Ethnic Chart of Eurasia and Asia.
Ethnic Chart of Eurasia and Asia.
Subdivisions.—These are the general traits of the Asian race, recurring more or less prominently wherever its members of pure descent are found. It is divisible, however, into two branches, corresponding roughly with the two geographical divisions of the continent to which I have alluded. The first of these branches I call the Sinitic, from the old Greek form of the word China, the other the Sibiric, an adjective from the proper orthography of the name Siberia (Sibiria). These branches are contrasted not only in geographical location, but quite as much so in language. The Sinitic peoples speak isolating, tonic, monosyllabic languages, while the tongues of the Sibiric population are polysyllabic and agglutinative.
This branch includes the people of the Chinese empire and Farther India. They are separable into three groups:—
1. The Chinese proper;
2. The Thibetans; and
3. The Indo-Chinese of Siam, Anam, Burmah, and Cochin China.
The languages of all these have peculiar features and such affinities that they all point to one ancestral stock.
The population of China as we know it at present is the result of a fusion of a number of tribes of connected lineage. Those who claim the purest blood relate that somewhere about five thousand years ago their ancestors came from the vicinity of the Kuen-lun mountains, east of the Plateau of Pamir, and following the head waters of the Hoang-ho and Yang-tse-Kiang entered the northwestern province of China, Shen-si. Here they found a savage people, the Lolo and the Miaotse, whom they subjected or drove out, and pursuing the river valleys, reached the fertile lowlands along the coast. Their authentic annals begin about 2350 B. C. Even then they had attained a respectable stage of civilization, being a stable population, devoted to agriculture, acquainted with bronze, possessing domestic animals, and constructors of cities. The hoariest traditions speak of the cultivation of the “six field fruits,” which were three kinds of millet, barley, rice, and beans. The sorghum, wheat, and oats now common in parts of China are of comparatively recent introduction.
It is interesting to inquire whether these ancient arts possessed by the Chinese were self-developed, or were borrowed in part from the Eurafrican peoples of Iran or Mesopotamia. The former opinion is that defended by Peschel and some other ethnographers. They claim that the culture of the Chinese was developed independently in the secluded and fertile valleys of their great rivers, and owed nothing to the evolution of other civilizations until commerce and travel brought them together within historic times. The individual character of Chinese ancient culture speaks strongly for this view; certainly the Chinese system of writing is one based entirely on their range and method of thought; their domestic animals are of varieties formerly unknown in western Asia; and the growth of many undoubted local industries, silk for instance, for which they were celebrated in the days of the prophet Ezekiel, prove an ancient capacity for self-development not inferior to the Eurafrican race.
On the other hand, their astronomical system, which was in use 2300 B. C., is practically identical with that of the Arabs and Indo-Aryans, and points for its origin to the Chaldees of Babylonia. In later days, that is, since the beginning of our era, undoubtedly much that has been looked upon as the outcrop of Chinese culture is due to the Indo-Aryans. My own conclusion is that in all important elements the ancient Chinese civilization was a home product, a spontaneous growth of an intellectually gifted people, but one whose capacity of development was limited, and thatlater generations were satisfied to borrow and appropriate from the nations with whom commerce brought them into contact.
This insufficiency of development is the weak point of Chinese character, and is strikingly illustrated by the little use they made of important discoveries. They were acquainted as early as 121 A. D. with the power of the magnet to point to the north; but the needle was never used in navigation, but only as a toy. They manufactured powder long before the Europeans, but only to put it in fire-crackers. They invented printing with movable type in the eleventh century, but never adopted it in their printing offices. They have domesticated cattle for thousands of years, but do not milk the cows nor make butter. Paper money has been in circulation for centuries, but the scales and weight still decide the value of gold and silver, coins of these precious metals being unknown. Their technical skill in the arts is astonishing, but the inspiration of the beautiful is wholly absent.
These historic facts disclose the psychical elements of Chinese character. Its fundamental traits are sobriety, industry, common sense, practicality. The Chinaman regards solely what is visibly useful, materially beneficial. His arts and sciences, his poems and dramas, his religions and philosophies, all revolve around the needs and pleasures of his daily life. Such terms as altruism, the ideal, the universal, have for him no sort of meaning, and an explanation of them he would look upon as we do on the emptiestsubtleties of the schoolmen—achimera bombinans in vacuo. Such an action as the martyr dying to atone for the sins of others he could understand only as the action of a deranged mind.
Their mental character is well shown in their religions. Originally, the Chinese combined a simple worship of the powers of nature with that of the spirits of their ancestors. The principal deity was Tien, the Heaven or Sky, in union with whom was the Earth, and from this union all nature proceeded. This natural and sexual dualism extended through all things. The affairs of life are governed by countless demons and spirits, whose tempers should be propitiated by offerings and prayers. Days and seasons are auspicious or the reverse, and most of the rites at present in use are divinatory rather than devotional.
The Buddhist religion was introduced into China about two centuries before Christ, and was officially recognized as a state cult by the Emperor Ming-ti in the year 65 A. D. Its spirit is, however, quite different from the Buddhism of Ceylon, as it has degenerated into a polytheism, a worship of the Bodhisattvas, or saints who have reached the highest stage of perfection, and might enter Nirvana, but do not, out of compassion for men. In general, it may be said that the philosophical and moral principles taught in the Buddhistic classics are not known and would not be admitted as representing their faith by Chinese Buddhists.133
The teachings of the celebrated philosopher, Confucius (Con-fu-tse), which are a substitute for religion among the most intelligent Chinese, are in reality wholly agnostic. He declined to express himself on any question relating to the gods or the possible after life of the soul, asserting that the practical interests of this life and the duties of a man to his family and the state are numerous enough and clear enough to occupy one’s whole time. When asked for some model or code of such duties, he replied by the sententious expression “When you are chopping out an axe-handle, the model is near you,” meaning that it is in the hand, and that in a similar manner in practical life we always have the rule of right action in our own mind, if we choose to look for it.
The second great philosopher of China was Lao-tse, who lived in the generation following Confucius (about 500 B. C.). His doctrine was pantheistic and obscure, and his writings are considered the most difficult to decipher of all the old Chinese classics. Nor can his doctrine be called a religion. It was rather a mystical speculation on the universe. All-Being, he taught, is born of Not-Being, and existence, therefore, is an illusion.
