Old Toda Man, Nilgiri HillsFIG.129.—An old Toda man of Nilgiri hills.(Phot. Thurston.)
FIG.129.—An old Toda man of Nilgiri hills.(Phot. Thurston.)
2. TheAryans of Indiaform the greatest portion of the population to the north of the Nerbada and Mahanadi; they speak different dialects of the neo-Hindu language (ancient Bracha language, branch of thePrakritor corrupt vulgar Sanscrit). The following are the principal dialects: theHindi,Bengali,Punjabi,Kashmiri,Guzrati, andSindi. We distinguish several ethnic groups by these dialects, or the generic names designating aggregations of castes:Brahmans,Rajputs(101⁄2millions),JatsandGujars(9 millions altogether),Katis(42,000); or by their religion, as theSikhs, renowned for their warlike disposition, and recognising, at least theoretically, no castes.[461]
The root-stock of all these populations is formed by the Indo-Afghan race. This race we find again in almost a pure state among the Sikhs (stature1 m. 71, ceph. ind. in the liv. sub. 72.7, nas. ind. on the liv. sub. 68.8), and a little weakened among the Punjabi (height,1 m. 68, ceph. ind. 74.9, nas. ind. 70.2). Among the Hindus of Behar, of the north-west provinces and Oudh, among the Mahratis between the river Tapti and Goa, the type is still more changed in consequence of interminglings with the Dravidians; the stature becomes shorter (1 m. 63 and1 m. 64), the head rounder (ceph. ind. 75.7), the nose broader (nas. ind. 80.5 and 74), the complexion darker, etc.[462]With the Indo-Aryans are grouped, according to their type and language, the Kafirs or Siahposh of Kafiristan, and theDardiorDardu, occupying the countries situated more to the east, between the Pamirs on the north, Kashmir on the south, Kafiristan to the west, and Baltistan to the east—that is to say, Chitral, Dardistan (Yassin, Hunza, Nagar), Gilghit, Chilas, Kohistan. The Dardis are divided into four castes or tribes (Biddulph); that of theChins, forming the majority of the people, is distinguished by its short stature and its dark complexion, and recalls the Hindus of the north-west provinces (Ujfalvy); while another tribe, calledYeshkhun, speaks a language which, according to Biddulph, has affinities with the Turkish languages, and, according to Leitner, is anon-Aryan agglutinative language presenting analogies with Dravidian dialects. The Yeshkhuns inhabit Dardistan. Biddulph affirms that one may often encounter among them individuals with light and especially red hair. The forty-four Yeshkhuns and Chins measured by Ujfalvy were below the average height (1 m. 61), dolichocephalic (ceph. ind. 75.8), with black wavy hair, fine shaped nose, and rather dark skin; while nineteen “Turki-Dardi” of Hunza-Nagar and Yassin measured by Risley and Capus give a stature above the average (1 m. 69), and the cephalic index almost mesocephalic (77). They are thus closely allied to theChitrali(stature1 m. 67, ceph. ind. 76.9 from six subjects only, measured by Risley).[463]Most of the Dardu tribes are endogamous; polygamy is general. In certain tribes there are to be found survivals of polyandry and of the matriarchate.[464]
Group of Todas, Nilgiri HillsFIG.130.—Group of Todas of Nilgiri Hills.(Phot. lent by Deyrolle.)
FIG.130.—Group of Todas of Nilgiri Hills.(Phot. lent by Deyrolle.)
TheBaltis, neighbours of the Dardus on the east, speaking a Thibetan dialect, and thePakhpulukof the other side of the Kara-Korum (upper valley of the Karakash), speaking a Turkish tongue (Forsyth), are a mixture of Indo-Aryan and Turkish races. On the other hand, in the Himalayan region, theNepalese(theKulu-LahuliandPahariason the west, theKhas, theMangarsand otherGurkhas, Fig.125, on the east), speaking a neo-Hindu language, have sprung from the intermingling of Indo-Afghan and Mongolic races (by the Thibetans). There are in India other peoples among whom linguistic or somatological affinities with the Indo-Aryans are found. Such are theNairsof Malabar, a conglomerate of various castes and tribes, well known by their marriage customs (p.232), many of these tribes forming acontrast with the Dravidians by their fine type, their light complexion, their thin and prominent nose.[465]
Singhalese of Candy, CeylonFIG.131.—Singhalese of Candy, Ceylon,twenty-seven years old; ceph. ind. 72.4.(Phot. Delisle.)
