1834 American Antiquities Priest MAP Trail of Tears Indians Mormons Cannibals

1834 American Antiquities Priest MAP Trail of Tears Indians Mormons Cannibals

A polemic text on the origin of civilization in the Americas. Priest argued that America was the land where Noah’s Ark came to rest and suggested that at least some of the mounds had been built before the Deluge. Surveying the various themes of mound builder origins, he could not decide whether the mounds were the work of Polynesians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Scandinavians, Welsh, Scots, or Chinese, although he felt certain the Indians had not built them.

“As the frontier receded and Americans found their lives becoming more regulated and urbanized, they were willing to seek escape in Priest’s world. Ultimately, it is not surprising he attempted to write an epic of prehistoric America. His effort is so ambitious, so ludicrous in the face of archaeological evidence, such a collection of bizarre conjecture, such a failed synthesis of so much diverse information, and so ultimately fascinating, that it stands as one of the great curiosities in American antiquarian writing and deserves far more attention than it has received” (Sloan, The Crimsoned Hills of Onondaga).

This book includes topics on

• Traits of Chinese before the biblical flood
• Supposed origin of human complexion
• Division of earth between the bible’s Noah and his three sons
• Discoveries of subterranean hearths
• Traits of Israelites
• Island of Atlantis
• Tradition of Native Mexicans
• Discovery of America by Norwegians, Danes and Welsh before Columbus
• Cannibals in America
• American Indian Languages
• Lake Ontario formed by a Volcano
• Gold Mines in the Southern States
• And much more!

This 1834 edition includes a six-panel fold-out frontispiece of artifacts from Mount Jolliet!

Item number: #40768

Price: $499

PRIEST, Josiah

American Antiquities and Discoveries in the West: Being an Exhibition of the Evidence that an Ancient Population of Partially Civilized Nations Differing Entirely from Those of Present Indians People America Many Centuries Before its Discovery by Columbus, and Inquiries into their Origin, with a Copious Description of Many of their Stupendous Works, Now in Ruins, with Conjectures Concerning What May Have Become of Them.

Albany: Hoffman and White, 1834.

Details:

• Collation: Complete
  • viii, 9-400
  • Six-panel folding frontispiece
  • 2 engraved plates + several in-text illustrations
• Provenance: Handwritten – S. Newcomb
• Language: English
• Binding: Leather; tight and secure
• Size: ~8.5in X 5.5in (21.5cm x 13.5cm)

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40768