Mystery of mysteries! Nearly everyone has puzzled over the origin of the American Indian. Did he come from Mongolia? from Egypt? from the South Pacific? Certainly if the Bible has God as its Author, this Book of books could not have overlooked the New World. The Indians must have come from Noah, but from which of his sons? Look at the table of nations once again. There is one son whom we have not yet located. It is TIRAS! Tiras is mentioned only twice in the entire Bible, in Genesis 10:2 and in I Chronicles 1:5. The word "Tyrus" used for the city of Tyre in Palestine has no relationship with Tiras, the son of Japheth. Tiras journeyed to Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). We can pick up an abundance of historical evidence about the sons of Tiras. In fact there is more historical evidence concerning the migrations of Tiras than of any other son of Japheth. Yet the world has never guessed to what land the descendants of Tiras finally migrated! The river Dniester, which flows into the Black Sea near the border of Romania and the Black Sea, was anciently called Tiras. That was the main seat of the people of Tiras for many centuries. These people migrated along the shores of the Black Sea, the Aegaean and the Mediterranean Seas — before the coming of the Greeks. The Greeks finally displaced them. Where were the people of Tiras driven to? Before we can answer these questions we must first learn the tribal names into which the family of Tiras subdivided. Here are some of their names: Dyras, Teres, Tauri, Carians, Calybes, Thyni, Amazons, Maias, Milyaes, Mauri, Gasgan (See Smith's Classical Greek and Roman Dictionary for most of these names.) Where, today, do we find these same people located among the nations? In the NEW WORLD: where the American Indians are! The Amazons are Indians in South America who gave their names to the Amazon River. The Mayas live in Mexico and Guatemala. The Tinné Indians — the Greeks called them Thyni — live basically in Canada. The famous Tarascan Indians of Mexico are called after "Taras, the name of a tribal god," wrote Daniel G. Brinton in The American Race. Taras obviously means Tiras. In South America live the Dures Indians, the Dorasques, and the Turas, the Tauri and the Dauri; the Trios and Atures. In the Caribbean live Calybes — the same tribe that once lived by the Black Sea. Could anything be plainer? The people of Tiras are painted on the earliest monuments of the Mediterranean. The color of their skin? — "of... reddish-brown complexion... with... their long black hair done up into a crest!" (quoted from The Sea-Kings of Crete, by James Baikie, p. 74). From page 212 we read: "Judging from the surviving pictures, the Minoan men [the Island of Crete where the people of Tiras early settled] were bronzed, with dark hair and beardless faces." An analysis of the ancient Indian traditions points universally to "an eastern origin" — across the Atlantic, not the Pacific. (See The American Race, p. 98-99.) In fact, the word Atlantic was used 2000 years before Columbus discovered America even though it is an American Indian word. Its root is atlan, meaning "water." The Mexicans called their temples Teocallis. This word is directly related to the Greek, meaning "place of worship of God." The Greeks called the sons of Tiras, "sea people." The native Indian name Anáhuac, which the Indians of Mexico apply to the Valley of Mexico, means "around the water." Only a slight migration may have taken place across the Pacific from Asia to America. The overwhelming movement has been out of the Mediterranean to the new world! That ought not be surprising. The ancient Phoenicians from Palestine left relics on the Azores Islands in mid-Atlantic! The Indians have numerous traditions of being ruled over by whites and of expecting whites to come from the East — across the Atlantic.
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