Practically, all religions are looked upon as equally true. The Confucian will frequent the Buddhist temples, and the Buddhist priest will perform rites in the “house of reason,” as the Confucian holy place is termed; or he will distribute tracts for the Christian missionaries. The government is absolutely neutralin all religious questions, and the persecutions which have been carried on against the Christian missionaries have not been the promptings of fanaticism, but dislike of foreigners and suspicion of their intentions. The official documents of the Chinese government speak with equal contempt of every form of religion, and the rulers would never dream of interfering in any such question.134
Many of the Chinese are Mohammedans, Islam having been introduced by sea and land within the first century of the Hegira. The Chinese converts learn to repeat the Koran in Arabic, as it has not been translated into their tongue; but few understand much of it. Their rites and doctrines are learned by the verbal instruction of their religious teachers. The Chinese Mohammedans, however, recognize as their chief ruler the Khalif or Sultan, and not the Emperor at Pekin, and hence the bloody revolutions which have from time to time broken out among them.
Christianity was introduced by the Nestorians in the eighth century, and now may be freely taught in any part of the realm. It has, however, had little success. There are perhaps half a million Roman Catholic and Protestant members. They belong to the lowest classes, and can occupy no official position, owing to the conflict of their dogmas with the teachings of Confucius and the agnostic principles of the government.
Within the last generation or two the Chinese havedisplayed an unwonted desire for emigration. They have swept down in hundreds of thousands on the islands of Malasia, Australia, the Sandwich Islands, Mexico, and the United States. We have as a nation felt so impotent before them that, in open contradiction to the principles of our government we have closed our ports to them, and warned them from our shores. This feeble and ignoble policy is a disgrace to us. Far better to admit them, and to train earnest men among us in the Chinese language and customs, so that these foreigners could be brought to a knowledge of the superiority of our religions and institutions, and thus be united with us in the advancement of mankind.
The mountain-ringed land of Thibet is an arid region from 10,000 to 20,000 feet in height, thickly inhabited by a people whose principal interests in life are religious. It is the centre of northern Buddhism, and at the holy city of Lhasa the living incarnation of the founder of that cult is supposed to live. In the numerous monasteries, some on almost inaccessible mountain sides, tens of thousands of monks pass their lives in religious exercises. They are vowed to celibacy, and throughout the land it is looked upon as a distinct degradation to marry. The natural result is that the relations of the sexes are relaxed, and their morals debased. Polygamy is not uncommon, and in Thibet, more than anywhere else, we find the peculiar institution of polyandry, where a woman has two,three or four recognized husbands. It is usual for several brothers thus to have the same wife.
The women are small but well made, and exercise an unusual control in the affairs of life. The physical traits of both sexes are Mongolian, though the eyes are rarely oblique. The culture is rather low, the Thibetan not being an ardent agriculturist, but preferring the pastoral life. He milks his cows and makes butter, which with hides and fleece, leather and some local fabrics, are his principal articles of trade.
In the Himalayan valleys to the south are several nations in which the Asian blood dominates, such as the Ladakis of Cashmere, the Nepalese, the inhabitants of Bhotan and numerous others. They are generally mixed with Dravidian or Aryac blood, but speak dialects of the Sinitic type.
The regions we call Farther India and Cochin China are at present inhabited by peoples speaking tonic, monosyllabic languages, who are, however, generally of mixed descent. Some of them have crimpled hair and a dark complexion, suggesting the presence of some Nigritic blood; others have features more Aryac than Mongolian, hinting at an ancient fusion of Hindoostanee strains. These form the modern nations of Birma, Siam, Annam, Cambodia, Tonkin, and Cochin China.
The Birmans have a well marked round head (about 83°), oblique eyes, prominent cheek bones, andare of medium stature and sturdy. Their color is a brownish yellow or olive. In religion they are Buddhists, but they are by no means celebrated for honesty and morality. By a curious freak of fashion, the dress of the women is open in front, but it is the height of immodesty to show the naked foot.
The Siamese call themselves “Thai,” under which designation come also the Laos. They are a mild mannered people, without much energy, but willing to be taught.
The Annamese and Tonkinese are somewhat superior in culture to their neighbors, and of well marked Asiatic physiognomy. The Cambodians, called Khmers, are a mixed people, descended partly from Mongolian ancestry, partly from Dravidian and Aryac conquerors who occupied their country about the third century, and left behind remarkable vestiges of their presence in ruins of vast temples and stone-built palaces.
The branch of the Asian race which I have called the Sibiric, as geographically designating its pre-historic home, has also been called the Turanian, the Ural-Altaic, the Finno-Ugric, the Mongolic, etc. Its geographical location is north of the Altai range, and the Caspian and Black seas, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The languages of all its members are polysyllabic and agglutinative, contrasting as much with the Sinitic stock on the one hand as withthe Aryac on the other. In physical appearance individuals of reasonably pure descent present good specimens of the Asian type, the skull brachycephalic, the face round, the nose flat at the root, the eye small and black, the hair straight and coarse, the color yellowish. They are divided into many tribes, most of whom were until recently addicted to a wandering pastoral life, and though on the lower levels of culture and without coherent social bonds, they have at times loomed up as the most powerful and pretentious figures in the history of the world.
Furthest to the east is
Which occupies the coast from the northern boundary of China to Kamschatka, and westward to the Yenissei river. It embraces the Manchus and the Tungus. The former, a bold hardy people, possessed themselves of the throne of China early in the seventeenth century, and continue to rule it by a military despotism, adapted with consummate skill to the peculiarities of Chinese character. This has led to an extensive fusion of Sinitic blood among the Manchus, and also an improvement in their social status. They have become Buddhists, and their language is losing ground before the Chinese.
The Tungus to the north of them, inhabiting a vast district of forest, swamp and mountain, east of the Yenissei river, are of ruder life. They depend for subsistence on the chase and on their large herdsof reindeer. In religion they adhere to the worship of the powers of nature, and are under the control of their priests or “shamans.” They present a well marked Asiatic type, a brachycephalic skull (81°), round face and oblique eyes, the hair coarse and straight, the beard scanty. In stature they are of medium height, strongly built, and the senses of sight and hearing unusually keen.
