First, Laufer (surprisingly critically) gave what today might be described as a discourse analysis of Columbus' writings. This is a central part of the text. Laufer argues that Columbus' writings helped shape European conceptions of Indigenous America, though, reflexively, he argues that these very writings are deeply imbued with sailors' "lore" from ancient Europe and the near and far East. He opens this section stating, "it was through the medium of Asia that America was discovered." He specifies, describing ancient Greek/Hellenic and medieval European sources (such as Marinus of Tyre and Marco Polo) as shaping Columbus' geographical/socio-cultural understanding of the Orient, and, a variety of trans-Eurasian mythologies filling in the admittedly significant gaps in his understanding of Indigenous Americans. For Laufer, all of this merely extenuated the fact that Columbus himself believed that he had discovered Asia, and never thought otherwise until the end of his life (Japan, or "Cipangu", was discovered in Haiti, or, as Columbus understood it, "Cibao").**
Also important was "Oriental lore" for Columbus, according to Laufer, with the latter writing:
Not only, however, were Columbus’s expeditions and movements determined by his notions of Asiatic geography, hut, what is still more attractive to us, his mind was imbued with Oriental lore to such a degree that he projected Asiatic tales into the life of the aborigines of the New World. Columbus was a man without profound education and learning, and was endowed with a vivid and poetic imagination, which equaled (sic) his knowledge of navigation; he was somewhat credulous, deeply religious with a trend toward mysticism, yet a man of extraordinary abilities, keen intelligence, indomitable courage and energy, foresight and sagacity. Whatever fault his critics may have found with him, he remains the man who did the deed.Columbus was, this is to say, blinded by his own predilections for "mysticism" and mythology. And, Laufer presented evidence of remarkable interplay between Euro-Asiatic sailors' "lore" in explaining the European explorer's fantastical accounts of the Indigenous peoples he encountered. Interestingly, Laufer does not end there, and notes that Columbus himself, in his diaries, admitted, "I do not know the language of the Indians, and there people neither understand me nor any other in my company, while the Indians I have on board often misunderstand." Nevertheless, despite this immense gap in communication, the explorer described the geography and the peoples of the Caribbean(/"the Indies") in considerable detail. Ancient European (/Eurasian) tales of dog-headed men filled in the gaps in local peoples' stories of invaders from foreign islands, such as the "Caniba"/"Canima". What he and his crew couldn't grasp was simply, in other words, filled in with preconceived understandings of the Orient. These "Caniba" invaders became, for Columbus, one-eyed dog cannibals. The very term Caniba, Laufer adds, was a corruption of Carib, and came to be influenced, he claimed, by the Latin cane/canis. Thus, Laufer traces the racist colonial mythology of Indigenous cannibalism to "Oriental tradition." He likewise finds in Ponce de Leon and others traces of the most ancient of "Oriental"(/Orientalist) mythology, such as Greek references to a Persian fountain of youth. This indistinction between the Orient and the Americas works both ways, with Laufer stating, "[h]owever paradoxical it may sound, I hope that the day will come when a history of the discovery and conquest of america will be written by an orientalist (sic)."
Similar to Carl Schmitt, Jean Baudrillard, and others, Laufer describes the "discovery of America" as like a "bombshell into the learned camps of Europe," which threatened to de-centre/provincialize Europe (/Christendom). The "high civilizations" of Mexico and Peru had "developed without the agency of Greeks and Romans."*** And, while these civilizational achievements of Indigenous American states could be, for some, attributed to pre-Columbian settlement of Greeks, "Hebrews," or Phoenicians, or -- more recently -- to East Asia,**** Laufer describes these -- and especially the latter -- as "pure fiction." He certainly does trace the ancestry Indigenous American peoples to Asia, writing predictably, "The Old World is the cradle of mankind, and the American Indian is an immigrant from Asia." However, he traces them as migrants from as early as 25,000 BC, and thereby these Asian "immigrants" were culturally "extremely primitive." Accordingly, while Asiatic in their roots, these peoples evolved cultures which soon became distinct, with Laufer pointing to the "highly developed stage of agriculture" which "[m]any Indian tribes" enjoyed "long before they had the misfortune of being discovered by the Spaniards."*****
However,
when all this has been said, there is no reason for assuming that America has always marched along in splendid isolation; on the contrary, we recognize more and more that in historical times, at least during the last one or two thousand years, there has been an intimate contact between the two continents and that currents and undercurrents of Asiatic thought have swept over America, especially its northern part.Curiously focused on Canada, he finds supposed cultural affinities such as scapulimancy in Labrador and Quebec and that of Central Asia, or Algonquin water divination as "corresponding to the crystal-gazing of India and eastern Asia." Even the bear ceremony (ie. of the Ainu) is "practically alike in form and content" to the "primitive type of religion we call shamanism" in northern America (See: Hallowell, "Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere"). Other examples are shared weapons, armour, art and design between the northern parts of the Americas and ancient Egypt, Constantinople, Persia, China and "our northwest Coast Indians." This is, according to Laufer, only the tip of a deeply submerged iceberg. He argues that it is imperative that Orientalists put their energy into the study of what appears to be a wide range of (sometimes admittedly superficial) examples of cultural or religious similarities.
"The Orient may sometimes be nearer to our door than we are inclined to assume," he concluded. While stating, "[w]here there is smoke there is fire," this comparative drive effectively aims to find examples, wherever they may be found, which can make Americans Asians and Asians Americans. Europeans, interestingly, are largely left out of this picture. Despite the focus on Columbus, or ancient Greeks and Romans, "oriental lore" is transmitted to Europe from the outside and through the prism of Indigenous American.
* Even if Laufer consistently separates the Orient from Europe at all stages of history except for the very earliest.
** If Laufer is correct that Columbus and his immediate successors interpreted the Americas through "oriental lore," this might beg the question as to whether he did so thinking he was in Asia.
*** Europeans certainly weren't thinking in terms of "high civilization" in 1492. Others, such as those alluded to, who have described the "problem" which arose following Europe's "discovery of America" focus on the great discomfort caused by encountering people who were totally unaware of Christianity/Abrahamic monotheism.
**** Thereby stripping Indigenous peoples of the Americas of any "civilization" outside of settlement of/intercourse with Eurasians.
***** Interestingly, while certainly an almost giddy colonialist, his descriptions of Indigenous peoples in this piece were consistently positive. Following American wars with Spain and Mexico (and occupations of Cuba and Nicaragua) over the past century at the time of Laufer's address, it's perhaps not surprising that be elevating Indigenous peoples of the Americas he would take a negative stance towards Spanish colonialism, however. Munro Doctrine American legitimacy as a pan-American hegemon rested on Spanish illegitimacy.
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