct of the race. He shook hands friendlily but timidly, keeping all the time in motion like an Apache."

I have italicised these last words, since they indicate great familiarity with the Apaches, as well as the shrewd observation which is characteristic of the writer. All Indians do not closely approach this type, nor do all Tartars. But it is not to be doubted that among the "Horse-Indians" great numbers have a peculiarly Mongolian expression, often approaching to identity, as if there were a common blood, which, when developed

p. 95

in nomadic life on Asiatic steppes and Western American prairies, had produced cognate results. This resemblance is so strong, that most readers will be tempted to inquire if there are any signs of philological affinity connecting these races. What I have been able to ascertain, which is also due to the researches of one whom I have known personally for many years, will he found in the following chapter.

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES,
WITH THEIR
RELATIONS TO THE OLD WORLD.
THE DAKOTA LANGUAGE AND THE URAL-ALTAIC TONGUES-THE MOUND-BUILDERS--IMAGES OF BUDDHA.
p. 99

CHAPTER X.
AFFINITIES OF AMERICAN AND ASIATIC LANGUAGES.
A VAST amount of research and ingenuity has been employed in establishing resemblances between the archaeological remains of Mexico and those of Central America and Peru, and the temptation to transfer many of the assumed proofs or arguments to these pages is naturally very great. I have, however, resisted it, partly because this material is accessible to all who are interested in the subject of the possible origin of the American races, and partly because so much of it is unscientific and fanciful, that a degree of discredit rests upon it. Many remarkable facts exist; but in truth, they exist thus far, like the record of Hoei-shin, rather as an incentive to further research than as clearly-defined historical monuments. A remark recently made by Mr Hyde Clarke, when officiating as chairman at a meeting of the Society of Arts, 1 has, however, suggested to me some investigations by a learned German, well known to me personally, which I shall not scruple to reproduce, as they are


p. 100

appropriate to the subject of an affinity between Old America and Asia. Ou this occasion Mr Clarke said that the "subject was so vast, it was impossible to deal thoroughly with it; but he might mention, that only recently some of the monuments in the Indo-Chinese Peninsula--in Cambodia and Pegu--had been found by himself to greatly resemble in form those of Mexico and South America; and, at the same time, strong affinities were discovered between the languages. He had just discovered, also, that there was affinity between the Akkad form of the earliest cuneiform inscriptions (which remained even now almost without interpretation) and the Aymara, in Peru, thus--establishing one historic chain from 'Babylon to the New World.' 1 New facts were constantly coming forward, and they all tended to illustrate the same interesting and important doctrine--the unity which there had always been in the human race, and the way in which progress had been carried onwards from one generation to another, for the building up of a system of civilisation which, when properly applied, would contribute to the benefit of all."

It was the reference by Mr Clarke to the resemblance between American and Asiatic languages which reminded me of some comments by the distinguished linguist F. L. O. Roehrig, who, as the discoverer of a group of


p. 101

new tongues in Central Asia, and as the author of an "Essay on Languages," to which was awarded the prize of the French Institute, is entitled to respect, the more so as his views are quite free from anything visionary or fanciful. In a monograph "On the Language of the Dakota or Sioux Indians," published in 1872 at Washington, "from the Report of the Smithsonian Institution," he speaks as follows:--

"So far as we know, the Dakota language, with several cognate tongues, constitutes a separate class or family among American-Indian languages. But the question at present is, Whence does the Dakota, with its related American tongues, came? From what trunk or parent stock is it derived? Ethnologists are wont to point us to Asia as the most probable source of the prehistorical immigration from the Old World. 'Hence,' they say, 'many, if not all, of our Indians must have come from Eastern or Middle Asia; and in considering their respective tongues, one must still find somewhere in that region some cognate, though perhaps very remotely-related, set of languages, however much the affinity existing between the Indian tongues and these may have gradually become obscured, and in how many instances soever, through a succession of ages, the old family features may have been impaired. But they further allow, of course, that these changes may have taken place to such an extent that this affinity cannot be easily recognised, and may be much, even altogether, obliterated.

"When we consider the languages of the great Asiatic Continent, of its upper and eastern portions more particularly, with a view of discovering any remaining trace, however faint, of analogy with, or similarity to, the Dakota tongue, what do we find? Very little; and the only group of Asiatic languages in which we could possibly fancy we perceived any kind of dim and vague resemblance, an occasional analogy, or other perhaps

p. 102

merely casual coincidence with the Sioux or Dakota tongue, would probably be the so-called 'Ural-Altaic' family. This group embraces a very wide range, and is found scattered in manifold ramifications through parts of Eastern, Northern, and Middle Asia, extending in some of its more remote branches even to the heart of Europe, where the Hungarian and the numerous tongues of the far-spread Finnish tribes offer still the same characteristics, and an unmistakable impress of the old Ural-Altaic relationship.

"In the following pages we shall present some isolated glimpses of such resemblances, analogies, &c., with the Sioux language as strike us, though we need not repeat that no conclusions whatever can be drawn from them regarding any affinity, ever so remote, between the Ural-Altaic languages and the Dakota tongue. This much, however, may perhaps be admitted from what we have to say, that at least an Asiatic origin of the Sioux or Dakota nation and their language may not be altogether an impossibility.

"In the first place, we find that as in those Ural-Altaic languages, so in a like manner in the Sioux or Dakota tongue, there exists that remarkable syntactical structure of sentences which we might call a constant inversion of the mode and order in which we are accustomed to think. Thus, more or less, the people who speak those languages would begin sentences or periods where we end ours, so that our thoughts would really appear in their minds as inverted.

"Those Asiatic languages have, moreover, no prepositions, but only postpositions. So, likewise, has the Dakota tongue.

"The polysynthetic arrangement which prevails throughout the majority of the American-Indian languages is less prominent, and decidedly less intricate, in the Dakota tongue than in those of the other tribes of this continent. But it may be safely asserted that the above-mentioned languages of Asia also contain, at least, a similar polysynthetic tendency, though merely in an incipient state, a rudimental or partially-developed form.

p. 103

[paragraph continues] Thus, for instance, all the various modifications which the fundamental meaning of a verb has to undergo, such as passive condition, causation, reflexive action, mutuality, and the like, are embodied in the verb itself by means of interposition, or a sort of intercalation of certain characteristic syllables between the root and the grammatical endings of such a verb, whereby a long-continued and united series, or catenation, is often obtained, forming, apparently, one huge word. However, to elucidate this further here would evidently lead us too far away from our present subject and purpose. We only add that postpositions, pronouns, as well as the interrogative particle, &c., are also commonly blended into one with the nouns, by being inserted one after the other, where several such expressions occur in the manner alluded to, the whole being closed by the grammatical terminations, so as often to form words of considerable length. 1 May we not feel authorised to infer from this some sort of approach, in however feeble a degree, of those Asiatic languages--through this principle of catenation--to the general polysynthetic system of the American tongues?

"We now proceed to a singular phenomenon, which we should like to describe technically, as a sort of reduplicatio intensitiva. It exists in the Mongolian and Turco-Tartar branches of the Ural-Altaic group, and some vestiges of it we found, to our great surprise, also in the language of our Sioux Indians. 2

"This reduplication is, in the above-mentioned Asiatic languages, applied particularly to adjectives denoting colour and external qualities, and it is just the same in the Dakota language. It consists in prefixing to any given word its first syllable in the shape of a reduplication, this syllable thus occurring twice--often adding to it (as the case may be) a p, &c.

"The object--at least in the Asiatic languages alluded to



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is to express thereby in many cases a higher degree or increase of the quality. An example or two will make it clear. Thus we have, for instance, in Mongolian, khara, which means black; and KHAp-khara, with the meaning of very black, entirely black; tsagan, white, TSAp-tsagan, entirely white, &c.; and in the Turkish and the so-called Tartar (Tatar) dialects of Asiatic Russia, kara, black, and KAp-kara, very black; sary, yellow, and SAp-sary, entirely yellow, &c.

"Now in Dakota we find sapa, black, and with the reduplication SAp-sapa. The reduplication here is, indeed, a reduplication of the syllable sa, and not of sap, the word being sa-pa, and not sap-a. The p in SAp-sapa is inserted after the reduplication of the first syllable, just as we have seen in the above, kara and KAp-kara, &c.

"In the Ural-Altaic languages m also is sometimes inserted after the first syllable; for instance, in the Turkish beyaz, white, and BEm-beyaz, very white, &.c. If we find, however, similar instances in the Dakota language, such as ćepa, which means fleshy (one of the external qualities to which this rule applies), and ćEM ćepa, &c., we must consider that the letter m is in such cases merely a contraction, and replaces, moreover, another labial letter (p) followed by a vowel, particularly a. Thus, for instance, ćom is a contraction for ćopa, ġam for ġapa, ḣam for ḣapa, skem for skepa, om for opa, tom for topa, &c. So is ćem, in our example, only an abridged form of cepa; hence m stands here for p or pa, and belongs essentially to the word itself, while in those Asiatic languages the m is added to the reduplication of the first syllable, like the KAp in p-kara, &c. We have therefore to be very careful in our conclusions.

"The simple doubling of the first syllable is also of frequent occurrence in Dakota; for instance, ġi, brown, and giġi (same meaning); sni, cold, and snisni; ko, quick, and koko, &c.

"There are also some very interesting examples to be found in the Dakota language which strikingly remind us of a remarkable peculiarity frequently met with in the Asiatic languages

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above adverted to. It consists in the antagonism in form, as well as in meaning, of certain words, according to the nature of their vowels so that when such words contain what we may call the strong, full, or hard vowels--viz., a, o, or u (in the Continental pronunciation)--they generally denote strength, the male sex, affirmation, distance, &c.; while the same words with the weak or soft vowels, e, i, the consonantal skeleton, frame, or groundwork of the word remaining the same--express weakness, the female sex, negation, proximity, and a whole series of corresponding ideas.

"A few examples will demonstrate this. Thus, for instance, the idea of father is expressed in Mantchoo (one of the Ural-Altaic languages) by ama, while mother is eme. This gives, no doubt, but a very incomplete idea of that peculiarity, but it will perhaps be sufficient to explain in a measure what we found analogous in the Dakota language. Instances of the kind are certainly of rare occurrence in the latter, and we will content ourselves with giving here only a very few examples, in which the above difference of signification is seen to exist, though the significance of the respective vowels seems to be just the reverse, which would in nowise invalidate the truth of the preceding statement, since the same inconsistent alteration or anomaly frequently takes place also in the family of Ural-Altaic languages.

"Thus we find in the Dakota or Sioux language, hEpaŋ, second son of a family, and hApaŋ, second daughter of a family; ćIŋ, elder brother; ćuŋ, elder sister; ciŋksi, son; ćuŋksi, daughter, &c. Also, the demonstratives KOŋ, that, and KIŋ, this, the (the definite articles), seem to come, in some respects, under this head.

"To investigate the grammatical structure of languages from a comparative point of view, is, however, but one part of the work of the philologist; the other equally essential part consists in the study of the words themselves, the very material of which languages are made. We do not as yet intend to touch on the question of Dakota wards and their possible affinities, but reserve all that pertains to comparative etymology for some other time

p. 106

[paragraph continues] The identity of words in different languages, or simply their affinity, may be either immediately recognised, or rendered evident by a regular process of philological reasoning, especially when such words appear, as it were, disguised, in consequence of certain alterations, due to time and to various vicissitudes, whereby either the original vowels or the consonants, or both, have become changed. Then, also, it frequently happens that one and the same word, when compared in cognate languages, may appear as different parts of speech, so that in one of them it may exist as a noun, and in another only as a verb, &c. Moreover, the same word may have become gradually modified in its original meaning, so that it denotes, for instance, in one of the cognate languages, the genus, and in another, merely the species of the same thing or idea. Or it may also happen that when several synonymous expressions originally existed in what we may call a mother language, they have become so scattered in their descent, that only one of these words is found in a certain one of the derived languages, while others again belong to other cognate tongues, or even their dialects, exclusively.

"The foregoing is sufficient to account for the frequent failures in establishing the relationship of certain languages in regard to the affinity of all their words. On this occasion it will be enough to mention in passing, as it were, one or two of the most frequently-used words, such as the names of father and mother. In regard to these familiar expressions, we again find a surprising coincidence between the tongues of Upper Asia--or, more extensively viewed, the Ural-Altaic or Tartar-Finnish stock of languages--and the Dakota.

"Father is in Dakota ate; in Turco-Tartar, ata; Mongolian and its branches, etsä, etsige; in the Finnish languages we meet with the forms attje, atä, &c.--they all having at = et as their radical syllable. 1 Now as to mother, it is in the Dakota


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language ina; and in the Asiatic tongues just mentioned it is ana, aniya, ine, eniye, &c.

"Again, we find in the Dakota or Sioux language taŋin, which means to appear, to be visible, manifest, distinct, clear. Now we have also in all the Tartar dialects taŋ, tang, which means first light; hence dawn of the morning. 1 From it is derived tani, which is the stem or radical part of verbs, meaning to render manifest, to make known, to know; it also appears in the old Tartar verb stems, tang-(la) meaning to understand; and in its mutilated modern (and Western) form, ang-(la), without the initial t, which has the same signification. We may mention still mama, which, in Dakota, denotes the female breast. We might compare it with the Tartar meme, which has the same meaning, if we had not also in almost all European languages the word mamma (mama) with the very same fundamental signification, the children of very many different nations calling their mothers instinctively, as it were, by that name, mamma, mama. 2

"We may also assert that even in the foundation of words we find now and then some slight analogy between certain characteristic findings in the languages of Upper Asia and the Dakota tongue. Thus, for instance, the termination for the nomen agens, which in the Dakota language is sa, is in Tartar tsi, si, and dchi; Mongolian, tchi, &c. We also find in Dakota the postposition ta (a constituent part of ekta, in, at), which is a locative particle, and corresponds in form to the postpositions ta and da, and their several varieties and modifications in the greater part of the Ural-Altaic family of languages.



p. 108

The same remark applies in a measure to the Dakota postposition e, which means to, toward, &c. By means of such post-positions the declension of nouns is effected in the Ural-Altaic languages. The Dakota cases of declension, if we can use this term, amount likewise to a very rude sort of a agglutination, or rather simple adding of the postpositions to the nouns. 1 There can be here no question of a real inflection or declension, since there is throughout only a kind of loose adhesion, and nowhere what we might call a true cohesion. The postpositions are in the written language added to the nouns, without being conjoined to them in writing (except the plural ending pi), as is also the case in the Mongolian language, the Turco-Tartar dialects, and other tongues of this class.

"In pointing out these various resemblances of the Sioux language to Asiatic tongues we in nowise mean to say that we are inclined to believe in any affinity or remote relationship among them. At this early stage of our researches it would be wholly preposterous to make any assertions as to the question of affinity, &c. All that we intended to do was simply to bring forward a few facts, from which, if they should be further corroborated by a more frequent. recurrence of the phenomena here touched upon, the reader might perhaps draw his own conclusions, at least so far as a very remote Asiatic origin of the Dakota language is concerned. Further investigations in the same direction might possibly lead to more satisfactory results."



I am confident, that few readers will object to the length of this citation, or to its character, since it certainly illustrates forcibly, in several respects, the present condition of all our conjectures, or knowledge, if I may so call it, of the early relations between America and Asia. There is enough in it, as in the narrative of


p. 109

[paragraph continues] Hoei-shin, to amply warrant research, and to encourage labour in the direction pointed out; but it would be in the highest degree rash and arrogant to assume, on no better grounds than the two present, that America was settled by the Mongolian race. Indeed, I cannot too warmly commend Mr Roehrig's extreme caution in advancing his observations. Nevertheless, I think that they indicate a most decided possibility of an Eastern origin; and with regard to Hoei-shin, I believe there is good ground for probability. And in all such cases, one discovery strengthens the other.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnotes
99:1 April 15, 1874. Vide Journal of the Society of Arts, April 17, 1874. It was in commenting on a lecture on the "Symbolism of Oriental Ornament," delivered by William Simson, F.R.G.S., that the remark in question was made.

100:1 As I have not examined this subject, I know nothing of these affinities. I quote Mr Clarke's remarks on account of their general bearing on American languages, and as an introduction to another writer. The existence of ancient inscriptions in Peru Ps I believe, as yet doubtful.

103:1 Such intercalations are, in a measure, almost analogous to the usual insertion of the many incidental clauses in lung Latin or German sentences, if we are allowed that comparison.

103:2 This reduplicatio intensitiva is not uncommon in Hindustani.--C. G. L.

106:1 This also exists in Old German; ätti or etti being still used in Suabia for father.--C. G. L.

107:1 Din (day) Hindu; Saxon, dagian; English, dawn.--C. G. L.

107:2 e.g., Mamma, a breast or pap, Latin, having also the weaning of "a child's word for mother." Ma, or mamma, occurs in seven African languages; ma or amma in nine non-Aryan languages of Europe and Asia; ama once in North Australia; hammah in Lewis Murray Island; mamma once in Australia; and anama among the Hudson's Bay Esquimaux. Vide Sir J. Lubbock's "Origin of Civilisation."--C. G. L.

108:1 Declension by means of postpositions also occurs in the Gipsy or Rommany language.--C. G. L.

CHAPTER IX
A Matter of Words
RECENTLY, while reading a book of legends concerning ancient Mexico, I came across one originating in Wicam Switch, Sonora. I had never heard of Wicam Switch. Sounding the name of the town, phonetically, in Spanish, it came out "Whee sham." "Whee sham"—Hwui Sham. It seemed incredible—yet there it was.

If Hwui Shan came into Mexico from California or Arizona, he would have travelled through Sonora. A name like that in that specific territory, may probably have been the merest coincidence, yet, there was no alternative but to examine it more thoroughly. If there were any others of a similar sound in that general territory, then this one was not coincidence—if there were none, then it was purely accidental. If Hwui Shan passed that way, and the people wished to perpetuate his memory, this would have been an appropriate way in which to have done it and it would, in all probability, have been done more than once.

On the chance that there were similarly related names close by, I checked the map to see and I found so many that the matter could no longer be in doubt. For a time, it seemed like the power of suggestion must have gotten the better of my reason. It looked like one was hiding back of every tree. Names that had no significance to one group were found neatly lodged in another and unrelated group—and with no apparent reason, meaning or significance there. Why would the Maya of Yucatan use a word with a root identical to the Huichol of the Mexican west coast—a people they never heard of? Their basic languages were different. They had no connection.