FIG.131.—Singhalese of Candy, Ceylon,twenty-seven years old; ceph. ind. 72.4.(Phot. Delisle.)
Singhalese, Profile ViewFIG.132.—Same subject as Fig.131, seen in profile.(Phot. Delisle.)
FIG.132.—Same subject as Fig.131, seen in profile.(Phot. Delisle.)
TheSinghalese(Figs.131and132) of the south of Ceylon speak a fundamentally Aryan language. They have certaintraits in common with the Indo-Afghans and the Assyroids, but their type has been affected by the neighbourhood of a small mysterious tribe, that of theVeddahs(Figs.5,6, and133), driven back into the mountains of the south-west of Ceylon. This is the remnant of a very primitive population whose physical type approximates nearest to the platyrhine variety of the Dravidian race, at the same time presenting certain peculiarities. The Veddahs are monogamous; theylive in caves or under shelters of boughs (p.160), hiding themselves even from the Singhalese.[466]
Singhalese of Candy, CeylonFIG.133.—Tutti, Veddah woman of the village of Kolonggala, Ceylon;twenty-eight years old, height1 m. 39.(Phot. Brothers Sarasin.)
FIG.133.—Tutti, Veddah woman of the village of Kolonggala, Ceylon;twenty-eight years old, height1 m. 39.(Phot. Brothers Sarasin.)
VI. PEOPLES OFANTERIORASIA.—The multitude of peoples, tribes, castes, colonies, and religious brotherhoods of Iran, Arabia, Syria, and Asia Minor, this crossing-place of ethnic migrations, are chiefly composed in various degrees of the three races—Indo-Afghan, Assyroid, and Arab, with the addition of some other foreign races, Turkish, Negro, Adriatic, Mongolic, etc.
From the linguistic point of view, this multitude may perhaps be reduced to two great groups: the Eranians or Iranians andthe Semites, if we exclude some peoples whose linguistic affinities have not yet been established.
1. TheIraniansorEraniansoccupy the Iranian plateau and the adjoining regions, especially to the east. They speak different languages of the Eranian branch of the Aryan linguistic family. In physical composition the main characters are supplied by the Assyroid race (Fig.22) with admixture of Turkish elements in Persia and Turkey, Indo-Afghan elements in Afghanistan, and Arab and Negroid elements in the south of Persia and Baluchistan.
Among Iranian peoples the first place, as regards number and the part played in history, belongs to thePersians. They may be divided into three geographical groups. If within the approximate limits of Persia of the present day a line be drawn running from Astrabad to Yezd and thence towards Kerman, we shall have on the east the habitat of theTajiks, on the west that of theHajemis(between Teheran and Ispahan[467]), and that of theParsisorPharsis(between Ispahan and the Persian Gulf). TheTajiks, moreover, spread beyond the frontiers of Persia into Western Afghanistan, the north-west of Baluchistan, Afghan Turkestan and Russian Turkestan, as far as the Pamirs (Galcha), and perhaps even beyond. In fact, thePoluand other “Turanians” of the northern slope of the Kuen Lun, while speaking a Turkish language, bear a physical resemblance to the Tajiks (Prjevalsky). Like theSartes, settled inhabitants of Russian Turkestan, and theTatsof the south-west shore of the Caspian, and theAderbaijaniof the Caucasus, they are Persians more or less crossed with Turks, whose language they speak.
TheTajiksare brachycephalic (ceph. ind. 84.9), above the average height (1 m. 69), and show traces of intermixture with the Turkish race,[468]while theHajemis(Fig.22), and insome measure theParsis, who are dolichocephalic (77.9), and of average height (1 m. 65), are of the Assyroid or Indo-Afghan type.
TheParsisare not very numerous in Persia. Most of them emigrated into India after the destruction of the empire of the Sassanides (in 634); they form there an important and very rich community (89,900 individuals in 1891), having still preserved their ancient Zoroastrian religion. This community, if chiefly composed of bankers, has also many men of letters. The education of women in it is specially looked after, the first woman to obtain the diploma of Doctor in Medicine in India being a Parsi.[469]Physically they are of the mixed Indo-Assyroid type, the head sub-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. 82, according to Ujfalvy).