Like most nations dwelling in or near the Arctic zone, the disposition of the Tungus is decidedly cheerful and affable. He is hospitable to strangers, and honorable in his dealings. In habits, however, he has no notion of cleanliness, and the Tatar name applied to him—tongus, hog—expresses what his not over-nice neighbors think of his mode of life.
The tribes were subjected to the Russian domination about 1650, and have been gradually improving their condition. A portion of them called Lamuts reside on the sea of Ochotsk, and have fixed villages with houses built in the Russian style.135
had their original home in Mongolia, a vast arid country south of the Altai range, and west of Manchuria. Before the Christian era they had extended north beyond the mountains and occupied the land around Lake Baikal, whence they proceeded easterly, and under the name of Kalmucks have settled quite to theriver Volga. Few of them are agriculturists, it being their preference to wander over the pastures with their flocks. Their religion is a debased form of Buddhism grafted on their ancient fetichism. In physical type they are true Asiatics, and are of a restless, warlike disposition.
In the extended region which they inhabit, stretching over seventy degrees of longitude, they have had space to multiply until their numbers once became a menace to all other nations of the Eurasian continent. Under Genghis Khan, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, they poured down in countless hordes on the cultivated nations of Asia and Europe, and in a few years established a monarchy, the then greatest in the world. About a century later his descendant, the sanguinary Tamerlane, swept Asia from the Indian Ocean to the Arctic circle; and at the close of yet another century Baber, of the same redoubted lineage, founded the empire of the Great Mogul (Mongol) in India, extending from the Indus to the Ganges. Based, however, on despotism, barbarism and fanaticism, these gigantic states disappeared in a few generations, leaving scarcely a trace of their existence except the ruins of the higher civilizations which they had destroyed.
Derived its name from the Chinese wordta-ta, and is incorrectly writtenTartar. Another Chinese name applied to them wasTu-kiu, from which is derived our word “Turk.”
The earliest home of the Tatars or Turks was in Turkestan, north of the Plateau of Pamir and in the immediate vicinity of the Persian Aryans. Long before the beginning of the Christian era their predatory bands had repeatedly invaded the territory of the Aryans and the Semites, and quite down to two centuries ago the states which they had founded were looked upon with dread by the mightiest potentates of Europe. The Chinese annals speak of their inroads into that empire more than 200 years before our era.
At the period of the migration of nations which accompanied the dismemberment and fall of the Roman Empire, the Tatars appeared frequently in Europe, always as ruthless devastators. Attila, “the scourge of God,” with his bands of Huns, the Avari, and the Bulgari, who followed in his wake, the Turcomans and the Cossacks, and finally the Osmanli Turks whose descendants now govern European and Asiatic Turkey, and whose Sultan is the political head of the Mohammedan world, all belong in this group.
It is needless to say that in these rovings they have undergone much admixture. The modern Turk has more of the blood of the Semite and the Circassian in his veins than of his Tartar ancestors; but his language has maintained a singular purity, and the Tartar hunter, the Jakout, in the delta of the Lena on the frozen ocean, finds no difficulty in understanding its ordinary expressions. The Jakout speaks indeed the purest and most ancient form of the idiom, “The Sanscrit of the Tatar,” as it has been called by Friedrich Müller.
The peculiarity of this language is that it has a law of vocalic harmony, by which the various suffixes added to the root change the vowels they contain in accordance with the vowel of the root. It has not only a pleasing sound, but superior flexibility and an unusual capacity to express fine shades of meaning. It is, however, losing ground both in Europe and Asia, as are all the agglutinative languages.
Next to the Turks, the Cossacks and Kirghis Tatars are prominent members of the stock. They are closely related, being branches of the same dialectic family. The former wander over the steppes between the Sea of Aral and the main chain of the Altai. It is not known when they occupied this region, but it was within historic times, and they drove from it a people of higher civilization, acquainted with the use of bronze and brass, and dwellers in cities.136The Kirghis themselves build no houses, but dwell in felt tents called “yourts.” They did not cultivate the soil, deriving their food from their flocks and herds, but of late years have begun a careless agriculture. In religion they profess Mohammedanism, but in reality they cling to their ancient Shamanistic superstitions.
Has lived for certainly two thousand years or more in Northern Europe. It is mentioned by Tacitus, and its traditions as well as its dialects support this antiquity.That it ever extended, as many theorists pretend, into Central or Southern Europe, may now be dismissed as an obsolete hypothesis, disproved by craniological studies and a closer scrutiny of the alleged linguistic resemblances which have been urged. The probability is that the Finns and Lapps had the same ancestors as the Samoyeds of Northern Siberia, who once lived on the upper streams of the Yenissei in the Sajanic mountains and around Lake Baikal. The Laplanders are said still to retain some reminiscence of the migration, and the verbal affinities of the Finnic and Samoyedic demonstrate an early relationship.137
The eastern members of the group are the Ugrians in the government of Tobolsk, some tribes on the Volga, and the Permians on the Kama river (an affluent of the Volga). The Magyars of Hungary are a branch of the Ugrians who possessed themselves of the land in the ninth century, and who still retain their language, not remote from the Finnish.
The present Finnland was first occupied by the Lapps or Laplanders, who were driven northward and westward by bands continually arriving from the east. The Finns, who call themselves “Suomi,” which is the same as the initial syllables of “Samo-yed,” are subdivided into the Esthonians and Livonians on the Baltic, south of the Gulf of Finland, the Tavastes, Karelians, and others to the north.
The physical type of the members of the Finnicgroup has given rise to much discussion. Many individuals are blondes, with light hair and eyes, and with dolichocephalic skulls. Such are especially numerous among the Esthonians, Karelians, and Tavastes. But it must be remembered that for two or three thousand years these tribes have been in contact with the blonde and dolichocephalic type of the Aryans, represented by the ancient Teutonic and Slavonic groups (see Lect. V). It is not in the least surprising therefore to find the Finnic group everywhere deeply infused with Aryac blood. Even the remote Lapps are no exception. Nominally there are 25,000 or more of them. But Prince Roland Bonaparte says as the result of his recent observations among them, “Pure Lapps no longer exist;”138and when this is true of that isolated people, how much more is it of the tribes in closer proximity to the Eurafrican race? We may conclude with Professor Keane that the genuine traits of the Finnic group are “fundamentally and typically Mongolic,”i. e., Sibiric.139
There is no reason to suppose that any of the Sibiric peoples extended southerly in Asia or Europe much beyond their present boundaries. It has been a mania with many ethnographers, especially linguistic ethnographers, to discover “Turanian” peoples and dialects in numerous parts of southern and central Europe. They would have it that the Basques, the Etruscans,the Ligurians, the Pelasgians, were “Turanian;” that the prehistoric inhabitants of Palestine, the Hittites, and the Shepherd Kings of Egypt, were also of this ilk. They are like those other ethnographers who find “Mongoloid” indications everywhere, in America, in Polynesia, even among the Bushmen of South Africa. As Friedrich Müller says of these writers, “Mongolian” is a sack into which everything is crammed by them. There is no true science in catching at superficial resemblances or exalting remote analogies while fixed distinctions are disregarded.