I decided to trace what I could and chose three words arbitrarily—"Hwui Shan," the name of the stranger within their gates; "Pi-k’iu," for he was a mendicant Buddhist priest; and "Saka-muni" whose religion he was teaching.

Using the same sound to the ear, and taking a choice of a dozen or more spellings, here is a small sample of what I found:

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TOWN
PHONETICALLY

Wicam
Whee sham

Huetamo
Whee tam/o

Huichol
Whee chol

Huizontla
Whee tzon/tla

Huepac
Whee pac

Quijano
Key han/o

Quiabicuzas
Key(a) beeku(peekshu)

Huitzo
Whee tzo(n)

Tlahui
Tla/ whee

Huila
Whee la

Huitepec
Whee /tepec

Huimanguillo
Whee man/guillo

Ahuitzola
(A)Whee tzo(n)/la

Huaynamota
Whay nam/ota

Picacho
Peek a/sho

Pichucalco
Pee tshu/calco

Picaho
Pee ca/ho

Picchu
Pee tshu

Zacatecas
Saka/tecas

Sacaton
Saka/ton

Zacatlan
Saka/tlan

Zacatepec
Saka/tepee

Sacabchen
Saka/(b)chen

Zacapa
Saka/pa


These towns are strung out from central Arizona to Yucatan. The cultures that they represent have no linguistic affinity for each other. In none of the cultures is there a meaning for any one of the three base words.

Sacaton, as pointed out earlier, was the situs of the effigy of Ha-ak and the giant horse. A shrine had been erected there to her memory. If Hwui Shan had visited that shrine, what more appropriate name could he have given it than the "place of Saka?" The location was a sacred place to the Indian—sacred spots are sacred to the Saka-muni, the holy man of Saka. Would that not be a logical name for another sacred spot?

Cuilapan, State of Oaxaca, famous for its cochineal and nopal cactus, was another name that appeared to be related phonetically to Hwui. "Cui" and "Hwui" sound very little different

p. 81

and "la" and "sha" are not too far distant. Taking into account the 1000 year lapse when the sound was transmitted orally, we can recognize that "Cui-la" probably started out as "Whee-sha"—the "pan" is a contraction of ichpan, meaning "within the enclosure." Hwui Shan would have been in that area.

"Hue nem" and "Hwui Shan" are too close to be overlooked. Point Hueneme, California, is the spot where I indicated earlier that I believed that Hwui Shan landed. The reason for so believing, is due to the highly significant name, coupled with the fact that names were given in association with some important occurrence. Point Hueneme is well within the general area where Hwui Shan would in all probability have landed and, therefore, I believe that this marks the actual spot.

Naming cities or villages after a person, or a home town, is an old and honored custom. We have Washington, D.C.; Washington State; Washington, Pennsylvania; Washington, Illinois; Washington, Iowa, plus one for most other states (places George never saw)—New York; Boston; Chester; Pittsburgh; Jamestown and hundreds of others. That the custom was in vogue in 500 A.D., in Yucatan, has foundation in the following account quoted from Bishop Landa:

"This Kukulcan established another city after arranging with the native lords of the country that he and they should live there and that all their affairs and business should be brought there; and for this purpose they chose a very good situation, eight leagues further in the interior than Merida is now, and fifteen or sixteen leagues from the sea. They surrounded it with a very broad stone wall, laid dry, of about an eighth of a league, leaving in it only two narrow gates. The wall was not very high and in the midst of this enclosure they built their temples, and the largest, which is like that of Chichen Itza, they called Kukulcan, and they built another building of a round form, with four doors, entirely different from all the others in that land, as well as a great number of others round about joined together. In this enclosure they built houses for the lords only, dividing all the land among them, giving towns to each one, according

p. 82

to the antiquity of his lineage and his personal value. And Kukulcan gave a name to this city—not his own as the Ah Itzas had done at Chichen Itza, which means the well of the Ah Itzas, but he called it Mayapan, which means the 'standard of the Maya,' because they called the language of the country Maya, and the Indians (say) 'Ichpa' which means 'within the enclosure.' This Kukulcan lived with the lords of that city for several years; and leaving them in great peace and friendship, he returned by the same way to Mexico, and on the way he stopped at Champoton, and, in memory of him and of his departure, he erected a fine building in the sea like that at Chichen Itza, a long stone's throw from the shore. And then Kukulcan left a perpetual remembrance in Yucatan."

The Ah Itzas named Chichen Itza after themselves—but Kukulcan did not, he called his city "Mayapan." Yet he left a building near Champoton in memory of himself. The custom was recognized. The Ah Itzas did it. Important personages perpetuated their own names in that day as well as this. Since "Kukulcan" did not wish to have the city named for himself, as the Ah Itzas did, either because he thought that there were already too many so named, or he wished to honor the name of some other, he named the city "Mayapan." He chose the name "Maya." Was there some good reason? Maya, it will be remembered, was the name of the mother of the Buddha. It would be a logical choice, would it not, for any Buddhist priest wishing to perpetuate the name of the mother of his saint, to name a city for her? "Mayapan" the city was named—within the enclosure of Maya.

If that one seems fantastic, its close neighbor is even more so. Back of the next tree, the most amazing one of all, to me at least, is Guatemala—the place of Gautama!

Both words—"Maya" and "Guatemala"—have bothered students of language for years. No root or meaning has so far been found for either of them. Perhaps this is the answer.

Recalling the story in the Mani Chronicle, of the "Tutul Xiu," who came to Yucatan from Mexico in company with Holon Chan Tepeuh, we noted the comparison of the noble-

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man called, in Chinese, "Tui-lu," with the "Tutul Xiu" of the Maya. It was pointed out that the Maya stated that the Mexican "Tutul Xiu" arrived in Yucatan accompanied by a stranger named "Holon Chan Tepeuh" and his subjects or followers. If the "Tutul Xiu" of the Maya were one and the same as the "Tui-lu" of the Chinese, then was not the Maya, in his hieroglyphics, trying to identify for us "Holon Chan Tepeuh" as "Hwui Shan, Pi-k’iu"? It can be no other than the Chinese name with a transmigration through Mayan hieroglyphics that has emerged. Holon Chan Tepeuh was of sufficient importance to have had his name remembered although the Tutul Xiu was not. Holon Chan was then more important than the lord with whom he came. He must, likewise, have made converts, since he was said to have been accompanied by his "subjects or followers." The Tutul Xiu was a dignitary—he was acting as a guide for a more important person, a stranger.

Insofar as the Mani Chronicle itself is concerned—was the name "Mani" originally "Muni"? What about "Champoton" the city by the sea that Kukulcan built as a final tribute? Was it a carry-over from the name of the great Buddhist stronghold in Cambodia, Champa? According to Fa-hien, the Buddha walked in Champa during one of his periods of meditation.

One final word needed looking into. The dance of the "Chinelos" was stated to have been called "Zinelohque" in Nahuatl, according to Dr. Redfield. The word, Zinelohque, itself suggested the present-day sound of Sinaloa, the area in which the dance was supposed to have originated.

If the ancient Nahuatl used a word "Zinelohque," and gave it a meaning of "Chinese" or "foreign," would it not be fair to assume that, if the Chinese were in that section, that they themselves named the area "Sin-lo"? "Sin-lo" was the ancient Chinese name for Korea. (Fa-hien spelled it SINHALA). Korea may have been the last place the Chinese had sight of land when leaving their homes, or the coast of Mexico reminded them of the coast of Korea—whatever the reason—the Chinese no doubt did the naming. Further, was it the Nahuatl who shortened the word, as they had a habit of shortening words,

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and called the foreigners "Sino"? Then did the early Spaniards set the sound down as "Chino"? Perhaps a study could be made in the pueblecito of Chinoaqui, Sinaloa.

Sin-loa, Sinaloa and Zinelohque, are not words that would crash into a language unintroduced. They were brought there.

CHAPTER X
Hwui Shan, Traveller par Excellence
EXPLORER, teacher, missionary, recorder of events and traveller par excellence, Hwui Shan was, without question, one of the greatest that the world has ever known. A mendicant, begging alms as he went, he faithfully practiced and taught his religious beliefs to a strange and aboriginal people far removed from his homeland. He introduced there a new culture and raised it, single-handed, to such a high degree that the world today still stands in amazement of it—even the calendar that he taught was more perfect than is our own. Perhaps no other in the world's history has ever done so much for so many people in such varied fields of activity and yet remains unknown. His religious faith was indelibly stamped upon the Mexican people and the deeply spiritual kindly folk all over the country still reflect that teaching after 1500 years.

Converting an entire country as he did, should rank him with the world's great religious teachers. In addition to a better life, he brought advanced methods of agriculture; of weaving and ceramics; he taught astronomy and the calendar; he taught metallurgy and the art of fine feather-work. His dynamic personality was so strong that he was revered as a god, even in his own time—Quetzalcoatl, Kukulcan and Wixipecocha represented the highest ideals of mankind. Marco Polo pales beside him.

Geographic data that he recorded, although twice condensed and many times edited, were as accurate as any record brought back by any other ancient explorer. This has here been more than amply demonstrated. That he was well-beloved by all those with whom he had contact, is evident by the number of towns and villages from one end of Mexico to the other, named in his honor. It is my belief that his journey can be traced by those places. Whether the villages were named at the time he was there or as a remembrance after he had left, is a matter of conjecture.

Applying the three names, which we arbitrarily selected earlier, "Hwui Shan," "Pi-k’iu," or "Saka," we can map a definite

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course from Point Hueneme to Sacaton, Picacho and Hano in Arizona, and follow every mile of the way down those 2,500 miles.

Following a route that would take advantage of the natural contour of the land, using well-known mountain passes and accepted ancient travel paths, Hwui Shan travelled south and probably passed through or close by the present towns of Quijano, Huepac, Picacho, Sinaquipe, Wicam, Cuitaco, Sinaloa, Chinoaqui, Huichol, Huilacatlan, Zacatecas, Huitzontla and as far south as the "smoking mountain" in the State of Colima. Turning eastward from there, he passed through Huetamo to the country of the Toltecs, where we find Zacatlan, Huamantlan, Huitzuco, Zacapoaxtla, Huitzitzilapam, Tehuacan and Hueyonipan. Crossing the Bay of Campeche, to northwestern Yucatan and the Maya, he visited Muna, Mani, Sacabchen and Champoton—returning by way of Xicalonga and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, he stopped at Pichucalco, Quibesche, Picacho, Cuilapan, Huitzo, Tlahui, Quibicuzas and in Guatemala, Sacapulas, Zacualpa and on the west coast, Huixtla.

On a map, these villages form a thin line, with scarcely a deviation, from northwestern Mexico down the coast to Colima, east across the Valley of Mexico, across to Yucatan, returning west by way of southern Mexico, Chiapas, Tabasco and Oaxaca, a side excursion into Guatemala and ending on the Pacific coast. Considerable time apparently was spent in two areas, that from Tula to Tehuacan, and that in and around Chiapas and Oaxaca, for extensive wanderings in both areas are clear. Both areas show that unusual bursts of activity must have taken place in a short space of time—both areas, in the late fifth century, were literally bee-hives of productivity.

The incentive stimulating an aboriginal people and giving them the driving force to rise to such unprecedented heights, could only have been furnished by a truly magnetic personality—and Hwui Shan must have been such a one. It is true that he undoubtedly found a highly intelligent group with whom he could work in the first place—but there have been other highly intelligent groups in other places, throughout history, none of

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whom arrived at anything comparable to the brilliant culture produced in southern Mexico or Yucatan.

This tall, fair-skinned, bearded white man, in simple robes, walking about with his staff, this mendicant, loving people and life, teaching, preaching, converting, and moving on to extend the teaching and preaching, single-handed, changed the entire course of an empire.

People adored him and believed in him. That is evident from the fact that they followed him from Mexico to Yucatan—it is evident from the fact that the Emperor of China gave him audience, at a crucial time, and furnished a recorder, a Prince of the realm, to take down and preserve his words for posterity. Again, it is evident when, 1000 years later, the ruler of all Mexico, the famed Moctezuma II, had such abiding faith in his integrity, that his promise to return in the year of his name, CE ACATL, was believed without question. Moctezuma laid down his arms and welcomed the bearded white man back—the fulfillment of a promise and a dream. An empire was lost—history was changed.

One should not be led astray by assuming for one moment that because novelists have grabbed on to and glamourized the dramatic story of Hwui Shan, the "bearded white man," that it is fiction. Because a seed was planted into our early thinking by such whimsical novels as "The Fair God," does not mean that Hwui Shan, the bearded white man whom Lew Wallace wished to portray, was fictitious. He was not. We, the foreigners, are the ones who pinned the label of fiction on Quetzalcoatl, merely because we did not understand it. We tagged it as a carry-over from the ancients as was the archer story of the Chinese; tagged it as being nothing more than a fable, a "fairy-tale hero" held up to small children as an example of the morals all good little boys and girls should strive to emulate. That interpretation on our part has been gratuitous—and we have sold it back to a few Mexicans. A good Mexican Indian knows better.

That Hwui Shan, revered as Quetzalcoatl, still dominates Mexican thinking, perhaps unconsciously, is definitely shown in a dynamic book on present-day Mexican political philosophy.

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[paragraph continues] Virginia Prewett, in her "Reportage on Mexico," has fittingly told the story of Quetzalcoatl, using it as the background for understanding the gamut of social, economic, political and religious psychology. She mentioned that Quetzalcoatl, the bearded white man, called Kukulcan in Yucatan, is the only single one of the gods in the Mexican pantheon that the Mexicans remember—even to knowing precisely how he looked. She has identified him as having been a living priest who was later deified, from whom all emotional roots of the mestizo stem.

In his fascinating book, "Gods, Graves, & Scholars," C. W. Ceram related the story of Quetzalcoatl, the bearded white man, and it was his belief that history, which has frequently validated legend, will find a kernel of truth in this story and that it should not be dismissed as poetic invention no matter how fictitious it may appear. He holds to the theory that Quetzalcoatl was a missionary from a strange land, stating that some see in him the Apostle Thomas himself. Many persons have sought this legendary figure—but, up to now, in vain.

Hwui Shan, Buddhist Pi-k’iu, this dynamic personality, fabled as the "bearded white man," as "Quetzalcoatl, "Kukulcan" and "Wixipecocha," revered for centuries in Mexico, has waited long for history to recognize him. He deserves a highly honored and respected place beside the world's greatest religious teachers, beside the builders of empires and beside the great explorers. Hwui Shan's right to distinction rests on his very own record, Kuen 327, preserved for fifteen centuries in the Chinese Classics—and twice corroborated by the Mani Chronicle of the Books of Chilam Balam.



"Om mani padme hum."



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A Poem on the Stone Drums


Chang handed me this tracing, from the stone drums,
Beseeching me to write a poem on the stone drums.
Tu Fu has gone. LI Po is dead.
What can my poor talent do for the stone drums?
. . . When the Chou power waned and China was bubbling,
Emperor Hsuan, up in wrath, waved his only spear
And opened his Great Audience, receiving all the tributes
Of kings and lords who came to him with a tune of clanging weapons.
They held a hunt in Ch’i-yang and proved their marksmanship:
Fallen birds and animals were strewn three thousand miles.
And the exploit was recorded, to inform new generations . . .
Cut out of jutting cliffs, these drums made of stone
On which poets and artisans, all of the first order,
Had indited and chiselled—were set in the deep mountains
To be washed by rain, baked by sun, burned by wildfire,
Eyed by evil spirits, and protected by the gods.
. . . Where can he have found the tracing on this paper?—
True to the original, not altered by a hair,
The meaning deep, the phrases cryptic, difficult to read,
And the style of the characters neither square nor tadpole.
Time has not yet vanquished the beauty of these letters—
Looking like sharp daggers that pierce live crocodiles,
Like phoenix-mates dancing, like angels hovering down,
Like trees of jade and coral with interlocking branches,
Like golden cord and iron chain tied together tight,
Like incense-tripods flung in the sea, like dragons mounting heaven.
Historians, gathering ancient poems, forgot to gather these,
To make the two Books of Musical Song more colorful and striking;
Confucius journeyed in the west, but not to the Ch’in Kingdom,
He chose our planet and our stars but missed the sun and moon . . .
I who am fond of antiquity, was born too late
And, thinking of these wonderful things, cannot hold back my tears . . .
I remember, when I was awarded my highest degree,
During the first years of Yuan-ho, p. 90
How a friend of mine, then at the western camp,
Offered to assist me in removing these old relics.
I bathed and changed, then made my plea to the college president
And urged on him the rareness of these most precious things.
They could be wrapped in rugs, be packed and sent in boxes
And carried on only a few camels: ten stone drums
To grace the Imperial Temple like the Incense-Pot of Kao—
Or their lustre and their value would increase a hundredfold,
If the monarch would present them to the university,
Where students could study them and doubtless decipher them,
And multitudes, attracted to the capital of culture
From all corners of the Empire, would be quick to gather.
We could scour the moss, pick out the dirt, restore the original surface,
And lodge them in a fitting and secure place for ever,
Covered by a massive building with wide eaves
Where nothing more might happen to them as it had before. . . .
But government officials grow fixed in their ways
And never will initiate beyond old precedent;
So herd-boys strike the drums for fire, cows polish horns on them,
With no one to handle them reverently.
Still ageing and decaying, soon they may be effaced.
Six years I have sighed for them, chanting toward the west . . .
The familiar script of Wang Hsi-chih, beautiful though it was,
Could be had, several pages, just for a few white geese!
But now, eight dynasties after the Chou, and all the wars over,
Why should there be nobody caring for these drums?
The Empire is at peace, the government free.
Poets again are honored and Confucius and Mencians . . .
Oh, how may this petition be carried to the throne?
It needs an eloquent flow, like a cataract
But, alas, my voice has broken, in my song of the stone drums,
To a sound of supplication choked with its own tears.

Han Yu (768-823 A.D.)
Translated by Witter Bynner



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER XI
Early China
WE COME NOW to the second portion, the series of journeys referred to in Chapter I, dealing with early geographical records of the twenty-third century B.C.