After the Persians come the Pathan Afghans[470]orPashtu. They form the agricultural population of Afghanistan, and are divided intoDuranis(in the west and south of the country),Ghilzis(in the east), and into several other less important tribes: theSwatis, theKhostis, theWaziris, theKakars, etc. The Afghans of India and the Indo-Afghan frontier are divided into several tribes, of which the principal ones are theAfridisnear the Khyber pass and the Yusafzais near Peshawar.[471]
TheBaluchisorBilochof Baluchistan and Western India speak an Eranian dialect akin to Persian; physically they belong to the Indo-Afghan race, but mixed with the Arabs on the south and the Jats and the Hindus on the east, with the Turkson the north and the Negroes on the south-west. TheMekraniof the coast of Baluchistan and partly of Persia are a mixture of Indo-Afghan, Assyroid, and Negro races (Fig.134). TheRinds(“Braves”) of the same coast of Mekran, who claim to be pure Baluchis, are only Arabs of the Kahtan tribe.[472]The nomadicBrahuisof Eastern Baluchistan, especially those of the environs of Kelat, resemble the Iranians. It is said that their language has some affinities with the Dravidian dialect. In reality, the ethnic place of this population, predominant in Baluchistan, is yet to be determined.
Singhalese of Candy, CeylonFIG.134.—Natives of Mekran (Baluchistan):on the right, Afghan type; on the left, the same with Negro intermixture.(Phot. Lapicque.)
FIG.134.—Natives of Mekran (Baluchistan):on the right, Afghan type; on the left, the same with Negro intermixture.(Phot. Lapicque.)
With the Iranian group it is customary to connect, especially from linguistic considerations, the Kurds, the Armenians, and the Ossets (p.356). The first-mentioned people, influenced here and there by interminglings with the Turks,physically resemble the Hajemis: sub-dolichocephalic head, 78.5 when it is not deformed (p.176), height above the average (1 m. 68), aquiline nose, etc. They occupy in a more or less compact mass the border-lands between Persia and Asia Minor; but they are found in isolated groups from the Turkmenian steppes (to the north of Persia) to the centre of Asia Minor (to the north-west of Lake Túz-gól). As to theArmeniansorHai, they are found in a compact body only around Lake Van and Mount Ararat, the rest being scattered over all the towns of the south-west of Asia, the Caucasus, the south of Russia, and even Galicia and Transylvania. It is a very mixed and heterogeneous ethnic group as regards physical type. The stature varies from1 m. 63 to1 m. 69 according to different localities, but the cephalic index is nearly uniformly brachycephalic (85 to 87). The predominant features are however formed by the Indo-Afghan, Assyroid, and perhaps Turkish and Adriatic races. Their language differs appreciably from the other Eranian tongues.[473]
2. TheSemitelinguistic group is represented by Arabs, Syrians, and Jews.
TheArabsoccupy, besides Arabia, a portion of Mesopotamia, the shores of the Red Sea, the eastern coast of the Persian Gulf, and the north of Africa. The pure type, characterised by dolichocephaly (ceph. ind. 70), prominence of the occiput, elongated face, aquiline nose, slim body, etc., is still preserved in the south of Arabia among theAriba Arabs, among the mountaineers of Hadramaout and Yemen (country of the ancientHimyaritesorSabeans), and among theBedouins,descendants of theIsmaelitesof the interior of Central and Northern Arabia; but the tribes which have drawn nearer the coast or the valleys of Mesopotamia show signs of interminglings with populations of a predominant Assyroid or Turkish type, without taking into account, as at Haza and on the coast of Yemen, the Negro and Ethiopic influence. Typical nomads, having in the religion founded by Mahomet a national bond of union, the Arabs make their influence widely felt over the world. Traces of the Arab type are met with not only over the whole of Northern Africa (see p.432), but also in Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Western Persia, in India; while numerous traces of the Arab language[474]and civilisation are found in Europe (Malta, Spain), in China, Central Asia, and in the Asiatic Archipelago. TheMelkitsand theWahabitsare two religious sects of Arabs.
The people of Syria and Palestine, known by the name of Syrians in the towns, ofKufarin the country, is the product of the interminglings of Arabs with descendants of Phœnicians and with Jews. It also forms the basis of numerous ethnic groups connected solely by religion, and of constituent elements often very heterogeneous: such are theMaronitesof Western Lebanon, theNestorians, theDruzesof Hermon and Djebel Hauran (Kurdish elements), among whom woman occupies a higher position than among other Asiatics; theMetouali(Shiah sect) of Tyre; theNazareansorAnsarieh, who perhaps represent, along with theTakhtaji(Gypsy elements), theKizilbashesand theYezidesorYezdi(Kurdish elements) of Mesopotamia, the remains of the primitive population of Asia Minor, akin, according to Luschan, to the Armenians.[475]
TheJewsare not very numerous (250,000) in Asia, and are found scattered in small groups throughout the world.Even in the country which was formerly a Jewish State, Palestine, they scarcely exceed 75,000 in number at the present day. They are found in compact groups only in the neighbourhood of Damascus, at Jerusalem, and at the foot of the mountain-chain of Safed.