In northeastern Siberia, close to the Arctic circle, and occupying the territory between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, dwell a number of tribes in a condition of barbarism. Their languages are in general form of the Sibiric type; their physical traits vary, indicating frequent admixture. In color they are rather dark, and the skull is generally slightly dolichocephalic.
Of these the Chukchis occupy the extreme northeast of the continent. Nordenskjold, who saw much of them, considers them the mixed descendants of various tribes, driven from more hospitable regions to the south.140Some of them have a marked Mongolic aspect, but the majority differ from that type. They are yellowish-brown in color, prominent nose, tall in stature, and well built. They are active hunters andfishermen. The Namollos are a sedentary branch of the Chukchis, and both are related to the Koraks and Kamschatkans. The Namollos live along the Arctic coast, near East Cape, while the Koraks live to the south. “Kora” means “reindeer,” and they are essentially the reindeer people, that useful animal being their chief wealth. Close to East Cape, and southward along the coast of Behring sea, are Eskimo tribes. They have lived there from the first discovery of the coast, and doubtless long before. Indeed, as far as tradition goes, the movements of the Eskimos have been from America into Asia, and not the reverse, until they were driven back by the advancing Chukchis.141
The Kamschatkans to the south are of small stature, but strongly formed. They live upon fish, and are skillful in the use of dogs for sleds. They number only about 2000 souls, and are disappearing.
The Ghiliaks live near the mouth of the Amoor river and on the Saghalin islands. They are a mixed people, the cephalic index varying from 74 to 85; some of them have abundant beards, which is very rare among the pure Asiatics.142
The Aleutians, who occupy the long chain of islands reaching from Kamschatka to Alaska, are of medium height, flat nose, black eyes and hair, and mesocephalic. They belong to the American, not to the Asian race.
Most of these peoples speak tongues differing widely among themselves, but of the agglutinative type. They are in no way related to the American languages, and are equally remote from the Mongolian.
The Japanese cannot claim purity of descent. Their complexion and frequent crisp or wavy hair indicate that their Asian origin has been modified by other blood. They were not the earliest inhabitants of the archipelago they occupy, but moved into it probably about a thousand years before the Christian era.143The immigrants seem from some linguistic evidence to have come from Manchuria or Mongolia, and to have found upon the islands a different people, the Ainos (properly Ainu) remarkable for their heavy beards and hairy persons. These have now been driven to the northernmost portion of the archipelago, where about 1200 of them still reside. It was long thought that the languages of the Ainos and Japanese have some affinities, but except in loan words and a general phonetic resemblance, this has now been disproved.The Ainos seem physically related to the Ghiliaks, and came from the north and west. They are supposed to have been the first occupants of the Kurile islands.
Like other mixed peoples, the Japanese vary so much in height, form of skull, hue and bodily proportion, that it is impracticable to set up any fixed type for them, further than to say that their general Asiatic aspect is usually unmistakable to the trained eye.144In mental qualities they are gifted, being intelligent, artistic, brave, kind, and honorable, fully alive to the benefits of a high civilization, and able to accept with profit all that the western world has to offer.145They are monogamists, and the position of woman has always been respected among them. The prevailing religion is the Shintoism or worship of the powers of nature, but Buddhism, introduced in the 7th century, has also many votaries. At heart, however, they are an irreligious people, like the Chinese, and are unconcerned about the ideal and the mystical. Many of their arts, like that of writing, were at first learned from the Chinese; but they have improved upon them, and given them other directions, as in the development of their phonetic from the Chinese syllabic alphabet.
Japanese art has attracted in recent years the admiration of the European world, and many motives in it have been accepted by our lovers of decorative effects. It is indeed wonderful in its technical finish, and its theory of composition has novelties which are worthy of imitation, but it is devoid of that something which we call the ideal; and its canon of proportion of the human body has never been developed to approach the classical models.
There is an extensive literature in the Japanese tongue. Most of it deals with practical subjects, and even the poetry is usually didactic in spirit.
The Koreans seem originally to have come from the same stock as the ancestors of the Japanese. They are of more positive Asiatic type, and are a mixed people, the ruling class (the Kaoli) having conquered the peninsula in the second century before our era. They closely resemble the Loochoo islanders, and doubtless are consanguine with them. Their industries are similar to those of Japan, which country, indeed, obtained many of its arts from China by way of the Korean peninsula.
Contents.—Variability of islanders and coast peoples. Physical geography of Oceanica. Ethnographic divisions.I.The Negritic Stock.Subdivisions. 1. The Negritic Group. Members. Former extension. Physical aspect. Culture. 2. The Papuan Group. Location. Physical traits. Culture and language. 3. The Melanesian Group. Physical traits. Habits. Languages. Ethnic affinities of Papuas and Melanesians.II.The Malayic Stock.Location. Subdivisions. Affinities with the Asian Race and original home. 1. The Western or Malayan Group. Physical traits. Character. Extension. Culture. Presence in Hindostan. 2. The Eastern or Polynesian Group. Physical traits. Migrations. Character and culture. Easter Island.III.The Australic Stock.Affinities between the Australians and Dravidians. 1. The Australian Group. Tasmanians and Australians. Physical traits. Culture. 2. The Dravidian Group. Early extension. Members. Culture. Languages.
Contents.—Variability of islanders and coast peoples. Physical geography of Oceanica. Ethnographic divisions.
I.The Negritic Stock.Subdivisions. 1. The Negritic Group. Members. Former extension. Physical aspect. Culture. 2. The Papuan Group. Location. Physical traits. Culture and language. 3. The Melanesian Group. Physical traits. Habits. Languages. Ethnic affinities of Papuas and Melanesians.
II.The Malayic Stock.Location. Subdivisions. Affinities with the Asian Race and original home. 1. The Western or Malayan Group. Physical traits. Character. Extension. Culture. Presence in Hindostan. 2. The Eastern or Polynesian Group. Physical traits. Migrations. Character and culture. Easter Island.
III.The Australic Stock.Affinities between the Australians and Dravidians. 1. The Australian Group. Tasmanians and Australians. Physical traits. Culture. 2. The Dravidian Group. Early extension. Members. Culture. Languages.
Before proceeding to the ethnography of the American continent, I would have you take a rapid survey of the inhabitants of that extensive archipelago whose islands are thickly dotted in the Indian and Pacific oceans, and ascertain as far as may be the relationship in which they stand to the population of the adjacent coasts.
It was Darwin’s theory that the distant progenitor of man was an amphibious marine animal, and certainlyfrom earliest times he has had a predilection for water-ways and the sea-coast. The lines of these have always directed his wanderings, and it is not surprising therefore that nowhere do we find the physical types of the race so confusingly amalgamated as in the insular littoral peoples. Not only is transit easier in these localities, but on islands especially there is a more rapid intermingling and a closer interbreeding than is apt to occur in continental areas. This not only blends types, but it has another effect. It is well known from observation on the lower animals that such close unions result in the formation of more plastic organisms, liable to present wide variations, and to develop into contrasting characters.146This holds good also of mental products. For instance, you might suppose that the dialects of the same island or the same small archipelago would offer very slight differences. The reverse is the case. In the same area the dialects of an island differ far more than on the mainland. This is a fact well known to linguists, and is parallel to the physical variations.147The ethnographer, therefore, is prepared to attach less importance to corporeal and linguistic differences in insular than in continental peoples.
Physical Geography of Oceanica.—The island world of the Indian and Pacific Oceans is divided geologically into two regions, Australasia and Polynesia. The former, as its name denotes, is really a southeasterly prolongation of the continent of Asia, and was united to it in late tertiary times. The huge islands of Sumatra, Java and Borneo are separated from the Malayan and Siamese peninsulas by channels scarcely a couple of hundred feet deep; and from these a chain of islands extends uninterruptedly to the semi-continent of Australia. All these islands are of tertiary formation, and the subsidence which separated them from the main took place at the close of that geologic epoch.
The Polynesian islands, on the other hand, are of recent construction. They are submarine towers of coral, erected on the crests of sunken mountain ranges rising on the floor of a profoundly deep sea. Nevertheless the flora and fauna of Polynesia resemble that of Australasia in its strongly Asiatic character.
The islands of the Indian Ocean present some singular anomalies. Ceylon, though so close to the Indian peninsula, is not a geological fragment of it; while Madagascar, though four thousand miles away, was unquestionably once a part of Southern Hindostan.148This, however, was in remote eocene tertiary times, and long before man appeared. The hypothesis, therefore,advanced by Hæckel and favored by Peschel and other ethnographers, that the Indian Ocean was once filled by the continent “Lemuria,” and that there man appeared on the globe, must be dismissed so far as man is concerned, as in conflict with more accurate observations.
Yet one must acknowledge that it has some plausibility from the present ethnography of the islands and coasts of the Indian Ocean. There is a general consensus of opinion that the earliest occupants of these regions were an undersized black race, resembling in many respects the negrillos of Austafrica. Upon these was superimposed an Asiatic stock represented by the modern Malays; and the union of these two strains gave rise to the anomalous tribes which occupy Southern Hindostan, Australia, and some of the islands.
This historic scheme, which has a great deal in its favor, permits me to classify the great island-world and its adjacent mainland into three ethnographic categories as represented on the diagram.
Of these the most ancient is
This embraces three subdivisions, (1) the Negritos, (2) the Papuas, (3) the Melanesians.
The Negritos may be called the western branch of the stock. It is noteworthy that they are located nearer to Africa, and that they more distinctly resemble theNegrillo stock of that continent than do the Papuas. To them belong the natives of the Andaman Islands known as Mincopies, the Semangs, Mantras, and Sakaies of Malacca, the Aetas of the Philippine Islands, and the Schobaengs of the Nicobar Isles.149It is highly probable that they inhabited a large part of Southern Hindostan, perhaps before it was united to the Himalayan highlands (see p. 88), and some have been reported in Formosa.
They are believed to have been the original possessors of Borneo, Java, Sumatra and the Celebes Islands, as well as parts of Indo-China; but except in some mixed tribes, as the Mois of the latter region, their stock has disappeared from those localities. It is noteworthy that not a trace of their blood has been found in Asia north of the Hindu Cush and Himalaya ranges.150Some writers have thought that they proceeded along the eastern islands as far north as the Japanese archipelago, and would explain some of the present physical traits of its inhabitants by an ancient infusion of Negritic blood.
In physical aspect they are of small stature, not more than one-fourth of the adult males reaching fivefeet in height; their color is black, hair woolly, nearly beardless, and the body smooth. The nose is flat, the face moderately prognathic, and the skull generally globular (mesocephalic index 80°-81°), but on the Philippines and in Indo-China rather dolichocephalic. Their forms are symmetrical, though they are thin-legged, without calves; their movements agile and graceful.151
They are averse to culture, and depend on hunting and fishing. As weapons, they know the bow and arrow, the lance, and the sarbacane or blow-pipe, but have not acquired the art of chipping stone. When they use that material, they split it by exposure to fire. They are timid and distrustful of strangers, and they well may be, as they have been pursued remorselessly by slave-catching pirates, and were constantly exposed to the brutal aggressions of their stronger neighbors.
The portrait presented of their tribal customs is rather pleasing. The social organization is based on the family, the heads of which elect the tribal chieftain, and their respect for the dead amounts to a religion. Beyond the ancestral worship they have few rites, though some ceremonies are performed to appease the evil spirits, and others at the time of full moon and thunderstorms, and at births and deaths. Among their myths is one relating to a mythical great serpent,who seems to be a beneficent deity, pointing out to them where game abounds, and where the bees have deposited wild honey. They are monogamous, and neither steal nor buy their wives, the lover arranging the matter with his chosen one, and then sending a present to her father. They have learned the luxury of tobacco, and prize it highly, but for alcoholic beverages they have no longing. As they are migratory, their house building is limited to shelters of light materials, and for clothing a breech-cloth is sufficient.152
In so many respects, geographical as well as physical, do these dwarfish blacks stand between the Negro peoples of Austafrica and Australasia that we are not surprised at the conclusion suggested by Prof. W. H. Flower, that they may be “the primitive type from which the African Negroes on the one hand, and the Melanesians on the other, may have sprung.”153
Is found in its purity on the great island of NewGuinea and the chains east and west of it, but even there it discloses considerable diversity. In color the Papuas vary from a coal black to a dark brown, their hair is woolly, and there is considerable on the body and face, stature medium, legs thin. Their lips are thick, and the nostrils broad, but the nose is high and curved. Yet the best observers agree that they vary extremely in physiognomy, and that in New Guinea, tribes of equally pure blood have the skull sometimes broad, sometimes long. These variations we may attribute to the influence of insular conditions, or to some intermixture of blood.154
The Papuas belong to the lowest stages of culture. Some of their tribes do not know the bow and arrow, and few of them have any pottery. Their languages are agglutinating, but have this peculiarity, that the modifications of the root are generally by prefixes instead of suffixes, in this respect reminding one of the African rather than the Sibiric families of tongues.
Their territory includes parts of the New Hebrides, the Loyalty Isles, New Caledonia, Viti, and a variety of smaller groups. These islanders are usually of mixed type, and are known as “Melanesians.” The natives of the Feejee Islands are an excellent specimenof these, and their archipelago forms the dividing line between the Papuan and Polynesian groups.155
The Melanesians, of all the islanders, present in individual cases the strongest likeness to the equatorial African Negro; yet among these there is that prevailing variability of type so frequent in insular peoples. Their color passes from the black of the typical Negro to the yellow of the Malayan; their hair, generally frizzly, may be quite straight and of any hue from black to blonde. These variations are in individuals or families, and are not owing to mixed blood.156
Unlike the Polynesians, the Melanesians are agricultural in habits, and sedentary. They build artistically decorated houses, are acquainted with the bow and arrow, occasionally make pottery, and construct shapely canoes, though not given to long voyages. The women are modest and chaste, and their religion is principally a form of ancestral worship.
The languages of these islanders betray their compound origin. In form and in the pronominal elementsthey stand related to the Malayan and Polynesian idioms, and in structure approach sometimes the richness of the former. In the Viti, for example, both prefixes and suffixes are employed, and the possessive is added to the noun. The root words are monosyllables or dissyllables, and drawn from the Papuan idioms, and the phonetics are much richer than the Polynesian.
These facts go to show that the Melanesians are physically and linguistically a mixed people, a compound of the woolly-haired black Papuas, whom we may suppose to have been the aborigines of Melanesia, with the smooth-haired, light-colored Malays, who reached the archipelago as adventurers and immigrants. As their tongues form, as it were, the second stratum of structure when compared with the Polynesian dialects, we can go a step further and say that the ethnic formation of the Melanesian islanders occurred subsequently to the construction of the Polynesian physical type and languages.157
The ethnic relationship of the various adjoining islanders to the Papuas has been studied by many observers, but its solution has not yet been reached. The Papuas themselves impressed Hale as partly Malayan—“a hybrid race,”158and Virchow calls attention to the fact that a broad zone of wavy-haired peoplesintervene between the Papuas and the pure Malays, shading off into the Australians on the one hand and the Veddahs of Ceylon on the other.159This is very significant of the ethnic origin of the inhabitants of Australasia.
It is borne out by an examination of the Papuan languages. These are quite dissimilar among themselves, and appear to have been derived from a number of independent linguistic stocks. While these were originally distinct from the Malayan, it is a recognized fact that all the Papuan, and still more all the Melanesian dialects, have absorbed extensively from Malayan and Polynesian sources, and we are certain, therefore, that a similar absorption of Malayan blood has taken place.160
Is by far the most important group of peoples with whom we have to do in the area we are now studying. Many ethnologists, indeed, set it up as a distinct race, the “Malayan” or “Brown” race, and claim for it an importance not less than any of the darker varieties of the species. It bears, however, the marks of an origin too recent, and presents Asian analogies too clearly, for it to be regarded otherwise than as a branch of the Asian race, descended like it from some ancestral tribe in that great continent. Its dispersionhas been extraordinary. Its members are found almost continuously on the land areas from Madagascar to Easter Island, a distance nearly two-thirds of the circumference of the globe; everywhere they speak dialects with such affinities that we must assume for all one parent stem, and their separation must have taken place not so very long ago to have permitted such a monoglottic trait as this.
The stock is divided at present into two groups, the western or Malayan peoples, and the eastern or Polynesian peoples. There has been some discussion about the original identity of these, but we may consider it now proved by both physical, linguistic and traditional evidence.161The original home of the parent stem has also excited some controversy, but this too may be taken as settled. There is no reasonable doubt but that the Malays came from the southeastern regions of Asia, from the peninsula of Farther India, and thence spread south, east and west over the whole of the island world. Their first occupation of Sumatra and Java has been estimated to have occurred not later than 1000 B. C., and probably was a thousand years earlier, or about the time that the Aryans entered Northern India.
The relationship of the Malayic with the other Asian stocks has not yet been made out. Physically theystand near to the Sinitic peoples of small stature and roundish heads of southeastern Asia.162The oldest form of their language, however, was not monosyllabic and tonic, but was dissyllabic. Structurally, it was largely of the “isolating” type, the relations of the members of the proposition being expressed by loose words, as is still the case in some of the Polynesian dialects. This is scarcely recognizable in the developed Malayan and Tagala idioms where there is a richly varied structure by suffixes, prefixes and infixes; but the building up of these grammatical resources can be traced back from the simple original tongue, orUrsprache, I have mentioned.163We cannot be far wrong, therefore, in associating in some remote past the ancestral Malays, with their isolating, dissyllabic speech, yellowish-brown complexion, short skulls and small stature, with the Indo-Chinese group of the Sinitic branch of the Asian race.
The purest type of the true Malays is seen in Malacca, Sumatra and Java. They are of medium or slightly under size, the complexion from olive to brown. The hair is black, straight and lank, and the beard is scanty. The eyes are black, often slightlyoblique, the nose straight and rather prominent, the mouth large, and the chin well developed. The skull is short (brachycephalic), and the muscular force less than the European average.
This type is found among the Malayans of Malacca and Sumatra, the Javanese, the Madurese and Tagalas. It has changed slightly by foreign intermixture among the Battaks of Sumatra, the Dayaks of Borneo, the Alfures and the Bugis. But the supposition that these are so remote that they cannot properly be classed with the Malays is an exaggeration of some recent ethnographers, and is not approved by the best authorities.164The chief differences are that the Battak type is larger and stronger than the average Malay, the skull is more oval, the hair finer in texture and lighter in color.
In character the Malays are energetic, quick of perception, genial in demeanor, but unscrupulous, cruel and revengeful. Veracity is unknown, and the love of gain is far stronger than any other passion or affection. This thirst for gold made the Malay the daring navigator he early became. As merchant, pirate or explorer, and generally as all three in one, he pushed his crafts far and wide over the tropical seas through twelve thousand miles of extent.
On the extreme west he reached and colonized Madagascar. The Hovas there, undoubtedly of Malay blood, number about 800,000 in a population of fiveand a half millions, the remainder being Negroids of various degrees of fusion. In spite of this disproportion, the Hovas are the recognized masters of the island. Their language stands in closest relation to that of the Battaks of Sumatra. In physical appearance they have a striking likeness to the Polynesians, so close, indeed, that the one may readily be mistaken for the other.165
On the great islands near the Malaccan peninsula there are tribes in different stages of culture. Those on the highest plane are the Javanese, whose ancient language, the Kavi, is preserved in their sacred books. The Battaks of Northern Sumatra are an agricultural people, who have not accepted Islam, and belong to the old stock of the Asian immigrants. They are still to some extent cannibals, a convict condemned to death being eaten by the community. The Dayaks of Borneo are not less truculent, being cannibals and famous “head hunters”—that is, their highest trophy of war and proof of manhood is to bring home the head of a slain enemy. Some of them are agriculturists, others sea robbers. Their dwellings are of the communal character, and their religion an idolatry, the figures of the gods being carved in wood.
The Macassars of the Celebes and the Tagalas of the Philippines are Malays of milder habits, and possess commercial importance and literary culture. In these islanders there is a mixed class called Alfures,who have attracted some attention as differing from the prevalent type, but they are of no ethnographic importance.
The Malays probably established various colonies in Southern India. The natives at Travancore and the Sinhalese of Ceylon bear a strongly Malayan aspect. But the latter speak a dialect largely Aryac, and the Veddahs in the interior of the island have a much lower cephalic index than the Malay (about 72), and their language is derived about one-half from Aryac and the rest from Dravidian (Tamil) sources.166
Some ethnographers would make the Polynesians and Micronesians a different race from the Malays; but the farthest that one can go in this direction is to admit that they reveal some strain of another blood. This is evident in their physical appearance. They are uncommonly tall, symmetrical and handsome, a stature over six feet not being unusual among them. Their features are regular, their color a light brown. Their hair is black, smooth and glossy, sometimes with a curl or crisp in it, which betrays a touch of Papuan blood. All the Polynesian languages have some affinities to the Malayan, and the Polynesian traditions unanimously refer to the west for the home of their ancestors. We are able, indeed, by carefullyanalyzing these traditions, to trace with considerable accuracy both the route they followed to the Oceanic isles and the respective dates when they settled them.
Thus, the first station of their ancestors on leaving the western group, was the small island of Buru or Boru, between Celebes and New Guinea. Here they encountered the Papuas, some of whom still dwell in the interior, while the coast people are fair.167Leaving Boru, they passed to the north of New Guinea, colonizing the Caroline and Solomon Islands, but the vanguard pressing forward to take possession of Savai in the Samoan group and Tonga to its south. These two islands formed a second centre of distribution over the western Pacific. The Maoris of New Zealand moved from Tonga—“holy Tonga” as they call it in their songs—about six hundred years ago. The Society islanders migrated from Savai, and they in turn sent forth the population of the Marquesas, the Sandwich Islands and Easter Island.
The separation of the Polynesians from the western Malays must have taken place about the beginning of our era. This length of time permits the best adjustment of their several traditions, and is not so long as to render it difficult to explain the similarity of their dialects and usages.168
The disposition of the Polynesian is an improvement on that of the Malay. He is more to be trusted, and is more affable. In culture he is backward. Pottery is scarcely known, agriculture is not carried on, cannibalism was nigh universal, polygamy was prevalent, and the relation of the sexes was exceedingly loose, especially among the unmarried. The islanders, as may be expected, are singularly skilful navigators and build excellent canoes. They do not hesitate to undertake voyages of five or six hundred miles, and are such excellent swimmers that if the boat capsizes they are in no danger of drowning. Their weapons were the lance, the sling and club, but they were not acquainted with the bow and arrow.
Their religion, until the introduction of Christianity, was a frank polytheism. The deeds of the gods are related in long chants, which also contain many historic references.169The word “taboo” comes from Polynesia, and means “sacred,” “holy.” All objects which the priests declared “taboo” were considered to be consecrated to the supernatural powers, and to touch them was to incur sure death. They were accustomed to set apart enclosures which were “taboo,” and served as temples, and the images of the gods, in wood or stone, rudely carved, were there erected.
Although their houses were generally of brush and leaves, on several of the islands they constructed stone edifices. Such are found upon the Caroline islands, on sacred Tonga, on Pitcairn, and on Easter island, the last mentioned have excited particular attention, and have given rise to various foolish theories about a previous race of high culture, and about relationship to the civilized American nations of Peru and Central America. It is enough to say that nothing on Easter island is peculiar to its culture. There are stone platforms with rude stone images on them thirty or forty feet high; there are the foundations of stone houses; there are remains of a primitive ideographic writing. All these occur also on the other islands I have named, and the natives of Rapa-nui, as the island is called by the Tahitians, have nothing in their language or arts to distinguish them from other Polynesians. The pre-historic colossal structures on Ponape, Lalla and others of the Caroline group, are of basalt, and testify to a creditable ambition and skill on the part of the builders; but careful investigations prove that they are “without any doubt” to be attributed to the ancestors of the present inhabitants.170
Under the heading of the Australic branch, I would class together the primitive inhabitants of the peninsula of Hindostan and of the semi-continent of Australia.
The collocation may seem hazardous, but it has its reasons. The physical traits of the two are not remote. In both the hair is black and curly, showing Negritic blood, the skull is medium or long, the lips are full, the nose not prominent, the color brown, and there is a beard. The relationship of the Australians to some of the hill tribes of central India has been referred to as possible by the naturalist Wallace, and the linguist Caldwell finds Australian analogies in the Dravidian tongues, and points out that both are of the agglutinative type, and with family resemblances.171The suggestion seems close at hand that the Australian is a compound of the Negritic stock of Australasia with the Malay, the Dravidian perhaps with the Malay, and also with some other Asian people.172The English ethnologist, C. Staniland Wake, has advanced an almost equivalent theory to the effect that a straight-haired stock combined with the Australasian Negrito to form the Australians, but this straight-haired people he would attach to the “Caucasian” (Eurafrican) race, for which there is little or no evidence.173
Occupies the whole semi-continent of Australia and the island of Tasmania south of it. The last of the Tasmanians perished some years ago, and Carl Lumholtz, one of the most recent of Australian explorers, calculates the survivors of the native inhabitants of that continent at not over 30,000 individuals of pure blood.
Their appearance differs considerably, although it is generally conceded that they speak related idioms, and originally came from one lineage and language. The Tasmanians had quite frizzly or woolly hair, and according to reliable observers correspond closely in habits and appearance to the Papuas.174Among the Australians of the north and northeast coast this resemblance is still accentuated, and no wonder, when the islands in Torres straits, one in sight of the other, form natural stepping stones from New Guinea to Australia. On the west coast the hair is straighter, and the signs of Malay blood are obvious. The color varies from dark to light brown, and the beard is generally full, the body being also well supplied with hair.175
The culture status of the Australians is generally put at the very lowest. Their roving tribes are without government, they do not till the ground, they go naked, and do not know the bow and arrow. Their weapons are the spear and the boomerang, a crooked club which they throw at the object. The story that it returns to the thrower is only true of some used in sport (Lumholtz). Marriage among them is by robbery or purchase, and the women are treated with deliberate cruelly. Cannibalism in its most revolting form is usual, and the sick are deserted. Their religion is a low fetichism, and they have no idols nor forms of worship. Certain rites, as fasting, sacrificing, and solemn dancing, clearly have reference to the supposed supernatural powers. In some parts, however, they draw figures of animals with charcoal on the sides of caves, and manufacture rude stone carvings.176They chip flakes into spear-points, and are skilful in making fire from friction, in catching animals and other simple arts. Their songs are numerous, and are chanted in correct time.
Thecorroborees, or dances, constitute their principal religious and social festivals. These are usually celebrated at night, by the light of great fires, and accompanied by a horrible clangor, which passes for music, produced from drums, flutes, and a sort of tambourine. The chants relate to adventures in war andlove, in boasting recitals, and in descriptions of ancestral power. The initiation of the young of both sexes into the duties of adult life is always accompanied with some solemnities, such as fasting, incising the flesh in lines so as to leave prominent scars, cutting the hair, breaking one or more teeth, and with local mutilations of a painful and shocking character.
As usual among the primitive peoples, sickness and death are regarded, not as natural events, but as the maleficent action of evil spirits or living enemies. When ill, therefore, the services of the priest or magician is called in to counteract the sorcery and to name the adversary who sets it on foot. These adepts employ the same Shamanistic practices, rubbing, blowing, sucking, howling, which are popular with them everywhere, and if these fail, at least at death they can suggest who the hidden enemy has been, and thus furnish a pretext for the avenger of blood to start forth on his murderous mission.
In some parts the dead are burned; in others, the flesh is scraped from the bones, or the body is exposed until they are cleaned by the ants and other animals, and then they are carefully collected and placed in an ossuary; or again, the body is buried in the hut where the death took place, this is torn down and thrown on the grave, and the place is deserted. The spirits of the dead are supposed to haunt the place where the body is left, and as a rule to exercise an evil influence on the living. Food is occasionally placed on the grave, and some ceremonies of mourning are repeatedfor eleven months; usually, the survivors refrain from repeating the name of the deceased, even if it is a word of common use.177
Rudimentary as was their culture, it is interesting to notice that they had developed the conception of writing. They were accustomed to send information, and even describe events, by incising peculiarly formed notches, lines and figures on pieces of wood, called “message sticks.” These would be sent by runners for hundreds of miles, and could be read by the recipient through the conventional meanings assigned to the characters.178
I have already given you a description of the general appearance of the Dravidas or Dravidians. There is some physical resemblance among them all, but here the similarity ceases, as they vary greatly in culture and language. They are held to have been the pre-Aryac population of India, and one of their tribes, the Brahui, is found north of the mountains, in Beloochistan. When the Aryans entered India, about two thousand years before our era, they either subjugated, destroyed or drove to the south these earlier possessors of the soil. They either became the lowest caste in the Aryac states, the “sudras,” or theyfled to the swamps and hills. Their total number at present is about 50,000,000.
Linguistically they are divisible into two distinct groups, the Dravidas proper, and the Mundas. To the former belong the Tamuls, the Telugus, the Canarese, the Malayalas, the Todas, the Khonds, and other tribes of less importance. The skin of all these is brown, the hair curly, the head tending to dolichocephaly. The Todas of the Neilghery hills are regarded as of unusually pure blood. They are tall, with full beards and prominent noses, the hair black and bushy. Undoubtedly many of the Dravidas partake of Aryac blood through the long domination of that stock.
Most of the Dravida nations are cultured, possessing a written language and a literature. They are pastoral and agricultural in habits, and usually the women are well treated, and enjoy a certain degree of freedom. Monogamy is the prevalent custom, but polyandry (see p. 53) is frequent, and infanticide, particularly of female children, is looked upon with approval. Their religion is a nature-worship of a low order, consisting principally of conjurations against evil spirits and divination by sorcerers.
The Munda tribes include the Kohls, the Santals, the Bhillas and others, dwelling on the highlands of the interior, northwest of Calcutta. They are hunting and agricultural peoples, having a better reputation among the Europeans than their Hindoo neighbors. The physical type among them is variable, natives ofthe same village differing in color and hair, indicating frequent crossings with the Aryac and other foreign stock.