The earliest explorations of the Chinese, in America, have not yet been determined. We found that, while Hwui Shan was in Mexico late in the fifth century, he had found a writing existing there before he arrived. The possibility then arose that some outsider had been in Mexico before Hwui Shan. He himself mentioned no other than the five Buddhist priests, but it appeared that either one person or a group of persons must have been in the area that he visited at a much earlier date, whether he knew of it or not. Three things would indicate it: first, writing, which is of paramount importance; second, weaving, that was mentioned in the Chinese Classics as being in existence; and, third, the fact that the giant images of Ha-ak and the horse compare with the astronomical configurations in Peru, that are believed to date back to the Nasca culture. All three are anterior to the date when Hwui Shan was here, since his account mentioned all three.

Of the three, writing is of the highest significance. Maya, and other early writings, are essentially pictographs—early Chinese writing was likewise picture writing. Dr. Brinton expressed an opinion that these early writings, many of them rebus-like, developed absolutely independent in America. He felt strongly that there was no connection with the Asiatic or any other, that nothing had been borrowed—and no connection or borrowing has yet been found.

The Chinese have 49,000 monosyllabic characters all of which evolved, in some manner, from the original pictures. If the Maya, like the Chinese, independently invented a written language, as Dr. Brinton believed, we must find the crude step by step process of evolution, as we do in the Chinese. It will be conceded that faltering beginnings may some day be found for the Maya but, as of now, we do not have them.

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Dr. Morley was of the opinion that the beginnings of Maya hieroglyphic writing were carved on wood and that, due to the moist climate, they have been destroyed—and with their destruction, all traces of the earliest stages of Maya writing, as well as chronology, have disappeared. He placed the first known examples that can be dated, to be about 320 A.D., but stated that, at that time, both writing and chronology were completely developed—no simple beginning steps that preceded the development have been found. On the contrary, writing was then, in 320 A.D., already complete with no preliminary stage having survived to show how it developed.

However, if the hieroglyphics were borrowed, and if the first concept as we have it, resembled the Chinese in any manner, then a presumption could arise that someplace a connection must have existed—either the Chinese were here or the Mexicans were in China. If there were a connection, then there could be only one course open and that would be to look—and there was only one place to look. The ancient Chinese Classics would, again, have to stand up and be counted. They must shed some light on the early wanderlust of the Chinese.

Were any records still extant that would tell us what China was like at the dawn of its brilliant civilization? Had sufficient archeological work been done that would supplement early recordings? If records did exist, were they available, and, if they were, did they reveal anything in the nature of geographical information? In other words, how much do we know or can we find out?

A farmer, living in Honan Province, was out plowing his field one day back in 1870. His plough turned up pieces of bone and shell which, on examination, were found to have peculiar markings on them. The farmer, and his neighbors, scraped off the funny looking scratches and sold the bones to gullible friends as dragon bones having miraculous healing powers. In 1898, one or two bones, on which some of the marks yet remained, fell, by chance, into the hands of a student of ancient writing who recognized the hieroglyphics and their value to Chinese history.

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The inscriptions were so ancient that it was nearly impossible to decipher them. Eventually, after thirty years of study, a large part of the characters were identified. "Then," reports Liang Chi-Chao in his report on the Archeology of China, "the result is that Chinese archeology is shaken to its foundation by this startling revelation. Many mistakes and conjectures of the etymology of certain words have now been rectified. Many great historical events which are recorded in old books and which have been unintelligible to us and regarded as fantastic and far-fetched, are now being corrected."

It will take generations to correct all of them. War has now intervened—archeological research is at a stand-still.

Ancient documents, pieced out by tradition, carry Chinese history back more than 5,000 years. China has a more authenticated, uninterrupted record from that date to this, than has any other people. It is not all perfect to be sure, and the beginning period is very meagre, yet, there is a clear descent of knowledge—and the basis for that knowledge stems from the early invention of writing.

For a long period of time, although the writing in the Classics was conceded to be very ancient, that which was written has been doubted—even today there are many who, while not believing a single word of it, positively and affirmatively deny that any of it contains a word of truth, that it is all whimsy.

Dr. H. G. Creel, author of "The Birth of China," relates a story of beliefs held by reputable scholars concerning early bronzes, on which writing exists, said by the Chinese to date from the Shang dynasty (1765-1123 B.C.) but insisted by outsiders as being impossible before the Chou dynasty (1123-249 B.C.) or before 500 B.C. Quoting from his book, he tells the following story:

"It is natural that the finest Chinese bronzes should have been thought to be comparatively late. Fine bronzes of certain types have long been attributed to the Shang dynasty by Chinese connoisseurs. Foreign scholars for the most part classed these statements with the tales of the unicorn, which appeared only in the reigns of wise emperors, and the archer who shot

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and killed nine of the ten suns which used to be in the sky. It is said that until a year or two ago, no European or American museum would allow any bronze in its collections to be labeled as earlier than the Chou dynasty, which followed the Shang. Nevertheless, the new materials have proved that the laugh is this time on the foreigner. For it is not only true that numerous bronzes were cast in the Shang dynasty; it is also true that those bronzes were, in general, of the type which the Chinese have been calling Shang all these years. This is not to say that the Chinese may not have made many mistakes in their attributions, but they have at least not been guilty of the sweeping error of the foreign specialists."

In all of these related matters, over the past 100 years, where the Chinese have made statements concerning their own past history, or their beliefs, it is to be noted that we, the foreigners, have presumed to sit in judgment and find the Chinese in error—only to discover later that they were not in error.

Although the first listed dynasty is recorded as that of Hsia, 2197-1766 B.C., eight or ten preceding emperors, back to Fu-hsi, 2852 B.C., are known. Dates vary and lists vary but the general over-all pattern is consistent—different sections of China used different systems of chronology. About 840 B.C., they appear to have been synchronized so that after that date, all agree—before it, dates may vary as much as 100 years.

Henri Maspero, in the Smithsonian Report for 1927-28, stated that: "An example of the confidence which may be accorded to the traditional lists, when the family from which they emanate is a long-established one, has recently been given by the inscriptions of the end of the Shang dynasty (1123 B.C.). The list of Kings which these furnish differs scarcely at all from that which has been transmitted to us by the anonymous annalist who, during the last years of the fourth century B.C., composed the history of China known as 'The Bamboo Books,' and by the great historian of the late second and early first centuries B.C., Ssu-ma Ch’ien, in his Shih Chi."

The great Yu has been consigned four or five meandering dates, but the Chinese credit him with the date of 2205 B.C.

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[paragraph continues] Yu was Minister of Public Works, serving under the Emperor Shun for seventeen years. The Emperor Shun has been assigned a date of 2250 B.C. and between his death and the time Yu ascended the throne, a three-year period of mourning was observed. Yu, it will be remembered, at the instigation of the Emperor Shun, compiled the Shan Hai King—the Book of Mountains and Seas.

Chinese wanderings as early as 3000-2500 B.C. are known to have taken place in Siberia and across into Alaska. Stone knives, according to Dr. Creel, found in China in all neolithic stages and in Shang culture, are found among northern Asiatic tribes and among the Esquimos but they do not occur in the Near East or in Europe.

Flint arrow-heads and stone axes of the period of 2000 B.C., on both continents, have an affinity that can not be lightly passed over. Dr. Berthold Laufer, in his fascinating treatise on Jade, written in 1912, devoted considerable space to stone implements found in China, dating from a remote time, that could not be identified and having no traceable historical background—an odd thing for China.

Photographs accompanying the descriptive material show axes, stone hatchets and arrow-heads that might well have been dug from mounds in the Mississippi basin. These stone implements, so Dr. Laufer says, came from graves which the Chinese in that locality identify as belonging to the Chou dynasty (1123-249 B.C.) and as he so fittingly remarked: "The internal evidence (from the graves) corroborates the historical tradition."

These stone implements were found by a missionary, Rev. Mark Williams. The find formed the basis of his report to Smithsonian, published in 1886. He described the area, near Kalgan, as having ancient mounds, in scattered position, which were about 30 feet high and circular in shape. They had no signal towers, which would have been normal for China. It was at the foot of one of these mounds that he found the first stone axe. He said that the Chinese of the area gave no rational explanation for the mounds and neither was there mention of them in the ancient records. However, he goes on to say, that

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to one familiar with the works of the mound builders in the Mississippi Valley, the stone axe, the mounds and the circular wall suggest that they could have been produced by no other than a similar race. The Rev. Williams felt that the similarity was so strong that both would have been derived from the same builder.

Gerard Fowke, in commenting on these same stone implements, in the XIIIth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, felt that a definite date could not be placed on them or even whether they were Chinese or non-Chinese, but it appeared to him that they were much more likely to have been produced by non-Chinese. He stated that the history of Shantung Province furnished ample proof that there existed an aboriginal population there of which historical records are silent, but that the time they were there was attributed to be under the Emperor Shao-hao or approximately the 26th Century B.C. Subsequently, the tribes of Ki-she and P’u-ku moved into the area. The Ki-she belonged to the time of the Emperor Shun and the Hsia dynasty (approximately 23d to 19th century B.C.). The Chinese themselves regard the stone implements as coming from that identical period. In the Tribute to Yu (Yu Kung) embodied in the Shu King, one of China's oldest documents, it is twice recorded that stone arrow-heads were offered as tribute to the Emperor Yu (2205 B.C.).

The above information and description concerning these stone implements came from material written between 1886 and 1912. If they were re-examined today, here in the United States, without doubt, much more positive identification could be made.

In May, 1953, Dr. Alex Krieger discussed, most ably, the question of Asiatic connections with reference to arrow-heads and specifically the "Folsom Point." He stated that the Indians of the American continent positively did not receive the Folsom Point from any Asiatic source, since points were found here as early at 10o,000 B.C., and in an unbroken chain down to at least 1 A.D. In China, he stated, pure Folsom Points have also

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been found but the earliest date that can be accorded to them, is 2000 B.C. Therefore, since those found on the American continent antedate the Chinese by at least 8000 years, he concluded that the American Indian definitely did not receive them from the Chinese. And Dr. Krieger appears to be absolutely right.

In discussions of this nature, one often wonders if all culture and borrowing is presumed to have come down a "one-way" street. No one has seemed to stop and consider that perhaps the Chinese may have picked up an idea or two that they thought had merit and have carried it off back to China.

It would appear to me that since the Chinese attribute a date of 2200 B.C. to the stone implements and they state in their records that arrow-heads were first presented as a tribute to the Emperor Yu, that all of the various accounts tally as to date. Yu was responsible for sending the groups out to explore all the regions of the earth, and one group, returning after he had succeeded to the throne, as a tribute, presented him with arrow-heads from America—a rare thing in China. Dr. Krieger, from a totally different standpoint, dated the first appearance of the Folsom Point, in China, as 2000 B.C. and, he stated that there appeared no preliminary stage leading up to it. Folsom Points, with their highly individualistic and complicated chipping, could hardly have arisen, full blown, in China, unaided. Dr. Krieger's date of 2000 B.C., in a measure, corroborates the Chinese records and the tradition of the Chinese living in Shantung Province, who placed that same date on the arrow-heads found there. This definitely is a "two-way" street. It appears that this was a "borrowing" by the Chinese of an original contribution from the American Indian. The Chinese who were sent out by Yu, in 2250 B.C. to find out about the world, were here, saw the arrow-heads, and took them back as samples of what they found. The dates, traditions, records and artifacts all coincide.

Pottery identified as the LI tripod, a bowl having three legs, has been found, primarily, in the northeastern parts of China, in very ancient sites. In the third, and last great phase of neolithic,

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the LI tripod, which is the most common of ceramic types, was in complete possession of northeastern Asia.

Edwin M. Shook, in his Research on the pre-Classic Horizons in Guatemala, in writing of pottery-making cultures throughout Meso-America before 200 A.D., has found a three-legged incensario and a special vessel set on three feet, dating from an archaic period. This form, he stated, continued through pre-Classic, Classic and post-Classic. It was the only pottery vessel with secondary supports found at two pre-Classic sites. John M. Longyear III, writing on an Historical Interpretation of Copan Archeology, stated that: "Polychrome basal-flanged bowls and black tripod vases, so diagnostic of Early Classic refuse, suddenly disappear in Full Classic." Both of these pre-Classic American tripod bowls have the same structure and design as the LI tripod identified by Dr. Creel. The colors found in slips and on most pottery found in Mexico and Central America, is close to that found in China—the shapes of the vessels are the same. Excellent photographs of tripod bowls and incensarios are shown in Dr. Morley's book on "The Ancient Maya." He dated the early beginnings of pottery-making as being before 1000 B.C.—it had arrived completed by that date.

Dr. Creel tells us that motifs used in the Shang bronzes are of various animal forms. Vessels in the form of an owl are prevalent as are the so-called "thunder" and "cloud" patterns. Both of these consist of whorls. They occur in ancient characters standing for rain and allied phenomena. In Shang vessels, hardly one is without one or the other of them. And from a paper by J. Eric S. Thompson, "Aquatic Symbols of the Classic Period," we find: "Among the Maya, the moan bird, apparently a variety of screech owl, is intimately associated with rain, not with death as is usually supposed. . . . In the art of the Initial Series period, the moan birds perch on the celestial dragons associated with the four world directions who are the senders of rain; the motif is common in Maya art, the moan bird is set amid cauac (storm) symbols."

Dr. Creel also remarks: "More specifically, North American

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[paragraph continues] Indians use the technique of representing an animal as if it were split and laid flat in two joined halves, just as we have seen was done in Shang design; these are the only two areas in the world in which this technique is used according to my present information."

The above illustrations show analogous things in Mexico and in China at very remote periods, long before Hwui Shan's visit. Comparisons could be multiplied tenfold—these merely serve as examples.

With reference to early writing in China, we find that while the earliest forms were pictures of objects, picture writing was no longer used by 1800 B.C. At that time, which we have as fairly accurate, the writing was neither primitive nor crude, but fully developed.

Fu-hsi, 2852 B.C., is traditionally ascribed as having invented the art of writing. His crude markings were elaborated upon by his Court Historian, Ts’ang Chieh, who used the markings as symbols for words. Ts’ang Chieh, along with Fu-hsi, is credited as being the inventor of the symbol writing that later was used.

His early word-symbols were soon simplified for convenience and from that simplification grew the character. At a later period, expression of thought and abstract ideas were found to be cumbersome to set down—combinations of characters, again simplified, developed from that. Many of the present-day 49,000 characters were, during the course of time, so combined and simplified that, today, there remains little resemblance to their archaic beginnings.

Some of the earliest books known to have existed brought tremendous prices in the market-place. It was previously thought that the Chinese produced very few books at an early time, but we now find that hundreds of thousands were produced as early as 1100 B.C. In the tomb of one king of about 300 B.C., there were found enough books to fill ten carts. In the Annals of Lu Shih, about 400 B.C., we are told that two chests full of books were brought into court by the Keeper of Archives.

Records of every conceivable kind were kept. Simple routine

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orders, easily transmitted orally, were written down, and then read, in order that there be no mistake and that the responsibility be fixed.

The ability to read and write appears to have been presumed as a part of the education of the upper classes, and by 1000 B.C., the Chinese already had a well-developed written history. The greatest portion of this writing was set down on bamboo and other fragile materials and, due to the moist climate, much of it completely disintegrated. However, the Chinese had, even at that remote date, the habit of copying one from another. Many copies of an original work were made—copies, through the centuries, were again made from those copies. Even though the original documents themselves were not preserved, many copies of them were. We do have the substance of what was written, in spite of the lack of the original. An early "Chinese copy," the forerunner of our "carbon copy."

Human foibles have changed very little from that time to this. When persons were buried, they buried a part of their effects with them. The aristocratic set wished, even in death, to be identified with the aristocratic set. The I LI lists a bamboo writing tablet as being among the articles of clothing with which the corpse of every member of the aristocratic class was to be dressed. It was used as a note-book—for the Chinese, like the Greeks, had the habit of constantly taking notes. They carried these note-books with them wherever they went—and they had one buried with them when they died.

This meticulous habit of jotting down notes and of keeping accurate records, is one of those minute details which gives one such joy to find. This systematic procedure dates from the earliest of recorded times—notes jotted down in a little black notebook.

Before turning to the Shan Hai King, I would like to tie together the early period of Yu, 2205 B.C., with that of Hwui Shan of the fifth century of our era. In Kuen 327, Hwui Shan wrote that the King of the country, Fu-sang, did not assume the responsibilities of State until three years after the death of the preceding ruler. In the China of Hwui Shan's day, that was not

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a customary practice—a new ruler assumed power immediately. The custom in Fu-sang was different and, for that reason, Hwui Shan made mention of it.

Turning back the clock of time in China, and looking at the prevailing custom in the period of Yu, we find that the identical practice did prevail in China and in 2250-05 B.C., that a king did not ascend to the throne until after a three year interval. Mencius, the Chinese philosopher, has told us that Shun, who succeeded to the throne of Yaou, and who was not his son, served under Yaou for 30 years. On the death of Yaou, Shun retired into seclusion for three years before ascending to the throne. On Shun's death, Yu, who had been Minister of Public Works and had served. Shun for 17 years, likewise went into retirement for three years before coming onto the throne. Therefore, at the time of Yu, in China, an emperor did not take over the reigns of government until after a three year period had elapsed. That custom prevailed on the date when Yu sent out his men to measure and map the face of the earth. They established the precedent in Mexico. It was continued without interruption until the time of Hwui Shan, in 500 A.D., when he made note of it. The time of the custom is fixed—the place where it originated is likewise fixed.

Very interesting Sam for I am learning Mandarin as we speak. I know how to write(draw) 70 symbols. It is primarily memorizing how to draw them! I need to know 2000 just to read a newspaper!!

It is challenging for they don't have a alphabet system that we are accustomed to and a slight sound difference in the tone of saying the same word could mean a totally different word all together!

Thank you for the history lesson. Wow this thread has alot to read. I have alot to catch up on!

have fun my dear friend, i will keep posting this chinese info, ran acroos it while lokinf for other N.I. lore/spirituality and found it facinating - so much for C.columbus huh? -

CHAPTER XII
The Shan Hai King
GEOGRAPHERS and historians alike acknowledge the Shan Hai King to be the world's oldest geography. Although frequently referred to, it is an "unknown." No English translation has been made of the whole of it—portions exist in French or German—and Chinese themselves rarely read it. The book, it appears, has been considered to be so full of whimsy and fantasy that a translation has never been attempted since the waste of time would have been thought stupid. Yet, it is referred to, with dignity, as our oldest known record of man's knowledge of the universe on which he lives. We do not know, today, what portion of the earth's surface it covers; we do not know if it refers solely to China or to other places as well.

The Chinese say that the record was compiled by the great Yu, at the time when he was minister under the Emperor Shun—prior to the time when he himself was Emperor. However, the compilation may have been completed after he took the throne. A noted British sinologist has assigned an approximate date of the 10th or 11th centuries B.C. to the Shan Hai King, stating however, that while its antiquity was certain, the date was disputable. The majority of French sinologists agree with the Chinese.

As stated earlier, there were originally 32 books, and, of the 32 only 18 remain. There is no way of knowing whether the total number of books formed a sequence or in what manner one book followed another or even if the 18 books themselves follow in any sequence. Each book is a separate entity but no book has a beginning or an ending. Whether the existing books deal with one country or 18 countries, is not known.

In 213 B.C., all books in China were ordered burned. The first Emperor of the Ts‘in dynasty decided to abolish all knowledge of the past and blot out history. His Premier, Le Sze, advised that the best way to accomplish that end was to burn all books—and therefore, the edict went out. The books were burned.

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In the fifth century A.D., records and documents concerning China's past, became so voluminous that it was both impossible to study them or to store them. Another edict was issued to condense all books. Everything available was re-read. Volumes were deleted. The remainder was compressed into a few scanty pages—the original volumes were destroyed. Again, in the thirteenth century, all records and documents, once more, were ordered condensed—the fifth century original condensations were scrapped. Of the ancient Book of Mountains and Seas, there exist today only those fragments that survived the burning of 213 B.C. and the two condensations. That which remains to work with is, at the very outset, extremely meagre.

The material itself is complicated by the fact that there is no beginning or ending to any book—each record as we now have it, starts on a mountain peak, wanders from peak to peak, covering 2,000 miles, and winds up on another peak—with no possible way of determining where, on the face of the globe, that first peak may have been located.

Each of the 18 books vary in content—some are a few paragraphs long, others are pages. Many are minutely detailed, neatly setting down exact mileage from point to point; the remainder, apparently having been written by more poetic souls, disregard mileage and grow lyrical over the beauties of nature. They are all eye-witness accounts—each person was somewhere. Their records are simple, straightforward and forthright. This is no collection of mythical or imaginary labyrinthine wanderings.

About the third century B.C., the Chinese themselves started looking in China to see whether or not they could identify some of the mountains described in the book—and they could not. Scholars looked all over China for some clue, and finding none, gave up. Doubt arose as to the veracity of the ancients. One after another, early writers decided that the accounts in the Book of Mountains and Seas were whimsies and extravagancies—not to be believed, but, nevertheless, good literature. By the eighth century A.D., everyone was convinced that, like Aesop's Fables, they were excellent reading—but myths. And so they

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have come down to us labeled "fairy tales."

If one should read even a few sentences from those "tales," it would be obvious that those who wrote them were sincere. Inconsistencies certainly crept in during the condensations—but the mile by mile record is no ephemeral dream, no elusive little visionary beam that someone was following. Hard, cold, facts—"travel south 100 miles over shifting sand and you will come to Bald Mountain where there is a large river flowing eastward"—nothing whimsical about it.

A most exhaustive study of historical backgrounds of the Shan Hai King was made by M. Bazin, the French authority, in 1839. His study showed that while there were originally 32 books, the condensation that took place in the fifth century A.D., eliminated all but 18. In this he departs from Chinese sources, where it has been stated that the books were lost during the burnings in 213 B.C. James Legge, who made extensive translations of the Classics, said that among the great scholars was one Fuh-sang who, when the order went out to burn all books, hid his copies in the wall of his house. His house later burned and many of the tablets were destroyed. In 178 B.C., when Fuh-sang was 90 years old, the Emperor commissioned him to re-write from memory what he could of the old texts. Much of what we now have came down to us in that manner.

The descriptive material contained in this oldest geography, told of mountain ranges in the north, south, east and west and those beyond the seas; of the regions beyond the seas to the north, south, east and west. The author believed that there were five major mountain ranges on the face of the globe and that on those mountain ranges all rivers of the earth had their sources. It also told of living things that peopled those areas and, in addition, some of those supposedly living things that were later interpreted to be of the spirit world—as was the unicorn and the archer that shot nine of the ten suns.

The shifting from a belief that the ancient writing was an actual recording to one that clothed it in mythology, came between 300-100 B.C. A later writer, commenting on the matter, said that the last 13 chapters of the Shan Hai King contained

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a description of foreign countries—and by "foreign countries" was meant those countries inhabited by spirits. The spirits that governed the earth in the days when the great Yu, as minister of the Emperor Shun, drained off the waters left from the deluge, he said, differed from those spirits which lived in later reigns. The spirits of the sun, moon and planets referred to in the History of the Gods, were not even mentioned in the Shan Hai King, and its authors have turned earth spirits into monsters and weird mis-shapen animals and, because of it, the account was a malicious parody.

Comments, throughout the ages, by the most learned of scholars, have reached the same conclusion. Sse-ma Chien, the greatest of all Chinese historians, declined to comment. He merely stated that the Book of Mountains was attributed to the great Yu but that such extraordinary things were contained in it, that he dared not speak of them. Confucius, in his Analects, said: "Straight was the course of the Annalist Yu, aye, straight as an arrow flies." He mentioned the Shan Hai King in his Kia-yu (Familiar Discourses) and Tseu-hia, a disciple of Confucius, said that during the reign of the Shang dynasty (1765-1123 B.C.) mention was made of the Book of Mountains.

Chao-shi, considered in importance second only to Sse-ma Chien, living at the time of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-221 A.D.), felt that the book was of doubtful merit and said that Yu, after consulting the spirits of the mountains and lakes, wrote down all the details about these "foreign" places.

In the third century of the Christian era, Tso-sse, one of the outstanding historical poets, mentioned the Shan Hai King in one of his verses on the Five Capitols. The preface to the Fabulous Encyclopedia (265-420 A.D.) contained a statement that two of the most ancient books then existing were the Herbal of Chi-nong and the Shan Hai King, which several writers have attributed to the great Yu. A more modern writer felt that all the operations of heaven and earth were mysterious and incomprehensible, and withdrew themselves from the investigations of men—that was why the Shan Hai King was a book that could not be comprehended.

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M. Bazin, after digesting some hundreds of comments during his years of research in digging out information concerning the Shan Hai King, himself came to the conclusion that since scholars had failed to find any of the descriptive material in China and, since many of the animals peopling the work were obviously whimsical, that the work was of little or no practical value.

He ended his conclusion with the statement that the book contained over 30,000 characters in the text and over 20,000 in the commentaries, which was a great number for a book containing such extravagancies and which did not merit deep study in a country like China, where the amount of geographical knowledge was far from despicable. He found the work unworthy of serious study. And that, today, is still the unqualified opinion.

The story of Prince I, the archer who killed nine of the ten suns, lyricized by poets for two thousand years, is considered the prize of imaginative fantasies. The archer, according to the Shan Hai King and the poets, travelled east until he reached the place where the sun was born. There he found ten suns. He shot down nine of them with his bow and those nine lie asleep in the "Great Luminous Canyon." Story after story recount tales of the archer, some elaborated upon, others unadulterated. Dr. Creel mentioned it in connection with the Shang bronzes. The archer is put down as a credit to poetic imagination—nothing more.

On reading the translation of that portion that I had of the Shan Hai King, it was clear that this was an authentic travel account—not whimsy. There were ten-tailed foxes and eight-headed serpents, it is true, but rarely does one find old manuscripts that fail to include some oddment, some Poseidon, Ra, banshee or werewolf. Sir Walter Raleigh's Iwaipanomas, the headless warriors of the upper Orinoco, are good examples—and they were believed. The Shan Hai King made sense. It was a simple and sincere statement of a place visited and a distance measured by a man who had been there—short notes jotted down in a little bamboo note-book.

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Two of the descriptive accounts began their recordings on an unknown mountain top, travelled 2,000 miles from north to south, finding a peak every one hundred miles, and wound up on another peak—but, in those 2,000 miles, that person definitely was somewhere, and he alone knew where. The statements were concise, without embellishment of any kind. If the books were whimsy, the language would have been flowery. That which was written, insofar as I could determine, was as far from being flowery as clipped speech could make it. It rang true.

If the accounts were true, someplace on the face of the earth those places must exist. China itself had been thoroughly gone over and eliminated. Fragmentary though the records were, the places that they described would have to be found. Since the portion that I had in translation was captioned "The Classic of the Eastern Mountains" in a section identified as "Overseas," that seemed the logical place to look first. Directions would have to be followed and, after that, it would be a process of elimination.

The four maps on the following pages, together with the translation as I found it, will show more clearly than any words of mine exactly where the Chinese were. It is hoped that they will speak eloquently for themselves. In the concluding translation, which gave no mileage and so will have no map, will be found the place where, I believe, the archer legend originated. There would hardly be two spots on earth that could so aptly fit that description. That each thrilled person who saw that "Great Luminous Canyon" where the nine suns lie buried, fulfilled his lifetime hope and ambition, can well be understood.

This chapter could not be ended without one concluding priceless gem concerning comment on the Shan Hai King. It came from a book published in China at the beginning of the Christian era:

"Heaven and earth are great; what do they not contain? The Shan Hai King is full of doubtful statements, but who can affirm that the assertions which seem doubtful to us are absolutely false?"

CHAPTER XIII
Across the Sea
The Fourth Book of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, entitled "The Classic of the Eastern Mountains," is divided into four sections—other than that each pertains to the "Eastern Mountains" no one of the four sections is related to any one of the others.

The first section of the Fourth Book, identified a range of mountains approximately 1200 miles in extent, running due north and south. Twelve peaks have been named, each having a river flowing in an easterly direction—northeast, east or southeast. The second section climbed over mountainous territory for 2200 miles, also due north and south. The third section took a water course, due north and south for approximately 2000 miles. The fourth section was short, starting at the "North Sea" and travelling south and east.

There may be some indication in the untranslated portions that I do not have, that told how the Chinese got across the Eastern Sea to the Eastern Mountains. Since it is not available, to decide independently how they got there, would only be pulling a conclusion out of thin air. Therefore, with no apology, we shall jump across and only try to solve the geographical problems that we actually have.

The first identification of a mountain range that was described in the Classics, Book Four, Section 1, appeared that it might be the Cascades or Sierras, since they were coastal and fulfilled the requirement in that they ran north and south for more than 1200 miles. All rivers on the coastal range, however, emptied into the Pacific—to the west. The Cascades and Sierras, therefore, had to be eliminated—the rivers ran in the wrong direction. The Andes were then considered as a possibility, as that great range, extending north and south, had all major rivers flowing easterly to the Atlantic. The eastern slope of the Andes is one tremendous rain-forest. One of the items in the Classics stated that the recorder travelled for a time over shifting sand—there was no shifting sand on the eastern slope of the Andean

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range; that range was then eliminated. The only remaining range of great extent would be the Rockies. There, rivers did flow in an easterly direction—into the Mississippi basin.

The opening sentence of the section started out by saying that "Suh-Chu Mountain" on its northern side adjoined the "Sunless Mountain" and that drinkable water was found in a river flowing northeasterly. I chased up and down a dozen or more times on my map, from Canada to Mexico, and each time examined every peak without even a flicker of a clue. Being unable to locate "Suh-Chu Mountain" or the good drinking water, I finally passed it over. The second peak had to be passed over for the same reason. The third one "rang a bell." The Chinese had named it "Aspen Mountain." "Aspen," to me, meant only one thing—Estes Park, Colorado. Taking a chance that the third peak was somewhere in Colorado, I pinpointed it there. From that point, I worked both forward and backward. Going backward to peak number one, "Suh-Chu Mountain," I found myself looking at Sweetwater River, in Wyoming, flowing northeast—good drinking water. Working my way down the map, the shifting sand, the sand that had eliminated the Andean range, was found precisely on the spot where the Chinese had placed it—and today, we have commemorated that spot, unknowingly insofar as the Chinese were concerned, with our Great Sand Dunes National Monument. From then on, peak after peak tallied. It seemed unbelievable at first—but it worked. If the first one worked, the others would have to do so.

In a few spots, winding through Tennessee Pass, Berthoud Pass, Rabbit's Ear Pass or Fall River Pass, mileage is about twenty miles short. But, in 1200 miles, a few minor errors of 4000 years ago can be forgiven, particularly if one knows that frightfully rugged terrain.

When one considers the difficulties and dangers of conquering one mountain peak and then can form a mental picture of himself trekking down 2200 miles over 17 peaks, on the very crest of the Continental Divide, from Manitoba to Mazatlan, some small appreciation of the seemingly insurmountable task will be understood. We can do no more than to stand with

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bowed heads before the intrepid Chinese who mapped those jagged snow-capped peaks over 4000 years ago.

That their record has survived until today is, likewise, one of those peculiar turns of fate that make the reality of it stranger than fiction.



THE CLASSIC OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS 1
Fourth Book
THE CLASSIC OF THE EASTERN MOUNTAINS
1. The beginning of the "Classic of the Eastern Mountains" says that SUH-CHU Mountain on its northern side adjoins KAN-MEI Mountain (or Sunless Mountain). SHIH River (or "drinkable water") is found here, a stream that flows northeasterly into the sea. In it there are many water animals called YUNG-YUNG. These look like brindled cattle [i.e., they resemble cattle that are striped like tigers.] . Their voices sound like the grunting of swine.


Note: A peak (5930 ft.) twenty miles due west of Casper, Wyoming, appears to be SUH-CHU Mountain. On its northern side, it adjoins the Big Horn Range. SHIH River (or drinkable water) is the Sweetwater River which here joins the North Platte and flows northeasterly, eventually into the Mississippi and the sea. The animals, which in color are like brindled cattle, are probably beaver or otter.

2. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, LEI Mountain (or the Mountain of Creeping Plants) is to be found. Upon this there are gems and below it there is gold. Hu River is found here, stream that flows easterly into SHIN River. In this there are many HWOH-SHI. [These are tadpoles; the book entitled the RH’-YA calls them HWOH-TUNG.]


Note: Three hundred LI is approximately equivalent to


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Click to enlarge
Book 4 Sec. 1



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one hundred miles—a Chinese LI is just a fraction under one-third of a statute mile. One hundred miles due south, Medicine Bow Peak (12005 feet) is found. Gold and semi-precious gems are plentiful in the area. The Hu River is a small tributary flowing down the eastern slope of Medicine Bow Peak emptying into the Laramie which flows easterly into the North Platte.

3. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, KEU-CHWANG Mountain (or Aspen Mountain) is to be found. Upon this there are many gems and much gold, and below it many green jade stones. Wild animals are found there which look like dogs with six legs. These are called TS’UNG-TS’UNG, the name being given them in imitation of their cry. Birds are also found there which look like domestic fowls, but which have hair like a rat. These are called TSZ’ rats. When they are seen, the country is subject to great draught. The CHI River is found here, a stream flowing northerly into Hu River. In this there are many lancet-fish. These are of a dark color, spotted (or striped) with blue, and have a bill like a lancet. [These were originally found in the Eastern Sea, and they are now found in the KIANG-TUNG River also.] Those who eat them are not subject to epidemic diseases.


Note: One hundred miles south, "Aspen Mountain" probably is Long's Peak, Colorado. Mile after mile of the most spectacular golden-leafed Aspen trees stretch clear across Colorado—truly an unforgettable sight, even to the Chinese. Gold, as is well known, abounds in this area from Steamboat Springs to Cripple Creek. The CHI River is a fork of the Laramie which flows north. The two rivers, one from Medicine Bow and the other from Long's Peak, join—as the Chinese noted. Identification of the fish, rainbow or speckled trout or any other, will be left to the fishermen of Colorado. The birds with hair like a rat, may be bats.

4. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, PUH-T’SAN Mountain is found. It has no grass or trees, and no water.

Note: Of four or five major peaks approximately 100 miles

south, Gray's Peak appears to be the one noted by the Chinese.

5. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, FAN-T’IAO Mountain (or the Foreign Range) is to be found. It

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has no grass or trees, but has much sand. The KIEN River (Diminishing River) is found here, a stream flowing northerly into the sea. In this there are many KAN fish. (The KAN fish is described as a fish three feet long, that is found in the YANG-TSZ’ River, having a large mouth and yellowish gills, and a greenish back.) [One authority names these "the yellow-jawed fish."]


Note: Mount Princeton, 100 miles south, immediately north of Monarch Pass, is probably the high peak, with the Sangre de Cristo Range, which starts there, being the "foreign range" mentioned in the record. The Chinese state that they found much sand. Along the western side of the crest of the Sangre de Cristo Range, stretches mile after mile of sand—culminating in our Great Sand Dunes National Monument. Sand there is. The "Diminishing River" is a tributary of the Arkansas.

6. And it says that four hundred LI to the south, KU-MAO Mountain (or the Mountain of the Maiden) is found. Upon this there are many lacquer-trees, and below it many mulberry trees, and silk-worm oaks. KU-MAO River is found here, a stream flowing northerly into the sea, in which there are many KAN fish.


Note: Blanca, the "White Maiden," Spanish name for the Chinese identification of the "Mountain of the Maiden," stands 130 miles due south. The Huerfano, a tributary of the Arkansas, flows northerly from Blanca Peak to joint the Arkansas.

7. And it says that, four hundred LI to the south, KAO-SHI Mountain is to be found. Upon this there are many gems and below it many sharp stones. [From these they are able to make smooth lancets to cure boils and swellings.] CHU-SHING River is found here, a stream flowing easterly into a marsh, and in it there are many gems and much gold.


Note: North Truches Peak, highest point in New Mexico, appears to be the peak identified in the Classics. There are two streams flowing easterly from the peak that appear to be surrounded with marsh, both are shown interrupted. Semi-precious stones of many kinds are found in the territory—turquoise is there in abundance, as is rock-crystal and jadeite.

8. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, YOH (Lofty) Mountain is found. Upon this there are many mulberry-trees, and below it many ailanthus-trees. LOH River is

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found here, a stream flowing easterly into a marsh, and in it there are many gems and much gold.


Note: The "Lofty" mountain is Manzano Peak, high point in the range of the same name. The stream flowing into a marsh was not identifiable on my map. There may be one that is not large enough to be shown—or the possibility exists that one may have dried up in the intervening 4,000 years. Climatic conditions, according to scientists, apparently changed in this specific area within the past 700-800 years, since many Indian sites, of an early age, show an exodus from here about 1200-1300 A.D., presumably caused by drought or some climatic change.

9. And it says that three hundred LI to the south, Wolf Mountain is to be found. Upon this there is no grass and there are no trees, and below it there is much water (or there are many streams), in which there are many KAN-TSZ’ fish. [These are not fully described.] They have wild animals, which look like the (quadrumana, called) KW’A-FU, but they have hair like that of swine, and their voice is like an expiration of the breath.

When these are seen, then heaven sends down great rains.


Note: 95 miles south of Manzano is Sierra Blanca, with many noisy streams chasing down its slopes—two main tributaries flow into the Rio Hondo. The wild animals that look like swine and are the size of monkey, I am not able to identify—they may be small peccary.

10. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, Lone Mountain is found. Upon this there are many gems and much gold, and below it many beautiful stones. MOH-T’U (Muddy) River is found here, a stream flowing southeasterly into a mighty flood, in which there are many T’IAO-YUNG. These look like yellow serpents with fishes fins. They go out and in. They are bright (or smooth). When these are seen, then the region is subject to great draught.


Note: South from Sierra Blanca is Guadalupe, or "Lone" peak, highest point in Texas. Flowing southeast from the peak is Delaware Creek, emptying into the Pecos, which on occasion, floods. Again, there are many semi-precious stones, as well as gold, in the mountains. Guadalupe, identified as "Lone" peak, is the only one of considerable height in the area. Travellers,

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who had just come over the rugged terrain where towering peaks surrounded them at every turn, would spot this "lone" peak quickly.

11. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, T’AI (Bald) Mountain is found. [Then the mountain was called the Eastern YOH or T’AI-TSUNG, which is now called T’AI Mountain. It is in the northwestern part of FUNG-KAO District, and the distance from the foot of the mountain to its summit is forty-eight LI and three hundred paces.] Upon this there are many gems, and below it there is much gold. Wild animals are found here which look like sucking pigs, but they have pearls. They are called TUNG-TUNG, their name being given in imitation of their cry. The HWAN River is found here, a stream flowing easterly into a river (or into the river. i.e. The YANG-TSZ’ River). [One authority says that it flows into the sea.] In this there are many water-gems (quartz crystals).


Note: Exactly 100 miles south, in the Davis Range, stands Bald Peak—and called "Bald Mountain" by the Chinese, an unusually pointed coincidence. The animals with pearls, are undoubtedly small peccary with tusks. The stream that flows easterly into a river, is the Coyanosa Draw, which flows east into the Pecos. Quartz of countless varieties is present.

12. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, Bamboo Mountain is found, bordering on a river (or the river). [One authority says that it is on the shore—or that it is at the boundary line.] There is no grass or trees, but there are many green-jasper and green-jade stones. The Km River (or water impeded in its course by rocks) is found here, a stream flowing southeasterly into TS’U-TAN River (or a body of water). In this (country) there is a great abundance of dye-plants!


Note: This last peak named could be either Emory Peak or Chinati Peak, both on the Rio Grande. Although Emory Peak is 100 miles south and Chinati only 85 miles, it is believed that, of the two, Chinati fits the description. Not too far away, the river is impeded in its course—near the little town of Ruidoso (noisy)—and the Rio Grande flows southeast, while it bends around Emory Peak. The ancient Chinese scholar who examined this account added that from the description it appeared

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that the river formed a boundary line—and so it does. The large body of water, recorded by the Chinese, is the Gulf of Mexico into which the Rio Grande empties.

13. The first section of the "Classic of the Eastern Mountains" thus gives the entire distance along the twelve mountains, from SUH-CHU Mountain to Bamboo Mountain, as three thousand six hundred LI. Their gods all have human bodies and dragon's heads. When they are offered a sacrifice of animals having hair, a dog is used. In other sacrifices the blood of a fish is used to besmear the things offered. [To use blood in besmearing the things offered in sacrifice is called "NI." KUNG-YANG'S "Chronicles" say that in offering sacrifices of creatures having flesh and blood, to the god of the land, and of grain, they besmear with blood the being that is sacrificed. The name of this species of sacrifice is pronounced "NI."]


Note: The Chinese computation of 1200 miles figures approximately 100 miles more, as the crow flies, than my map indicates. However, that distance is compensated for in the area from Medicine Bow Peak to Blanca Peak, where the circuitous route threads through half a dozen insurmountably high mountain passes. In measuring distance by stepping off paces, the Chinese would inevitably have had to have travelled a greater distance on foot than a pair of dividers measures that distance on a flat paper map. On level stretches, the tabulation is within a mile or two of being accurate—a most astounding feat for anyone at any time in that country. The general path has followed longitude 106° W., with comparatively little variation, from latitude 43° N. to 30° N.

Second Section
1. The beginning of the second section of the "Eastern Classic" says that K’UNG-SANG Mountain (or the Mountain of the Empty Mulberry-Trees) on the northern side adjoins the SHIN River. [This mountain rises from the KIN-SEH Forest—see the book called "CHEU-LI."] On the eastern side (it adjoins the states of) Tsu and Wu; on the southern side a number of sandy mounds, and on the western side the MIN (or Muddy) Marsh. Here there are wild animals which look

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like cattle, but which are striped like tigers. Their voices resemble the sound of a person stretching and yawning. [Perhaps rather the sound of one moaning.] These are named LING-LING, and this name is an imitation of their cry. When these are seen, then heaven sends down great rains.


Note: This second journey has its start in Canada, on the western side of Lake Winnipegosis, Manitoba. The peak is Hart Mountain, the highest peak in the region, on the northern side of which flows the Bell River into Dawson Bay. The "MIN" or Muddy Marsh on the west, is well described—the marsh area due west of Lake Winnipegosis extends for hundreds of miles. This is the lichen-rich tundra area in which caribou feed.

2. And it says that, six hundred LI to the south, TS’AO-CHI Mountain is found. Below this there are many paper-mulberry trees, but there is no water (or river). There are many birds and wild animals.


Note: 600 Chinese miles, or 200 statute miles, there is a high peak in Moose Mountain Provincial Park, Saskatchewan, from which no river flows. Main breeding ground in North America for migratory birds and water-fowl, this specific territory is one of the largest known. The Canadian government is spending millions of dollars in conservation programs to provide protection for their wild life right on this very spot. Deer, elk, moose, bear, as well as wolves, have roamed over this vast wasteland since time immemorial. The Chinese found the most characteristic feature of the country to be the abundance of birds and wild animals.

3. And it says that, four hundred LI to the southwest, YIH-KAO Mountain is found. Upon this there are many gems and much gold, and below it there is much white plaster-rock. The YIH-KAO River is found here, a stream flowing easterly to the KIH-NU River. In this there are many clams with pearly shells. [These are clams or mussels with pearly shells, as beautiful as gems, these pearly shells belonging to a species of mussel called SHAN-PAN.]


Note: 140 miles, or a fraction over 400 LI, to the southwest, a peak rises near Sioux Pass, Montana, just above the junction of the Yellowstone with the Missouri. The Missouri flows easterly

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to meet the Yellowstone which comes in from the south. And, interestingly enough, the Musselshell River converges with the Missouri immediately above this point—the Chinese said they found mussels with pearly shells! The region through which the Chinese traveled south from Moose Mountain Provincial Park, would take them through an extensive area of "white plaster-rock" and perhaps even passing the small town of White Earth, North Dakota, which would have been in direct line with their course.

It may well be that the most incredible coincidence of all will be found to be located right here. In this precise area, due north of Grenora, in the northwest corner of North Dakota, stands a large boulder on which is inscribed undecipherable carvings said to predate the earliest known tribesmen. This boulder falls within the immediate path of one travelling from Moose Mountain Provincial Park to the confluence of the Yellowstone with the Missouri. The probability seems undeniably strong that this marker was carved and left there by those first world map-makers sent out by Yu.

A second series of inscribed rocks of the same nature, is located in the southeast corner of Alberta, Canada, ten miles over the border. The Canadian Government has created Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park around the area. These obelisks are also covered with undecipherable hieroglyphics. It is my belief that if study were made of both stone carvings, that in Alberta and that in North Dakota, it might be found to be that the hieroglyphics were an archaic form of Chinese—such, for example, as were found inscribed on the bones dug up in China, described earlier. The stone in Alberta would lie in a probably path of those coming south, preceding Section One, where our first identification started at the Sweetwater River—the beginning of the section being lost.

The carvings are undecipherable—they are known to be ancient. They lie in what I believe to be the path of the early Chinese, as indicated on the second map. If the inscriptions, after study, are found to be archaic Chinese, we will then have the necessary "bones," located on the spot, which archeologists must have, as well as the documentary proof.

They spoke also of gold and gems. Unusually fine agate is found in the area and gold in quantity, as is well known.


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4. And thence going to the south, five hundred LI by water, and three hundred LI over shifting sands, one end of the KOH (or Bean) Mountain is reached. There is no grass and there are no trees here, but there are many smooth whetstones.


Note: Travelling south by water for 166 miles, as directed, the Chinese would have taken the Yellowstone River, which joins the Missouri at that point. 166 miles south on the Yellowstone would have brought them between the present towns of Miles City and Big Horn, in Montana. Thence 100 miles "over shifting sands," the travelers would arrive at the northern end of the Big Horn Mountains and the peak would be either Hunt Mountain or the adjacent peak near Wolf. This area is desolate as we know—it passes close by the Custer Battlefield National Monument.

5. And it says that, three hundred and eighty LI to the south, the other end of Bean Mountain is found. There is no grass and there are no trees here. The LI River is found here, a stream flowing easterly into the Yu Marsh. In it there are many CHU-P’IEH fish (or water animals). These look like lungs, but have eyes and six feet, and they have pearls. They taste sour, but pleasant, and are eaten without producing sickness. [They do not cause diseases at any time. LU-SHI'S edition of the book of Confucius, called "Spring and Autumn," says that the LI River contains fish called CHU-PIEH, which have six feet, and which are beautiful as the "vermilion" fish.]


Note: 125 miles south, or 380 LI, there is a peak at the southern end of the Big Horn Range, which bears no name on my map, a short distance from Casper, Wyoming and about 25 miles due west from Teapot Dome. From the peak, a stream flows easterly into a marshy area. The water animals that look like lungs and have six feet, may be some crab or crustacean having six feet that is small and lung-shaped.

6. And it says that, three hundred and eighty LI to the south, YU-NGO Mountain (or an excessively high peak) is found. Upon this there are many japonica-trees and JAN-trees, and below it there is much prickly succory. The TSAH-YU River is found here, a stream flowing easterly into the Yellow River. Here there are wild beasts which look like rabbits, but which

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have a crow's bill, an owl's eyes, and a serpent's tail. When they see a man, they pretend to sleep. They are called CHIU-YU, this sound being an imitation of their cry. When these are seen, grasshoppers or locusts cause great destruction. [Grasshoppers are a species of locusts. It says that they ruin the herbage. Their name is pronounced CHUNG.]


Note: Precisely 125 miles to the south, Medicine Bow Peak towers 12

12,000 feet above the landscape—the excessively high peak noted by the Chinese. Three or four tributaries of the Laramie flow east from the peak into the main river. Description of the opossum could not have been better done. Locusts are common—and do destroy the herbage as the Chinese so fittingly stated.

7. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, TU-FU Mountain is found. There is no grass and there are no trees here, but there is much water (or there are many streams).


Note: 100 miles south, would bring the travellers into Estes Park. Longs Peak, 85 miles south from Medicine Bow, is no doubt the one although there are many peaks in this vicinity. The 15 mile variation may be accountable to the difficulty in negotiating the high mountain passes between the two peaks over which the Chinese would have had to travel. Five or six major rivers have their source on Longs Peak or close by.

8. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, KANG Mountain is found. There is no grass and there are no trees here, but there is much water, and there are many green-jade stones (or there are many water-jade stones). [These are a species of water-gems—i.e., rock crystals.] There are many great serpents, and there are also wild beasts which look like foxes, but which have fish's fins. These are named CHU-JU, and derive their name from their cry. When these are seen, the country has reason to fear disasters.


Note: Mount Harvard or Mount Princeton would fit the description as both are approximately the distance south. Branches of the Arkansas, Rio Grande and Colorado, with countless tributaries, rise within a twenty mile radius of either peak—there is much water. Rock crystal, jadeite and turquoise are found in the region. The animal that looks like a fox with

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fish's fins is not identified—unless it might be the flying squirrel which is in the area or some species of lizard.

9. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, LU-K’I Mountain is found. There is no vegetation, and there are no trees, but there are many stones and much sand. The Sand River is found here, a stream flowing southerly into the CH’AN River (or into a limpid river). In this there are many LI pelicans; these look like ducks, but have men's legs. They derive their name from their cry. When these are seen, then the country will see great literary achievements. [These pelicans have long legs, which somewhat resemble human shanks.]


Note: 100 miles south, we come to Summit Peak, from which one branch of the Rio Grande flows south. The Chinese report "much sand." Today, our Great Sand Dunes National Monument has been located in this very area—there is much sand. The particular species of duck is not identified.

10. And it says that, three hundred and eighty LI to the south, KU-SHE Mountain is found. There is no grass and there are no trees there, but there is much water (or there are many streams).


Note: 125 miles south, would bring the travellers to the vicinity of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where there are half a dozen peaks within a fifteen mile radius, any one of which would fit the description—Chicoma Peak (11950), Redondo Peak (11252), N. Truches Peak (13306), Baldy Peak (12623), Rincon Peak (11500), or Thompson Peak (10546). The region is extremely barren. Four main branches of the Rio Grande have their source here—there are many streams.

11. And it says that, going to the south, three hundred LI by water, and one hundred LI over shifting sand, the northern KU-SHE Mountain is found. There is no grass and there are no trees there, but there are many stones.


Note: South from Santa Fe, by water, the Chinese would have gone by way of the Rio Grande to a point opposite Ladrones Peak and then over shifting sand for 30 more miles to South Baldy at the north end of the Black Range. The area is devoid of grass, as stated. It is a curious thing that both the Yellowstone River and the Rio Grande provide a water route due south. There is no other place in our country where this

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could be so in mountainous regions or where detailed physical characteristics show such marked similarity as they do in these two interior water journeys. It could hardly be coincidental.

12. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, Southern KU-SHE Mountain is found. There is no grass and there are no trees there, but there is much water (or there are many streams there).


Note: Exactly 100 miles due south, at the southern end of the Black Range, stands Cook's Peak. There is no grass and there are no trees but neither did I find an over abundance of water—this is sandy desert, although small tributaries of the Rio Grande are in the section, there are no large streams. This is just the other side of the river from the White Sands National Monument.

13. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, Green-jade-stone Mountain is found. There is no grass here but there are many trees. Many great serpents are found here, and there are also many green-jade stones and quartz crystals.


Note: This appears to be either Animas Peak or Big Hatchet Peak, both approximately 100 miles south, and both in desert areas. A great deal of turquoise and jadeite comes from this territory as does quartz of many varieties.

14. And it says that, five hundred LI to the south, W’EI-SHI Mountain is found. There is no grass and there are no trees here, but there are many gems and much gold. YUEN River is found here, a stream flowing easterly into a sand marsh (or into a sandy marsh). [One authority states that the name of the mountain is pronounced KIAH-SHI instead of W’EI-SHI.]


Note: Directly south, 166 miles, there is a peak (8304 ft.), near Madera, State of Chihuahua, Mexico. This was the only place where my map has failed to indicate a major river as specified—the area is sandy and marshy and filled with small lakes, and in that, it is correct. It may be that in the intervening 4000 years, the river has drained into the marsh or just disappeared. Gold and gems are in the entire region.

15. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, KU-FUNG Mountain is found. There is no grass, and there are no trees here, but there are many gems and much gold. Wild beasts are found here which look like foxes, but which have wings (or

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fins). Their voice sounds like that of a wild goose, and they are called PI-PI. When these are seen, then heaven sends down great draught.


Note: 100 miles south, there is a peak (8671 ft.) about seven miles from the small town of Pamachic, State of Chihuahua, in which area mining has been carried on for years. The "wild beast" is not known. Again, this may be some kind of lizard.

16. And it says that, five hundred LI to the south, FU-LI Mountain is found. Upon this there are many gems and much gold, and, below it, many lancet-stones. They have wild beasts which look like foxes, but which have nine tails and nine heads, and tiger's claws. They are called LUNG-CHIH. Their voice is like that of an infant child, and they eat men.


Note: Here is where we find the nine-headed, nine-tailed foxes! Five hundred LI, or 166 miles, there are two peaks to the south that fit the description, due north by northeast of the city of Culiacan State of Sinaloa, one on the State border and the other just within the State of Durango.

17. And it says that, five hundred LI to the south, YIN Mountain is found. To the south, the YIN River is to be seen, and to the north the Hu Marsh (or lakes and marshes). Here they have wild beasts which look like horses, but they have sheep's eyes, four horns and cattle tails. Their voice is like the howl of a dog, and they are called YIU-YIU. When these are seen, the country will be visited by many crafty foreigners. They have birds which look like ducks, but they have rat's tails, and can climb trees. They are called CHIE-KEU. When these are seen, the country will have much sickness.


Note: South, exactly 166 miles, is the peak Triangulo (7832 ft.) about 75 miles due east of the city of Mazatlan, and a little to the north. To the south of Triangulo flows the Presidio River and to the north, is a considerable lake and marsh area in central Durango, as well as a swampy region all along the coast to the north.

18. The second section of the "Classic of the Eastern Mountains" thus gives the entire distance along the seventeen mountains, from KUNG-SANG Mountain to YIN Mountain, as six

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thousand six hundred and forty LI. Their gods all have wild beast's bodies, but human faces. They bear the KOH fish. [With a species of stag's or deer's horns they catch the KOH fishes.] When they are offered a sacrifice of living beings having hair or feathers, a fowl is used. When the people pray to them for offspring, they retire to a screened place.


Note: According to the Classics, the distance along the seventeen mountains is 2214 miles. The distance shown by these notes is 30° of latitude, or roughly 2100 miles due south, 1¼°, or 85 miles, where between Moose Mountain Provincial Park and Sioux Peak, there was a turn from south to southwest, and the Yellowstone River flowed southwest for a part of its course. A further variation came at Long's Peak down to Summit Peak where I lost about 25 miles. With these two compensations, that would add 110 miles to the 2100, this computation arrives at a distance counted as 2210 miles. After turning from southwest and the Yellowstone River, the Chinese have followed longitude 106° W. for practically the entire distance down to Mazatlan. The rich minerals that the Chinese noted from North Dakota to central Mexico, needs no explanation here—gold is in the hills. The same is true of gems, jade-stones and quartz. This entire territory is one of our richest in turquoise, jadeite, quartz, jasper, in yellow, green and blue, opals from Mexico and tourmaline, to name a few. The country over which the Chinese travelled, is the most formidable that we have on the North American continent, encompassed with difficulties at every turn. In no one place has there been mention of any hardship or struggle—meticulous notes, nothing more.

Third Section
1. The beginning of the third section of the "Eastern Classic" says that, SHI-HU Mountain on the north adjoins SIANG Mountain. Upon it there are many gems and much gold, and below it there are many thorny plants. Here there are wild beasts which look like elks, but which have fish eyes, and they are called WAN-HU (or YUEN-HU), deriving their name from their cry.

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Note: Section three starts at Mt. Fairweather in southern Alaska. On its north are the St. Elias Mountains—Mt. Hubbard, Mt. St. Elias and Mt. Logan. It lies just at the tip of Yukon Territory where "much gold" has been found. The animals may be moose, elk or reindeer.

2. And it says that going to the south by water for eight hundred LI, K’I Mountain is found (or a mountain with two peaks). Upon this there are many peach-trees and plum-trees. There are also many wild beasts and many tigers.


Note: This is the only one of the journeys in the series that covers the distance by a water route.

Travelling from Mt. Fairweather, eight hundred LI, or roughly 266 miles, south, the twin peaks of Mt. Burkett and Kates Needle stand, separated by a glacier, immediately north of Wrangell. This portion of the Alaskan coast is warmed by the waters of the Kamchatka Current so that in spite of its northern latitude, fruit trees grow there in a tempered climate, today. Scientists believe that in the early periods of the Christian era, or before 900 A.D., climatic conditions in the polar regions were far different from what they are now. They were temperate, or even warm. We know that to be true of the north Atlantic at the time of the crossing of the Norsemen. As glaciers recede in Greenland, villages are being uncovered. Rachel Carson speaks of it in her magnificent book "The Sea Around Us."


3. And it says that, going to the south by water for five hundred LI, CHU-KEU Mountain is found. There are no trees or grass here, but there are many stones, and much sand. The distance around the mountain is one hundred LI. There are many MEI (or sleeping fish) here. [These MEI fish are of excellent flavor.]


Note: South, 166 miles, is a peak (9140 ft.) due east of Prince Rupert, in British Columbia, Canada, that measures the correct distance. My map gives no name for it. The stretch of coast here is bleak.

4. And it says that, going south by water for seven hundred LI, Middle FU Mountain is found. Here there are no trees or grass, but there is much sand.


Note: Towering Mt. Waddington (13,260 ft.), 233 miles

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south, stands snow-capped just inside Queen Charlotte Strait.

5. And it says that, going to the east by water for one thousand LI, HU-SHE Mountain is found. Here there are no trees or grass, but there are many stones and much sand.


Note: This is the only point where directions turn "east" from the normal "south," and, due to the change, it furnished the clue to locating the third section. The turn east for a distance of 330 miles follows Vancouver Island, the one spot on the northwest coast that one can go 330 miles east by water. The mountain at the other end of the 330 miles, is Mt. Olympus, on the tip of Cape Flattery, dominating the scene around Seattle.

6. And it says that, going to the south by water for seven hundred LI, MANG-TSZ’ (the Eldest Child) Mountain is found. Here there are many trees; japonicas and T’ONG trees, and also many peach-trees and plum-trees. In the grass there are many mushroom-rushes (or mushrooms and rushes, or KIUN rushes). [These are not fully described. They are called KW’UN.] They have wild beasts, and many elks and deers. The distance around the mountain is one hundred LI. Upon it there is a flowing stream called PIH-YANG (or the river of Clear Jade-stone). In this there are many sturgeons and mud-sturgeons. [These mud-sturgeons are a species of eel. They resemble sturgeons, but have a long body like an eel. One authority says that they are a species of herring.]


Note: South, again by water for 233 miles, is Mt. Hood. The Chinese evidently went a short distance up the Columbia River to get a better view of one of our most beautiful peaks—they note a great many fruit trees, trees, mushrooms and rushes. The area as we know it is one of great fertility, centering around the rose-bowered city of Portland. Trees would be there in greatest profusion—giant firs of every variety. Mt. Hood is probably thirty miles around its base as the travellers say. The river is the Columbia in which there are many fish and those that the translator thought might be some kind of sturgeon are, as we know, salmon, for which the Columbia is famous. Large animals, likewise, are in the area in abundance.

7. And going south by water for five hundred LI, and over shifting sand for five hundred LI, a mountain is reached which

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is called K’I-CHUNG Mountain, the distance around which is two hundred LI. There is no grass and there are no trees here, but there are great serpents, and upon the mountain there are many precious stones. It has a body of water, the distance around which is forty LI, all bubbling up and running off. [Now, to the east of the Yellow River is the FAN River, and in the YIN (Dark) District it has the FUN River's Spring (or source). In this place the water rushes out, overflowing, bubbling up, and running rapidly. It is deep and can not be restrained. This is of the same class as the water above referred to.] This is called SHAN-TSEH (or the Deep Marsh). In it there are great tortoises. [They have beaks like the common tortoise, the tortoise being a great turtle; the shell has variegated marks, like those of the precious tortoise-shell, but it is thinner.] Here there are fish (or water animals) which look like carp, which have six feet and a bird's tail. These are called KOH-KOH fish, deriving this name from an imitation of their cry.


Note: Travelling south for 166 miles by water and thence over shifting sand for another 166 miles, the Chinese came to Mt. Shasta. From the mouth of the Columbia to Winchester Bay, in Oregon, is exactly 160 miles and, overland from Winchester Bay to Mt. Shasta, is about 170 miles. The distance around the base of Mt. Shasta, one of our greatest peaks, is probably close to the sixty mile estimate of the pedestrian Chinese. In the area that they covered on foot, "over shifting sand," they evidently took a side excursion to see the sights at Klamath Falls, passing Upper Klamath Lake. The Falls have been described as a place where the water "rushes out, overflowing, bubbling up and running rapidly." "It is deep and cannot be restrained." How true. Upper Klamath Lake is the body of water, the distance around which was said to be about twelve miles although today the distance around the lake is considerably greater. Spectacular Klamath Falls and Mt. Shasta are two of our "show places"—they impressed the Chinese tourists.

8. And it says that, going to the south by water for eight hundred LI, MEI-YU Mountain [or MIN-TSZ’] Mountain is reached. Upon this there are many trees and much grass, and

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an abundance of gold and gems, and also much ocher. Here there are wild beasts which look like little cattle, but which have horse's tails, and which are called TSING-TSING, deriving their name from an imitation of their cry.


Note: After leaving Mt. Shasta, and going due west to the coast, coming out just to the south of Klamath, California, 266 miles south would have brought the Chinese to Los Gatos Peak, on the south side of San Francisco Bay. The "abundance of gold" was amply proved by the ’49ers during the "Gold Rush." The "wild beasts which look like little cattle," are most probably the small seals in San Francisco Bay, which, in color, are like cattle.

9. And going to the south by water for five hundred LI, and over shifting sand for three hundred LI, WU-KAO (or Not Lofty) Mountain is reached. Here the YIU (Young) Sea may be seen. [This is now called the "Little Sea."] To the east the FU-tree may be seen [or FU-SANG] . There is no grass and there are no trees here, and much wind is found upon the mountain. The distance around it is a hundred LI.


Note: South by water for 166 miles and then overland for 100 miles, the Chinese travelled from San Francisco Bay by water to Morro Bay, 166 miles, and thence overland to the peak directly in back of Santa Barbara, for 100 miles. They stood on the peak, facing south, and saw Santa Barbara Channel—the Yiu Sea. Here comes the most amazing statement of the entire record—"To the east the FU-tree may be seen [or Fu-sang] ." This instant document was written in the time of Yu, 2250 B.C., 2700 years before the time of Hwui Shan. At that early date, the Chinese had identified "Fu-sang." This is within 30 miles of the identical spot where I had previously calculated that Hwui Shan landed, at Point Hueneme, and from which place he journeyed east to the Kingdom of Women. As stated earlier, corn has been taken from excavations in this area, which, by the carbon-14 process, has been dated as being 4000 years old. The Chinese of 2200 B.C. named the tree Fu or Fu-Sang, and it was recognized at that time. Chinese literature, antedating Hwui Shan by more than a thousand years, makes frequent reference to "Fu-sang."

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[paragraph continues] Hwui Shan, without question, studied these ancient records and knew precisely where he was going before he started out—he came within 30 miles of the spot, identified in Yu's record, as being "Fu-sang" and Hwui Shan himself identified that place as being "Fu-sang." This statement on the part of Yu, appears to be the most highly significant identification in linking a definite point located 4000 years ago with Hwui Shan's description of 500 A.D., in Kuen 327. "To the east grows the FU-tree"—and it did.

10. The third section of the "Eastern Classic" thus gives the entire distance along the nine mountains, from SHI-HU Mountain to WU-KAO Mountain, as six thousand eight hundred LI. Their gods all have human bodies and sheep's horns. When a sacrifice is offered to them, a ram is used. They use millet for food. When these gods are seen, then wind, rain, and floods cause ruin.


Note: Section three gives the entire mileage from Mt. Fairweather, in Alaska, to Santa Barbara, California, as roughly 2260 miles. My calculations show 2100 miles—the variant, I believe, comes about in the area from Mt. Hood to Mt. Shasta, where the editor of the document, in China, has taken a straight line due south overlooking the journey of 166 miles over "shifting sand" which departed from an absolute due south direction. Given that 166 miles "over shifting sand" stretched out to the south instead of going inland, my calculations would come to 2266 miles—or six miles over the Chinese figure.

Again, there is a description of the Katchina—human bodies and sheep's horns—and that in 2250 B.C., identified with the prayer for rain.


Fourth Section
1. The beginning of the fourth section of the "Eastern Classic" says that the Northern HAO Mountain slopes down to the North Sea. It has trees which look like Aspens, but which have red flowers. The fruit is like the jujube, but it has no pit. It tastes sour, but delicious. It is eaten without causing any ill results. The Stull River (or drinkable water) is found here, a

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stream that flows northeasterly into the sea. Here there are wild animals which look like wolves, but which have red heads and rat's eyes. Their voices sound like those of sucking pigs, and they are called HIEH-TSU. They eat men. There are birds here which look like domestic fowls, but have white heads, rat's legs, and tiger's claws. They are called KWEI [or K’I] birds, and they eat men.


Note: The last section of the Fourth Book starts at the "North Sea." The Strait of Juan de Fuca enters to the south of Vancouver Island and would be the only place on the Pacific coast where a large body of water is north of any land for an extended way. Mt. Rainier—Hao Mountain—slopes down to it. The Shih River is either the White River, which flows northeast for about fifteen miles before turning north and then west, emptying into Puget Sound, or it is the American, which also flows northeast from Rainier into the Naches, a tributary of the Yakima and the Columbia—and then to the sea. The white headed birds, the size of domestic fowl, having tiger's claws, that eat men, may in all probability be the bald eagle, which is common in the northwest.

2. And it says that, three hundred LI to the south, MAO Mountain is found. Here there are no trees and no grass. The TS’ANG-T’I River is found here, a stream flowing westerly into the CHEN River (or a large body of water). In this there are many SIU fish. [These are shrimps, or the eels indicated by the character TS’IU, and possibly the character SIU was then pronounced the same as TS’IU.] These look like the carp, but have a larger head. Those who eat them have no swellings.


Note: 100 miles due south of Mt. Rainier, stands one of our most majestic peaks—Mt. Hood. The mountain is snowcapped and the tree-line is low. The small stream flowing westerly from Mt. Hood enters the Columbia near Gresham. The Columbia is the large river containing many fish that look like carp but have a larger head—again, they are salmon.

3. And it says that, three hundred and twenty LI to the south, the Eastern SHI Mountain is found. Upon this there are many green gems. Here there are trees which look like aspens, but which have red veins. Their sap is like blood, and they have no

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Book 4 Sec. 4



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fruit. These are called K’I. They can break horses by its use [i.e., by rubbing them with this sap, horses become tame and gentle.] Clear River is found here, a stream flowing northeasterly into the sea. In this there are many delicious cowries and many cuttle-fish. These look like a goby, and have only one head with ten bodies. They smell like sedge-grass or a jungle. Those who eat them have no asthma. [It says that they cure the disease which consists of a difficulty in breathing.]


Note: Bachelor Butte, in central Oregon, stands 100 miles due south of Mt. Hood. From it, Squaw River flows northeasterly into the Deschutes, the Columbia, and to the sea. The fish with ten bodies, in this instance, may be a small octopus.

4. And it says that, three hundred LI to the southeast, NU-CHING Mountain is found. Upon this there are no trees, grass, or stones. KAO (Rich, Fertilizing) River is found here, a stream flowing westerly into LIH (Cauldron) River. In this there are many thin fish which look like herring, but have only one eye. Their voice sounds like vomiting [i.e., like the sound of a man retching and vomiting]. When these are seen, then heaven sends down a great draught.


Note: Turning now to the southeast, we find Gearhart Mountain from which the Sprague River flows westerly into Upper Klamath Lake. The churning of the waters around Klamath Falls, may be the reason for the identification by the Chinese of a "cauldron." The "one-eyed" fish, I am unable to identify—it may be a "whimsy" or it may be some water animal that suggested itself to the Chinese as having one eye.

5. And it says that, two hundred LI to the southeast, the KIN (Imperial or Majestic) Mountain is found. Here there are many gems and much gold, but no stones. The SHI River is found there, a stream flowing northerly into KAO Marsh. In this there are many eels and cowrie-shells. Here there are wild animals which look like sucking pigs, but which have tusks. These are called TANG-K’ANG, deriving their name from their cry. When these are seen, then heaven causes the earth to produce much grain.


Note: Continuing in a southeasterly direction, the Chinese came to Crane Mountain, the majestic peak. Crane Mountain

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has a stream flowing westerly into a marsh—the entire area around is a swamp and marsh. The animals with tusks are probably small boar or peccary which 4000 years ago may have been in that region.

6. And it says that, two hundred LI to the southeast, TSZ’-T’UNG Mountain is found. TSZ’-T’UNG River is found here, a stream flowing westerly into YU-JU Marsh. In this there are many HWAH fish. These look like fish, but have bird's wings. They go out and in. They are bright. Their voices sound like those of the YUEN-YANG. When these are seen, then heaven sends down a great drought.


Note: Mahogany Peak, Nevada, fits the Chinese description. It has a small stream flowing west into a marshy area. This northwest section of Nevada is marsh and small lakes; it is a great feeding ground for water-fowl. The animal identified as a fish with wings, that go in and out of the water, may be a variety of duck or other water-fowl which abounds in the region.

7. And it, says that, two hundred LI to the northeast, YEN (Sharp-pointed) Mountain is found. Here there are many precious stones and much gold. There are also wild beasts which look like swine, but which have men's faces and yellow bodies, but red tails. These are called HOH-YU. Their voices sound like that of an infant child. These wild animals eat men, and eat vermin and serpents. When these are seen, then heaven sends down great rains.


Note: Again the direction turned, this time to the northeast. Approximately 66 miles northeast from Mahogany Peak are two peaks, either one of which could fit the specifications Split Peak and Trident Peak both between 60 and 70 miles away. Trident, being some 1000 feet higher, is probably the one noted. No river or stream is mentioned as flowing from the peak and no major one was found. The Chinese note the presence of many precious stones and much gold. One of the most unusual gem deposits in the world is the opalized forest of Virgin Valley in northwestern Nevada, through which region the Chinese have just taken us. One of the largest known opals, 533 grams, a black opal with flashes of yellow, red,

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green and blue came from this specific region and is now housed in the collection of the National Museum.

8. And it says that, two hundred LI to the east, T’AI (Immense) Mountain is found. Upon it there are many precious stones and much gold, and there are also many wax-trees. [These wax-trees do not shed their leaves in winter.] Here there are many wild animals which look like cattle, but which have a white head, one eye, and a serpent's tail. They are called FEI. When they go upon the water, they dry it up, and when they go upon the grass, they kill it. When these are seen, then heaven sends down a great pestilence. [It says that its body is full of a poisonous principle. The book called "K’I-KIN" says that it is a locust or cricket called K’IUNG. Its body looks harmless, but it causes the veins to wither and dry up, being more poisonous than the CHAN. All creatures fear it, and wish to keep at a great distance from it.] The KEU River is found here, a stream flowing northerly into LAO River. In this are many fish.


Note: Travelling due east from Trident for 70 miles, we find Capitol Peak, at the northeast end of the Santa Rosa Mountains—at the head of Paradise Valley. My map indicates hot springs in the valley, as well as mines in the general region—Getchell mine is about 50 miles distant. This whole territory is rich in precious stones and valuable minerals, as is well known. Trees would undoubtedly be green in the protected valley with hot springs not far away. A botanist would be able to identify the tree and whether it now grows there or whether 4000 years ago it did—some of these trees may be like the ginko, which grew over considerable territory, anciently, but does not grow here today. The river flowing northerly into the Lao River, is the Little Owyhee which flows north from Capitol Peak into the Owyhee, a tributary of the Snake and the Columbia.

9. The fourth section of the "Eastern Classic" thus gives the entire distance along the eight mountains, from HAO Mountain to TAI Mountain, as one thousand seven hundred and twenty LI.


Note: This fourth section has been calculated by the Chinese to be 1720 LI, or 573 miles. From peak to peak, my pair of dividers came out exactly 570 miles—or a three mile variation

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from the ancient Chinese. Since this section is relatively short, and further, that it terminates in the middle of a mountain range with no way out, it is reasonable to assume that what we have is merely the first few pages of someone's little bamboo note book—the remainder has been lost.

10. The above record of the "Classic of the Eastern Mountains" thus gives the distance along these forty-six mountains as eighteen thousand eight hundred and sixty LI.


Note: In compiling the entire record, back in China, it is evident that whoever did the job went on the assumption that each single section of the Fourth Book followed in sequence, south from the one that preceded it—one man started where another man left off. On reading the notes, it is apparent that that could hardly have been the case.



In this Fourth Book of the Classic of the Eastern Mountains, compiled, according to the Chinese in 2250 B.C., we have set forth the translation as it was found. We faithfully followed directions, as promised at the start, and in every instance, where we were told to go south 100 miles, we went south 100 miles—where we were directed to go by water, even in the interior, we went by water. Every mountain was found where the Chinese said it would be found—all rivers with the exception of two in the desert area, were found and found to flow in the proper direction. In two sections, I got lost in the tortuous mountain passes and came out short on mileage. I do not overlook the fact that errors are bound to be present—they are inescapable.

On this Chinese "Cook's Tour," we thrilled with them at the sight of the golden aspen trees in Colorado; trekked across the Great Sand Dunes National Monument; saw the wild life in Canada and the pearly mussels in the Musselshell River; picked up black opals and a few nuggets in northern Nevada and turquoise in New Mexico; took a side excursion to see Klamath Falls and Mt. Shasta; watched the seals sporting on the rocks in San Francisco Bay; enjoyed eating the Columbia River salmon; were amused by the ’possum pretending to sleep; and finally came to the place where the FU-tree grew—just where Hwui Shan had said it did—2700 years later.

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On each one of these four journeys, the most outstanding characteristic of the region, as we know it, was the thing noted by the Chinese—and many of them we have set aside as National Parks.

This is the mile by mile record that the ancient Chinese kept in their bamboo note-books.


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Footnotes
110:1 The information contained within the square brackets is a part of the Chinese text as it appears in the Classics. The notes were put there by a scholar at an early date who no doubt was trying to locate the mountains and rivers in China. Information within the parenthesis is a contribution of the translator from Chinese to English.

CHAPTER XIV
The Great American Desert
The Ninth Book and the Fourteenth Book of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the two additional books found in translation, bear the sub-titles—"In Regard to the Regions Beyond the Sea, from its Southeast Corner to its Northeast Corner" and "The Classic of the Great Eastern Waste."

These two books do not follow the pattern set down in Book Four. In neither of these two has mileage been given. In Book Nine, thirteen notes have been given and in Book Fourteen, nineteen isolated descriptions—each one of which appears to have been recorded by a different person. All but the last item relate to the "Great Eastern Waste" and have been lumped together in one book, probably to keep the scattered notes of like areas in a separate book for ready reference. In the original Chinese, none of the paragraphs in any of the books are numbered—numbers were placed there by the translator, about 1880, as a matter of convenience. In one early edition, I found that two of the paragraphs had been transposed—whether this is the correct one or the other is correct, I do not know.

The Ninth Book and the Fourteenth Book are being considered together since, from the translation, it will be seen that they relate to territory surrounding the Grand Canyon. Notes will not be made after each paragraph, as was done in the preceding chapter, but comment on both books will follow the second translation.

THE CLASSIC OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS
Ninth Book
THE CLASSIC OF THE REGIONS BEYOND THE EASTERN SEA.
IN REGARD TO THE REGIONS BEYOND THE SEA, FROM ITS
SOUTHEAST CORNER TO ITS NORTHEAST CORNER.
1. The CHA Hill. [Pronounced CHA or perhaps FAH.] It is said that this country produces I gems, green horses, SHI-JUH,

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common willows, delicious cherries, sweet flowers, and excellent fruits. It is in the Eastern Sea between two mountains. Upon the hill there are lofty trees. One authority says that its name is CHA-KIU, and one says that the Country of a Hundred Fruits lies east of YAO'S burial-place.

2. The Great Men's Country is north of this. Because the men are great they sit and seize passing boats. One authority says that this country is north of CHA-KIU.

3. SHE-PI'S Body is north of this. [This is the name of a god.] He has a wild animal's body and a man's face. He has large ears, and for ear-ornaments, has two green serpents [i.e., he has ear-ornaments like serpents strung in his ears.] One authority says that KAN-YU'S Body lies north of the Great Men's Country.

4. The Country of Refined Gentlemen lies north of this. They have clothing, caps, sashes and swords. They eat wild beasts, and have two great tigers, one on each side. They are very gentle, and do not quarrel. They have fragrant plants. [Perhaps "clay" should be read instead of "fragrant plants."] They have a flowering-plant which produces blossoms in the morning which die in the evening. One authority says that it is north of KAN-YU'S Body.

5. HUNG-HUNG lies north of this. They all have two heads. [The name is pronounced the same as that of the character HUNG, which means the rainbow.] One authority says that it is north of the Country of the Refined Gentlemen.

6. The god of the Valley of the Manifestation of the Dawn (CHAO-YANG) is called TIEN-WU. He is the god of the water. He dwells north of HUNG-HUNG, between two bodies of water. When he appears as a wild animal he has eight heads with human faces, eight legs, and eight tails, and is all green and yellow. [The "Classic of the Great Eastern Waste" says he has ten tails.]

7. The Green Hills Country is situated north of this. [The people eat all kinds of grain, and have silken clothing.] Here there are foxes with four legs and eight tails. One authority says that it is situated north of the "Manifestation of the Dawn."

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[paragraph continues] [KIH-KIUN'S "Bamboo Book" says that P’OH-SHU-TSZ’ went on a military expedition in the eastern sea for fully three years, and found a fox with nine tails, which, perhaps, was a species of the fox above described.]

8. The sovereign ordered SHU-HAI to walk from the farthest limit of the East to the farthest limit of the West, five hundred thousand and ten times ten thousand paces [SHU-HAI was a dauntless traveler] and nine thousand eight hundred paces. SHU-HAI grasped an abacus in his right hand and with his left hand he pointed to the north of the Beautiful Green Hills. One authority says that it was the emperor YU who commanded SHU-HAI; one says that the distance was five hundred thousand, ten times ten thousand, nine thousand and eight hundred paces. [The poem TS’ANG-SHAN-WU says that heaven and earth, from east to west, are three hundred and thirty three thousand LI, and from south to north, two hundred and one thousand five hundred LI. To inspect heaven and earth, go one hundred and fifty thousand LI.]

9. The Black-Teeth Country lies north of this. [The "History of the Eastern Barbarians" says that forty LI and east of Japan there is a country called the Naked People's Country, and that southeast of this lies the Black Teeth Country. A ship can reach it by sailing for one year. The "Account of Strange Things" says that the Western Butchers dye their teeth and are like these people.] The people are black, and eat rice. They also eat serpents, some red and some green. [One authority mentions only the green serpents.] It is very great. One authority says that it is north of (the country of) SHU-HAI, and has people with black hands who eat rice, and who use serpents, one serpent being red. Below it is the Warm Springs (T’ANG) Ravine. [In the ravine there is hot water.] Above Warm Springs Ravine is FU-SANG [i.e., the FU-SANG tree, or the useful mulberry-tree.] The place where the ten suns bathe lies north of the Black-Teeth (Country). In the water there is a large tree having nine suns in its lower branches and one sun in its upper branches. [CHWANG-CHEU says that formerly these ten suns rose all together, and the grass and trees were burned and

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withered. HWAI-NAN-TZ’ says that (the emperor) YAO then commanded (the prince) I to shoot nine of the ten suns, and the bird in the suns, until dead. The "Dissipation of Sorrows" says in reference to it that I brought the sun-bird to an end, and that it dropped some of its feathers, and that I took them home and kept them. The CHING-MU Classic says that formerly this I shot skillfully, and brought these ten suns to an end. KIH-KIUN'S "Bamboo Book" says that when YIN-KIAH ascended to the throne and dwelt at SI-HO there were strange prodigies. Ten suns rose and shone together. This is a wonder of nature, but there is proof of it. Tradition says that there were ten suns in the sky, the number of suns being ten. This account says that nine of the suns dwell in the lower branches and one sun in the upper branches. The "Classic of the Great Waste" says that when one sun sets, another sun rises and lights heaven and earth, and, although there are ten suns, they rise alternately, and so revolve and shine; but at the time referred to they all rose together, and so heaven sent down supernatural calamities. Therefore I, having asked for YAO'S instructions, and thoroughly understanding his heart's desire, looked up to heaven, and pulled the bowstring, and nine suns retired and concealed themselves. . .. If we examine into this in a common-sense way we find that it is not reasonable, but if we investigate the principles of destiny we find that nothing is impossible. You, who stand by and see ought to try and comprehend this mystery. Those things which relate to the mysterious and obscure are hard to understand, but nevertheless they go on their course without obstruction.] YU-SHI'S Concubine dwells north of this. [YU-SHI is the same as P’ING-I, the God of Rain.] He, as a man, is black, and in each of his hands he holds a serpent. In his left ear there is a green serpent, and in his right ear a red serpent. One authority says that he dwells north of (the country of) the Ten Suns, that as a man he has a black body and a human face, and that each (hand) holds a tortoise.

10. The Black-Hip Country lies north of this. [So called because the people are all black below the waist.] These people

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make clothing from water animals or fish—[i.e., they make clothing from the skins of fish—or water animals.] They eat gulls. [Gulls are water birds. Their name is pronounced YIU.] They use two birds, carrying them in their arms. One authority says that this lies north of YU-SHI'S Concubine.

11. The Hairy People's Country lies north of this, and has people upon whose bodies hair grows. [At the present time, by leaving the region of the LIN Sea, and going two thousand LI to the southeast, the place of residence of the hairy people is found upon the Great LOH Island.] Upon this island there are people with short, small faces, and with their bodies entirely covered with hair, like a hog or a moose. They live in caves, and have no clothing or garments. [In the reign of the TS’IN dynasty in the fourth year of the period distinguished by the appellation YUNG-KAI (or "Perpetual Excellence"—i.e., in the year 310 A.D.) an officer named TAI, having charge of the salt at WU-KIEN, found upon the sea-shore a boat containing men and women, four people in all. These all looked alike and spoke a language which was not intelligible. They were sent to the prime-minister's palace, but before they had reached it they all died on the way, except only one. The ruler gave him a wife, who bore children to him. Going to and coming from the market and wells, he advanced slowly in acquiring the language. His native place was the Hairy People's Country. The "Classic of the Great Waste" says that the Hairy Tribe eat a species of millet for food.] One authority says that this country is north of the Black-Hip Country.

12. The Distressed (LAO) People's Country lies north of this. It has people who are black [and who for food eat the fruits of trees and plants; they have a bird with two heads.] Perhaps the name should be read "the KIAO People," instead of the Distressed (or LAO) People. One authority says that it lies north of the Hairy People, and has people having their faces, eyes, hands, and feet entirely black.

13. The K’EU-WANG of the Eastern Regions has a bird's body, a human face, and he rides upon two dragons. [He is the God of Wood, and has a square face, and wears plain apparel.

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[paragraph continues] MOH-TSZ’ says that formerly, in the TS’IN dynasty, MUH-KUNG was of illustrious virtue. The Supreme Ruler caused K’EU-WANG to lengthen his life by nineteen years.]



THE CLASSIC OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS
Fourteenth Book
THE CLASSIC OF THE GREAT EASTERN WASTE
1. The Great Canyon beyond the Eastern Sea [the poem called TS’ANG-SHAN-WU says that in the east there is a stream flowing in a bottomless ravine. It is supposed to be this canyon. The "Dissipation of Sorrows" calls it KIANG-SHAN'S Great Canyon] is SHAO-HAO'S Country. [The emperor SHAO-HAO, of the "Golden Heaven" family, gave it this designation.] SHAO-HAO'S Descendant, the emperor CHWEN-SUH [of whom no further description is given], left there his lute and lyre. [It says that his lute and lyre are in this canyon.] It has a beautiful mountain, from which there flows a delightful spring, producing a charming gulf. [The water accumulates and so forms a gulf.]

2. In the southeastern corner of the Great Eastern Waste there is a mountain called the PI-MU-TI Hill.

3. In the Great Waste beyond the Eastern Sea there is a mountain which by hyperbole is called "the Place where the Sun and Moon Rise." It has rolling valleys and mountains. This is the Great Men's Country. [In the reign of the TS’IN dynasty, in the second year of the period distinguished by the designation YUNG-KIA "Perpetual Excellence," (i.e., in 308 A.D.), there were ducks collected in NGAO-PO, twenty LI south of the district of SHI-NGAN. A man by the name of CHEU-FU-CHANG picked up a wooden arrow with an iron point, which was six feet and a half long. Reckoning from the length of the arrow, the shooter must have been a rod and five or six feet tall. The Coreans say that formerly some people from the kingdom of Japan, who encountered bad weather upon a voyage,

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were blown across the "Great Sea," and beyond it they discovered a country where the people were all a rod tall and moreover, in their form and appearance, they looked like Mongols. They were tall savages of a foreign tribe. The arrow came from this country. The WAI-CHWEN says that the shortest of the Scorched Pigmy People were only three feet high, and the tallest of these did not exceed ten rods. In HO-TU'S "Album of Gems" it is said that ninety thousand LI north of the KWUN-LUN (Range of Mountains) the LUNG-POH Country is found, where the people are thirty rods tall, and live for eighteen thousand years, but then they die. East of the KWUN-LUN (Mountains) TA-TSIN is found. The people are ten rods tall, and all wear plain garments. Ten times ten thousand LI to the east the country of the T’IAO People is found. They are thirty rods and five feet tall. East of this, ten times ten thousand LI, is the central TSIN Country, whose people are one rod tall. The KUH-LIANG History says that the body of a tall savage, measured crosswise, covered nine Chinese acres. When riding, his head and shoulders reached above the crossbar of the chariot. This man must therefore have been several rods tall. In the time of the TS’IN dynasty a giant was seen in LIN-T’AO who was five rods tall, and his foot-prints were six feet long. If the above accounts can be considered to be true, then there is no limit to the height of these tall men.] It has the Great Men's Market, which is called the "Great Men's Mansion." [This is a mountain which is so named because of its resemblance to a large mansion. The Great Men collect near it at market-times, and hold a market upon and about it.] It has a great man crouching upon both of its sides. [Perhaps the character translated "crouching" formerly meant "sitting erect." CHWANG-TSZ’ says that he sat in HWUI-K’IAL.] It has a country of "Little People" who are called the TSING People. [The poem called TS’ANG-SHAN-WU says that the farthest region to the northeast is inhabited by people who are only nine inches tall.] Its god has a human face and a wild beast's body, and he is called LI-LING'S Body.

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4. There is also a mountain named KUEH, from which the Aspen River flows.

5. There is also a Country of Plants, where millet is used for food. [It says that millet grows in this country. The name of the country is pronounced WEI.] They employ (or have) four (species of) birds (i.e., they have numerous varieties of birds); also tigers, panthers, brown bears and grizzly bears.

6. In the Great Waste there is a mountain called HOH-HU. It is the place where the sun and moon rise. It has CHUNG-YUNG'S Country. TI-TSUN (or the emperor TSUN) begat CHUNG-YUNG. The people of CHUNG-YUNG eat wild beasts and the fruits of trees. [In this country there are red trees with dark wood, which have delicious flowers and fruit. See LU-SHI'S edition of the work of Confucius called "Spring and Autumn."] They use four birds (i.e., they have numerous species of birds), and also panthers, tigers, brown bears and grizzly bears.

7. There is also the Mountain of the Eastern Pass, and here is the "Country of Refined Gentlemen." These, people have clothing, caps, sashes and swords. [They have tigers and panthers, which are gentle and give way.] Here is the Country of Presiding Spirits. TI-TSUN begat YEN-LUNG who begat the Presiding Spirits. The Presiding Spirits have off-spring, but the pure-minded male has no wife, and the pure-minded female has no husband. [It says that these people are pure in their thoughts, and are not affected by passion, and do not mate, but that they conceive children with all purity, like white doves looking steadfastly into each other's eyes, each being affected by the purity of the other.] They eat millet and wild beasts, and have numerous varieties of birds. Here is TA-O Mountain (or the Mountain of the Great Ridge).

8. In the Great Waste there is a mountain named MING-SING (or the Bright Star). It is the place where the sun and moon rise.

9. There is also the White People's Country. TI-TSUN begat TI-HUNG, who begat the White People. The White People have no surnames. They eat millet, and have numerous varieties of birds, as well as tigers, panthers, brown bears and grizzly

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bears. [And they have teams of yellow wild beasts, which they drive, using them in order to reach a great age.]

10. There is also the Green Hills Country. Here there are foxes with nine tails. [When they are very little disturbed they come out (of their holes), and this is considered a very good omen.] It has the JEU-PUH (or Courteous Vassal) Country. They live in a country of luxuriant land. [It is as luxuriant as if irrigated. The name is pronounced YING.] It has the country of Black Teeth. [Their teeth are like lacquer.] TI-SUN begat the Black Teeth. [As the teachings and examples of the sage do not reach all regions, therefore in after ages his descendants differ in their pursuits and outward appearance. Every one says that those who are now living are his descendants; but they surely can not be posterity which he himself begat.] The KIANG tribe eat millet for food, and have numerous varieties of birds. Here is also the HIA-CHEU (Summer Island) Country. Here is also the KAI-YU Country. It has a god with eight heads with human faces, a tiger's body, and ten tails. He is called T’IEN-WU. [He is the God of the Water.]

11. In the Great Waste there is a mountain called KUH-LING-YU-T’IEN. It is at the farthest limit of the east with LI and MEU. [These are the names of three mountains.] At the place where the sun and moon rise [there is a god] called CHEH-TAN. In the Eastern Region he is called CHEH. The "coming wind" is called CHAN. [It is not fully described where the Place of the Coming Wind is situated.] He dwells at the farthest limit of the east, and produces the eight winds. [It says that this man is able to regulate the proper times for the winds to come forth and return.]

I2. In an island of the Eastern Sea there is a god with a human face and a bird's body, having two yellow serpents for ear-ornaments. [These serpents are passed through his ears.] He treads upon two yellow serpents, and is called Yu-KWOH. HWANG-TI begat YU-KWOH, and YU-KWOH begat YU-KING. [YU-KING is the same as YU-KIANG.] YU-KING dwells in the North Sea, and Yu-KWOH dwells in the Eastern Sea. They are sea-gods. [They are each called the god of that particular sea over

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which they rule. One original authority reads HAO instead of KWOH.]