It is well known that to-day the Jews are scattered over the whole earth. Their total number is estimated at eight millions, of which the half is in Russia and Rumania, a third in Germany and Austria, and a sixth in the rest of the world, even as far as Australia. The great majority of Jews are unacquainted withHebrew, which is a dead language; they speak, according to the country they inhabit, particular kinds of jargon, the most common of which is the Judeo-German. Physically the Jews present two different types, one of which approximates to the Arab race (Fig.21), the other to the Assyroid. Sometimes these types are modified by the addition of elements of the populations in the midst of which they dwell;[476]but, even in these cases, many traits, such as the convex nose, vivacity of eye, frequency of erythrism (p.50), frizzy hair, thick under lip, inferiority of the thoracic perimeter, etc., show a remarkable persistence. The Arab type is common among the Spanish Jews who practise the Sefardi rite, among the native Jews of the Caucasus, very brachycephalic however (85.5 ceph. ind., according to Erckert and Chantre),[477]and among those of Palestine, while the Assyroid type dominates among the Jews of Asia Minor, Bosnia, and Germany. These last, like the Jews of Slav countries, practise the Askenazi rite. The Jews ofBosnia, called Spaniols, coming from Spain by Constantinople, are under average height (1 m. 63) and mesocephalic (ceph. ind. 80.1, Gluck); those of Galicia, Western Russia, and Russian Poland are shorter (1 m. 61 and 62) and sub-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. 82); those of England are of the same stature (1 m. 62), but mesocephalic (ceph. ind. 80).[478]
Along with the Jews we must put another people, also dispersed over nearly the whole earth, and of Asiatic origin, probably from India, to judge by the affinities of its language with the Hindu dialects—theGypsies. They are found in India (Banjars,Nats, etc.), Persia and Russian Turkestan (Luli,Mazang,Kara-Luli, etc.), in Asia Minor (where are also found their congeners, theYuruks); then in Syria (Chingane), in Egypt (Phagari,Nuri, etc.), and all over Europe, with the exception, it is said, of Sweden and Norway; they are found in considerable numbers in Rumania (200,000), Turkey, Hungary, and the south-west of Russia. In all they number nearly a million. The pure so-called “Black Gypsies” are of the Indo-Afghan race (stature1 m. 72, ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 76.8), but very often they have intermingled with the populations in the midst of which they dwell.[479]
RACES AND PEOPLES OF AFRICA.
Ancient Inhabitants of Africa—Succession of races on the “dark continent”—PRESENTINHABITANTS OFAFRICA—I.Arabo-Berber or Semito-Hamite Group: Populations of Mediterranean Africa and Egypt—II.Ethiopian or Kushito-Hamite Group: Bejas, Gallas, Abyssinians, etc.—III.Fulah-Zandeh Group: The Zandeh, Masai, Niam-Niam populations of the Ubangi-Shari, etc., Fulbé or Fulahs—IV.Nigritian Group: Nilotic Negroes or Negroes of eastern Sudan—Negroes of central Sudan—Negroes of western Sudan and the Senegal—Negroes of the coast or Guinean Negroes, Kru, Agni, Tshi, Vei, Yoruba, etc.—V.Negrillo Group: Differences of the Pygmies and the Bushmen—VI.Bantu Group: Western Bantus of French, German, Portuguese, and Belgian equatorial Africa—Eastern Bantus of German, English, and Portuguese equatorial Africa—Southern Bantus: Zulus, etc.—VII.Hottentot-Bushman Group: The Namans and the Sans—VIII.Populations of Madagascar: Hovas, Malagasi, Sakalavas.
THEterm “Black Continent” is often applied to Africa, but it must not therefore be supposed that it is peopled solely by Negroes. Without taking into account the white Arabo-Berbers and the yellow Bushmen-Hottentots, which have long been known, it may now be shown, after a half-century of discovery, that the population of Africa presents a very much greater variety of types and races than was formerly imagined.
We are only just beginning to know something about prehistoric Africa. Egypt, that classic land of the oldest historic monuments of the earth, has yielded in late years, thanks to the excavations of Flinders Petrie, D’Amelineau, and above all, of De Morgan, a large quantity of wrought stone objects, similar in character tothose of Europe, and if certain objections may still be raised in regard to the palæolithic period of Egypt, which is not dated by a fauna, we can scarcely deny the existence of theneolithicperiod in this country, the period which preceded or was contemporaneous with the earliest dynasties of which monuments have yet been discovered.[480]
Hatchets, knives, and scrapers of very rude palæolithic and neolithic types have been discovered in Cape Colony (W. Gooch, J. Sanderson); flint arrow-heads and implements of the Chellean type in the country of the Somalis, in the Congo Free State;[481]ironstone arrow-heads in the country of the Monbuttus (Emin Pacha). Numerous stone implements and weapons of various palæolithic types, much finer than the preceding, as well as neolithic hatchets, have been found in Algeria (at Tlemcen), in South Algeria (at El-Golea, etc.), and as far as Timbuctoo (Weisgerber, Lenz, Collignon, etc.). Lastly, Tunis presents a progressive series of palæolithic implements absolutely similar to those of Europe in several stations (at Gafsa and, in a general way, west from the Gulf of Gabes).[482]But all these finds are very isolated and too far removed one from another to enable us toinfer from them the existence of one and the same primitive industry over the whole continent.[483]Numerous facts on the contrary, particularly the absence of stone implements among the most primitive of the existing tribes of Africa (with the exception of the perforated round stone with which the digging-stick is weighted, as well as the stone pestles met with among some Negro tribes), and the rarity of superstitions associated with stone implements, lead us to suppose that the stone age only existed on the dark continent in a sporadic state and in virtue of local and isolated civilisations. Further, the absence of bronze implements, outside of Egypt, leads us to suppose that the majority of the peoples of Africa, with the exception of the inhabitants of Egypt and the Mediterranean coast, passed from the age of bone and wood to that of iron almost without transition.
Several palæethnologists go so far as to think that the iron industry was imported into Europe from Africa. At all events skilful smiths (Fig.135) are found in the centre of Africa among Negro tribes somewhat backward in other respects.
Historic data are lacking in regard to most of the peoples of Africa, especially for remote periods, except in Egypt. However, combining the various historic facts known to us with the recent data of philology and those, still more recent, of anthropology, we may assume with sufficient probability the following superposition of races and peoples in Africa.
The primitive substratum of the population is formed of Negroes, very tall and very black, in the north; of Negrilloes, brown-skinned dwarfs, in the centre; of Bushmen, short, yellow, and steatopygous, in the south. On this substratum was deposited at a distant but indefinite period the so-called Hamitic element of European or Asiatic origin, the supposed continuators of the Cro-Magnon race.[484]This element has been preserved in a comparatively pure state among theBerbers, and perhaps has been transformed by interminglings with the Negroes, into a new race, analogous to the Ethiopian, with which we must probably connect the ancient Egyptians. The Berbers drove back the Negroes towards the south, while the Ethiopians, a little later, filtered through the Negroid mass from east to west. This infiltration continues at the present day.
A new wave of migration followed that of the Hamites. These were the southern Semites or Himyarites who crossed from the other side of the Red Sea. Probably as far back as the Egyptian neolithic period they began the slow but sure process of modifying the Berbers, Ethiopians, and Negroes of the north-east of Africa.
The Negro populations driven back towards the south were obliged to intermingle with the Negrillo pygmies, the Ethiopians, and Hottentot-Bushmen, and gave birth to the Negro tribes composing to-day the great linguistic family calledBantu. Bantu migrations, at first from the north to the south, then in the opposite direction and towards the west, have been authenticated.[485]As a consequence of the interminglings due to these migrations, the Negrilloes and the Hottentots have been absorbed to a great extent by the Bantus, and the rare representatives of these races, still existing in a state of relative purity, are to-day driven back into themost unhealthy and inhospitable regions of Central and Southern Africa. The last important invasion of alien peoples into Africa was that of the Northern Semites or Arabs. It was, rather, a series of invasions, ranging from the first centuryB.C.to the fifteenth century, when the climax was reached. The Arab tribes have profoundly modified certain Berber and Ethiopian populations from the somatic point of view as well as the ethnic. Moreover, the Arab influence under the form of Islamism continues to the present time its onward march over the dark continent, making from the north-east to the south-west. The Guinea coast, the basin of the Congo, and Southern Africa alone have as yet remained untouched by this influence. Let us note in conclusion the Malay-Indonesian migration towards Madagascar, and the European colonisation begun in the seventeenth century.
Kaffirs: Arts and CraftsFIG.135.—Arts and crafts among the Kafirs.To the left, pottery making (coiling method);to the right, smiths and a breaker of iron ore;in the middle, woman playing a harp.(Drawing by P. Moutet, partly after Wood.)
FIG.135.—Arts and crafts among the Kafirs.To the left, pottery making (coiling method);to the right, smiths and a breaker of iron ore;in the middle, woman playing a harp.(Drawing by P. Moutet, partly after Wood.)
Putting on one side the Madagascar islanders and the European and other colonists,[486]the thousands of peoples and tribes of the “dark continent” may be grouped, going from north to south, into six great geographical, linguistic, and, in part, anthropological units: 1st, the Arabo-Berbers or Semito-Hamites; 2nd, the Ethiopians or Kushito-Hamites; 3rd, the Fulah-Zandeh; 4th, the Negrilloes or Pygmies; 5th, the Nigritians or Sudanese-Guinea Negroes; 6th, the Bantus; 7th, the Hottentot-Bushmen.[487]
I. TheArabo-BerberorSemito-Hamiticgroup occupies the north of Africa as far as about the 15th degree of lat. N., and is composed, as its name indicates, of peoples having as a base the Arab and Berber races. Under the name ofBerbersare included populations varying very much in type and manners and customs, speaking either Arabic (Semitic language) or Berberese (Hamitic language). Three-fourths of the “Arabs” of Northern Africa are only Berbers speaking Arabic, and are the more “Arabised” in regard to manners and customs as they are nearer to Asia. The nomads of the Libyan desert and Tripoli have preserved fairly well the Berber type, but they have become Arabs in language and usages. In Tunis and Algeria the Arab influence is still very much felt in the south; in Morocco it is very trifling. From the social point of view, the contrast is great between the settled Berber and the nomadic Arab. To give but one example, the democraticrégimeof the former, based on private property, bears no resemblance whatever to the autocraticrégimeof the latter, founded on collective property. But all the Berbers are not of settled habits (example: the Tuaregs), and several tribes have adopted the Arab mode of life.[488]
Physically, the Algero-Tunisian Berber also differs from the Arab. His height is scarcely above the average (1 m. 67), while the Arab is distinguished by his lofty stature. The Berber head is, generally speaking, not so long as the Arab, although both are dolichocephalic. The face is a regular oval in the Arab, almost quadrangular in the pure Berber. The nose is aquiline in the former, straight or concave in the latter, and moreover, the Berbers have a sort of transverse depression on the brow, above the glabella, which is not seen in the Arabs; on the other hand, they have not so prominent an occiput as the latter. This characterisation is quite general; in reality,among the Arabs, and especially among the Berbers, there is a very great variety of type. According to Collignon,[489]four Berber sub-races or types must be recognised. (1) TheDjerbasub-race, characterised by short stature, globular head (ceph. ind. on the living sub. 78 to 81.7), is well represented in the populations of the south-east and the east Tunisian coast, as well as by certainKabyles, by theMzabs,[490]and theShawiasof the Aures. (2) TheElles type, dolichocephalic, with broad face, occupies the centre of Tunis and the east of Kabylia. (3) Thedolichocephalic Berber sub-race, with narrow face and stature above the average, forms the present type in Algeria-Tunisia. (4) TheJeridorOasis type(Fig.136), of somewhat lofty stature and dark complexion, is well represented around the Tunisian “Shotts.”
Tunisian BerberFIG.136.—Tunisian Berber, Oasis type. Ceph. ind. 70.(After Collignon.)
FIG.136.—Tunisian Berber, Oasis type. Ceph. ind. 70.(After Collignon.)
Among the nomadic Berbers we must mention separatelytheTuaregsorImoshagh, as they call themselves,[491]with their manifold divisions (Azjars,Haggars, etc.) spread over the western Sahara. Very characteristic of their costume is the black veil which covers the head leaving only the eyes free, the stone rings on the arms forming also a very national ornament. They employ certain characters in writing peculiar to themselves. In theMaghrebi, who roam over the plateaus situated to the west of the Nile, the Arab strain is very strongly marked.[492]On the other side of the great African river, towards the Red Sea, the Berbers have entirely disappeared and the population is formed of Arabs more or less unmixed. The Bedouins of Egypt (237,000 in 1894) are Berber-Arabs divided into numerous tribes (Aulad-Ali,Gavazi,Eleikat, etc.).
Trarza-Moor, SenegalFIG.137.—Trarza-Moor of the Senegal.(Phot. