It is beyond any question true that some of the tribes of American Indians have a wholly or partially Mongolian ancestry. Any position to the contrary would be directly in the teeth of overwhelming evidence by which this fact is established. The close afinity between certain Eskimo tribes on the eastern side of the Bering Strait with those on the Siberian side is well known; and the recovery of skeletal remains by Alex Hrdlicka and others seems to indicate with certainty that there was a migration in ancient times across the Bering Strait from northeast Asia. It should be remembered that as used in anthropology the word “Mongolian" or Mongoloid" does not mean Chinese, but has reference to a racial type of which they, the Japanese, Siberians, Eskimos and others appear to be offshoots.

For the foregoing reasons, no missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should say that all American Indians are descended from Israel. Neither is it proper to say that no American Indians are descended from Mongolian sources. It is equally improper to assert that Indians may not be descended from both sources, and very probably others as well. The amalgamation of centuries has made definitive boundaries of descent very difficult to trace, and in most cases truly impossible. In times past, as now, some loose language has been used in talks about the Lamanites and the living remnants of that house, from which it might be inferred that all American Indians are of the house of Israel. Some such intimations are deducible from non-technical talks made by early leaders in the Church. However, when these discourses are read with care, it will be seen that in each instance sweeping generalizations were not intended to be critical analyses of racial ancestries, nor intended to exclude migrations from other nations and intermarriages with Nephite or Lamanite people.

. . .

It does the Church little credit for any of its members to quarrel with facts. It is the truth which the Church proclaims, whatever may be its source, and once ascertained it must fit into the church concept. Our knowledge of America, north, south and central in pre-Columbian times is most scanty, in spite of all that has been and is being done to write its history. This we know.

The Book of Mormon is a part of that history only, but should not be considered more than that. It is no more the history of all peoples and doings of past ages on the American continents than the Bible is a history of all the peoples and nations of the East. Each covers its own time and provenance and makes no pretense beyond that.

It is to be expected, and may even now be said with certainty that the true ethnological history of American populations in ancient times is much more complex than any of our ancestors dreamed it to be.

Whatever else may be said, this much is certain now: Many American Indians are of mixed blood, very much like the mixtures produced in modern America, the "'melting pot" of nations. The Book of Mormon attests the presence of the blood of Israel. It is not in the least impugned by extraneous proof that other blood, by other migrations, found this land and mingled with the peoples there.