13. There is also the CHAO-YAO (Quaking) Mountain, where the YUNG (Melting) River flows. Here there is a country called the Black-Hip Country. [From the hips down they are black like lacquer.] They have millet for food, and have numerous varieties of birds. Here is also the country of the KW’UN (Needy) People, whose surname is KEU, who eat birds. Some say that King HAI held a bird in his two hands, and, when he had eaten its head, King HAI sent it to YIU-I, HO-POH, and PUH-NIU [HO-PO and PUH-NIU are both names and surnames—see KIH-KIUN'S "Bamboo Book."] YIU-I slew King HAI, and captured PUH-NIU. [The "Bamboo Book" says that HAI, the son of the emperor YIN, went as a visitor to the house of YIU-I, and committed adultery there. Therefore YIU-I'S sovereign, MIN-CH’AN, slew him, and thus made an example of him. Therefore the emperor YIN-KIEH-CHING borrowed troops of HO-POH, with which to punish YIU-I, overthrow his country, and slay his sovereign MIN-CH’AN.] Ho pitied YIU-I, and allowed him to leave the country secretly, and go to a region of wild beasts; and because he ate the wild beasts, he was called a YAO man. [YIU-I was originally a friend of HO-POH, and a good scholar; but because KIEH-CHING, who was then the emperor of the YING Country, had a good and rightful reason for borrowing troops to punish crime, HO-POH could not do otherwise than help to overthrow his country. It was because he pitied YIU-I that he allowed him to leave the country secretly. After he had left he became a YAO man.] The sovereign SHUN begat HI, and HI begat the YAO (Quaking) People. In the sea there are two people. [These are the people to whom YIU-I went.] They are called NU-CHEU. [They are the same as NU-CHEU'S Body. There is no certainty as to the time when, or the kind of being into which, she (NU-CHEU'S Body) may be metamorphosed; for at one time she walks on water, and at another she vanishes into earth. There is no place she could not reach if she desired to reach it. We hear also that the ways of the class

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of FAN-LIS are similar to those of NU-CHEU'S Body.] NU-CHEU has great crabs. The breadth is ten LI.

14. In the Great Waste there is a mountain called YEH-YAO-KIUN-TI. Upon it is the FU-tree, having a trunk of three hundred LI. Its leaves are like mustard. [It resembles a pillar rising to a great height, and its leaves are like mustard greens.] It has a valley called the Warm Springs Valley. Above the Warm Springs Valley is the FU-tree [i.e., FU-SANG lies above]. When one sun sets another sun rises. [It says that they alternate with each other.] They all contain a bird. [In them there is a two-footed bird.] Here there is a god with a human face, dog's ears, and a wild beast's body. For ear-ornaments he has two green serpents. He is called SHE-PI'S Body. They have birds variegated with all colors. TI-TSUN condescended to be their friend. Ti descended two high terraces (for worship) which were ruled by the variegated birds. [It says that below the mountain were SHUN'S two high terraces for worship, and that the variegated birds ruled over them.]

15. And in the Great Waste there is a mountain called I-T’IEN-SU-MAN. It is the place where the sun and moon were born, and here is the HUEN (a pipe, a musical instrument) People's Country. Here is also the K’I (Dark Gray) Mountain, the YAO (Quaking) Mountain, the TSANG Mountain, the MAN-HU (or Household) Mountain, the SHING (Fertile) Mountain, and the TAI Mountain. Here there are variegated birds.

16. In the Eastern Waste there is a mountain called HOH-MING-TSUN-TSIH. This is the place where the sun and moon rise. There is also the KIH-YUNG Country, northeast beyond the sea. They had three blue (or green) horses, and three horses that were black with white spots, sweet flowers, YUEN-YI, I gems, three green (or blue) horses, and three black horses with white spots like eyes on their flesh, sweet flowers, delicious cherries, and numerous varieties of grain in this place. [It says that these are produced spontaneously.]

17. There is also the country of NU-HWO-YUEH-MU, having a man called YUEN. In the northern regions they say that YUEN,

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who brings them the wind, is called YEN. [It says that he has these two names.] He dwelt at the extreme eastern corner, for the sun and moon dwelt there. They did not have a uniform time for rising and setting, and he controlled them as to whether the time should be short or long. [It says that YUEN had the management of the observations of the rising and setting of the sun and moon. He did not let them run out of order, and he knew the length of the days.]

18. In the northeast corner of the Great Waste there is a mountain called HIUNG-LI-TI Hill. The YING Dragon dwells at its extreme southern limit. [The YING Dragon is a dragon having wings.] He killed CH’I-YIU, together with KW’A-FU [The Ying Dragon therefore dwells below the earth.] Formerly, when below, he was the occasion of dry weather [then it did not rain above], but when the YING Dragon made his appearance there was a very great rain. [The dragon that is in heaven now was produced by the vapor ascending from the YING Dragon. This is the work of the mysterious and obscure, and man is not capable of accomplishing it.]

19. In the Eastern Sea is the Mountain (or Island) of the Flowing Stream, seven thousand LI distant in the sea. Upon this there are wild beasts which look like cattle, with green (blue or hoary) bodies, but they have no horns, and only one foot. When they come out of or go into the water, then there is wind and rain. They are bright like the sun and the moon, and their voice is like thunder. They are called KW-EI. The Yellow Emperor obtained them and made drums of their skins, beating them with drum-sticks made from the bones of wild beasts. [The Thunderbeast is the God of Thunder. He has a man's face and a dragon's body. He drums his abdomen, beating it with drum-sticks.] The sound might be heard for five hundred LI, terrifying all beneath heaven.

Note: Comments within the square brackets form a part of the document as it stands today. Some of them were placed there by a noted scholar about 368 B.C., while others were put in as late as the thirteenth century. The early Chinese who studied the record

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were trying to understand and apply the information to China—most of it has aided considerably in interpreting difficult passages.



Nature's most magnificent display of her handiwork—the Great Luminous Canyon with the little stream flowing in a bottomless ravine—outspectacles every other natural extravaganza on this earth with its brilliant yellows, vibrant oranges, deep subtle reds and in its shadows pale lavenders toning into rich, velvet blues—like a glorious sunrise or sunset. Nothing but the sun itself could have imparted such rich color—and nowhere else does it exist. To an ancient Chinese, traveling east, this great fissure must be the place where the sun was born.

Hundreds of Chinese apparently saw the Canyon—it was a "must" on their travel-adventure schedule. "I saw the place where the sun was born"—Chinese poetry and literature fairly bulges with cantos of glowing reminiscence. They called it the "Great Canyon," 4000 years ago; we call it the "Grand Canyon," today. No one could stand on the rim of the canyon and be unmoved by it. The Indians could not; the Chinese could not; and we can not.

To one familiar with the area around the Grand Canyon and due south of it, many small touches in the Chinese description will be noticeable. Pipe-organ cactus will be recognized in the HUEN People's Country, number 15, in the fourteenth Book, as well as the YAO Mountain—called, in English, "quaking" mountain. "Quaking" is one of those odd words that have a habit of sticking. Forests of Aspen trees have for years been referred to as "quaking." In two recent travel accounts, the Aspen forests on the north rim of the Canyon have been referred to as "quaking Aspen"—right on this very spot where the Chinese nickname the mountain on the rim as "Quaking Mountain."

And then the Sahuaro—erroneously called the "FU-tree"—which was said to resemble a tall pillar rising to great height, the color of mustard. The most perfect gem of all—"they all contain a bird"—describes the Sahuaro, in five words, better than

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any book. What highly imaginative comment could be more significant? Does any other tree in the whole world "contain a bird?" The Sahuaro has small holes drilled in the side, and anyone who has watched the birds dart in and out, hitting the bull's eye each time, will appreciate this Chinese description. Holes are originally made in the Sahuaro by woodpeckers and, when they leave, elf owls take over. It is an experience to watch that is never forgotten.

The "warm springs" that were noted, are probably Castle Hot Springs, just north of Phoenix. And in this area, the FU-tree grew. This identification again ties the Shan Hai King closely to the area described in Hwui Shan's story—the territory is within 100 miles.

The "archer story" in the Ninth Book, locates, without a shadow of a doubt, the place where the Chinese legend originated. It is my belief that some day it will be found that the story of the archer came from one of the Indian tribes and was told to the Chinese. They took it home as a legend of the Canyon—the Indian legend of how the Canyon was formed—a legend like that of the origin of the Snake Clan—a legend like that of Ha-ak. Indian lore is rich in legendary material. In this instance, we have the Indian trying to explain to himself how the Canyon came about and why it was so rich in the colors of the sun. It sounded plausible to the poetic soul of the Chinese and they "borrowed" it and took it home. The legend, in China, has never been understood—it has just been there always as a part of their folklore with no known beginning. This, it is submitted, is its foundation—here at our Grand Canyon.

The concluding paragraph appears to have been put into the "Classic of the Great Eastern Waste" for the want of a better place to put it. It is out of order—but it contains information found in no other place. It furnishes the necessary clue as to how the Chinese came over. Some of them, at least, came by ship following the course of the warm Kamchatka Current which is identified as the "Flowing Stream." Sailing by way of the Aleutians, and seven thousand LI, or 2300 miles, distant, they found "wild beasts" that looked like cattle, with no horns,

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that go in and out of the water, have a man's face, a dragon's body and beat their abdomen. In the Aleutians, and specifically on the Island of Amchitka, 2300 miles from the tip of Korea from where the Chinese probably sailed, is a large colony of sea otter that are a perfect match for the Chinese description. At a short distance, sea otter, with their round white faces and dark brown bodies, do look like they had human faces. When the otter eats, it lies on its back in the water, and uses its chest and abdomen as a table. Its food consists of hard-shelled mollusks which are broken by hammering on a rock which had been brought from the bottom of the depths for the purpose. "The rock rests on the otter's chest and the mollusk is held in both forepaws and brought down against the rock. The ability to balance food on the abdomen, even in rough weather is remarkable." So says the Chicago Natural History Bulletin.

This is a portion of the record, compiled by the great Yu for the Emperor Shun, which told about the mountains and the seas of the world—man's oldest known geography. The Ninth and Fourteenth Books took us to the Grand Canyon and southern Arizona; the four sections of the Fourth Book took us from the Sweetwater River in Wyoming down the crest of the Rockies to the Rio Grande in Texas; from Manitoba, again down the Continental Divide 2200 miles due south to Mazatlan; from Mt. Fairweather in Alaska by sea to Santa Barbara, with a view of Mt. Shasta and Klamath Falls; and from Mt. Rainier to Paradise Valley in the Santa Rosa range in northern Nevada. The mapped record speaks for itself.

CHAPTER XV
Conclusion
These two written records, that of Hwui Shan, fifth century Buddhist priest, and that of Yu, Minister of Public Works under Shun, both carefully safeguarded for centuries by the Chinese, have now been examined in the one case and re-examined in the other. Artifacts and other relevant material with which we compared these ancient writings, for the most part, has been of recent date—some of it authenticated by the carbon-14 process.

The earliest of the two records survived the burning of books, in 213 B.C., two condensations and many editings; the fifth century account went through at least one condensation and various editings Both records are fragmentary. No two translations from Chinese into English agree in phraseology—and some editions of the early record do not agree with each other. History of both documents has been fraught with doubt and dissention. Errors of various kinds, in my writing, are bound to be present—they could not help but be.

When the story of Fu-sang was so ably discussed in the early nineteenth century, the great expanse of territory comprising southwestern 'United States, was completely unknown—the pony express covered the ground west of Kansas City; the Louisiana Purchase took place forty years after de Guignes’ first identification of Fu-sang; New Mexico, Arizona and California were then a part of Mexico; and ’49ers travelled the long route around the Horn to California. It is not surprising, therefore, that after Klaproth's dissent, more positive proof from our southwest was not produced—we had none.

Even now, we are only in our infancy. The Mississippi basin, the highway over which the shell necklace worn by the "Minnesota Girl" of 15,000 B.C., passed, has not yet been scratched. One of the books of the Shan Hai King, by title, appears to use the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes basin as its locale. There are many things that remain in our vast country of which we know little or nothing—and of which the Chinese apparently

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knew a great deal. The story of Fu-sang and the reports within the Shan Hai King have told us about a few.

Many of the details given in Books Nine and Fourteen, have been passed over here without mention—but it is hoped that they will prove helpful to scholars in clarifying knowledge of our own pre-history of this fantastic area.

It is my belief, that from these ancient Chinese documents, we have the answers to problems that have perplexed us for years and for which we have had no solution. These two records have taught us:

That Fu-sang was no "geographical myth, figment of Buddhist imagination"—that the plant "Fu-sang" was "corn," and the country "Fu-sang" was Mexico;

That the legendary "bearded white man" was more than legend, he was real—and it was he who was indirectly responsible for the Conquest of Mexico a thousand years after he had died;

That the source of the "Flood" stories and the Biblical legends told to the Conquistadores by the Indians, came from Buddhist teaching;

That the source of the Zapoteca, Maya and Azteca calendar was Asiatic;

That the source of early Mexican writing was Chinese;

That the source of the high cultures in both Peru and Mexico of the fourth and fifth centuries—as well as the "mongolian spot" and the epicanthic eye-fold, can be attributed to Chinese explorers;

That the basis for the story of Naymlap, in the Province of Lambayeque, Peru, is true and derives from these same sources;

That the source of knowledge of weaving, ceramics, feather-work and metallurgy, together with an understanding of astronomy and mathematics came with the Buddhist priest;

That the root of the earliest Mexican religious philosophy, the dual principle, stems from the Chinese Yin and Yang, the positive and negative theory, and came with the earliest Chinese explorers, more than 4,000 years ago;

That the Folsom Point and cochineal constituted a "reverse borrowing" by the Chinese from the American continent;

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That the magnetic personality who dominated the scene and furnished the incentive as well as the motive power that stimulated this aboriginal people into rising to such unprecedented heights, the like of which has rarely been duplicated, was Hwui Shan, fifth century Buddhist priest.

And, from the Asiatic side, it is my belief:

That the "great luminous canyon" of Chinese literature actually was the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, in Arizona;

That the Chinese "archer" legend originated in our Grand Canyon;

That the descriptions given here from the Shan Hai King, fit actual geographical locations in the United States, Canada and Mexico and can be identified and mapped;

That the Chinese were in America in a period at least as early as 2200 B.C., and came periodically up to a date as late as 500 A.D., preceding Leif Ericson by more than 3,000 years;

That the two stones inscribed with undecipherable hieroglyphics, one in Alberta and one in North Dakota, if studied, may be found to be actual inscriptions, in archaic Chinese, put there by the ancient Chinese sent out by Yu;

That the Chinese "Classic of Mountains and Seas," which for the past 2,000 years has been accepted by the Chinese only as myth, is no myth but is actually true;

That these two documents, faithfully preserved within the archives of China, furnish sufficient written proof, that up to now has been lacking, of Chinese exploration in America, at a date as early as 2200 B.C.

That the remaining untranslated books of the Shan Hai King contain identifiable geographic locations on the face of the earth, outside of China.

There is without a doubt that the Chinesse had discovered America way before even Leif Ericson! I didn't know that they had actually travelled through it so extensively. I find it amazing that they never started a colony at the time. Just imagine if they did? Would America even exist or would it be just another province of China? Here I go again with my "What ifs", but it is fascinating how certain events could have changed an entire outcome in history.

It is too bad that these books where burned under one of their Dynasties. If only they would have perserved all of them we could have learned more about their discoverys at the time.

Very interesting Sam!

Also it has you thinking on other things like perhaps the native indians originally came from Asia when the lands where connected. I mean it is just a theory but could it be so far off? Did they first come to asia to settle here? Are Native Indians ancestories Asian?

your right i wish there was more on this and yes i do believe it's possable that they were at least part asian or islander peoples - but can't say definitively. if i find more i'll let you know i'll e mail this sight to you so you can look at the maps thier talkiing of ok? the online article is much more informative and thier is more i have not posted yet ok?

glad to have you back my friend!!!

Yes I am looking forward in reading more articles of this. I am always fascinated with civilizations that have existed and you offer maps! Wow that is fantastic.

It is great to be back and learn from intelligent scholars. Thank you for the opportunity.

Dr. Wallace began studying the mtDNA of Native Americans in the mid-1980s in hopes of resolving a long-raging debate over when prehistoric peoples entered the Americas. The presumption long has been that the ancestors of Native Americans came from Siberia. But anthropologists have argued for year over how many, and when, such migrations occurred.

The mtDNA analyses are showing that the ancestors of the Amerinds, who comprise most Native Americans, entered the Americans in a single migratory wave 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, Dr. Wallace and his Emory colleagues ... reported last year. This puts humans in the Americas long before a fluted stone-spear point--the oldest American tool ever found--was dropped by a prehistoric dweller near Clovis, N.M., 11,000 years ago.

The researchers also found that ancestors of the Navajo, Apache and other members of a Native American group, known collectively as the Na-Dene, are latecomers; they entered the continent in a second migration a mere 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, the research indicates.


Polynesian Links?

To their surprise, however, the researchers found that native Siberians lack one peculiar mutation that appeared in the Amerinds 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. This raises the question of where, if not from Siberia, this mtDNA originated.

It turns out, Dr. Wallace says, that this particular mutation pattern is also found in aboriginal populations in Southeast Asia and in the islands of Melanesia and Polynesia. This hints at what may have been "one of the most astounding migrations in human experience," he says. A group of ancient peoples moved out of China into Malaysia where they became sailors and populated the islands of the South Pacific.

Then some 6,000 to 12,000 years ago these ancient mariners made it to the Americas. "I don't know how they came," Dr. Wallace says. "They either came across the Pacific to Central and South America or they went up the east coast of Asia and across the northern Pacific to Alaska and Canada," he says. He already is examining mtDNA samples from natives of the Kamchatka Peninsula north of Japan to see if there is any mtDNA trace of these ancient sailors.

Well there you go that could be part of the answer of where Natives of America originally come from.

Then it also leads to ask where did the very first people come from? Was it Africa or Asia? Was it in different groups scattered around the world or one group that splitted apart in different directions.

if you read what i've posted my lady i think you'll see there is overwhelming evidence in these writings that they may well have come from china and the islands this is better than guess work to me it's a history of boat travel by those who may have had boats before anyone else - its pretty interesting, have fun,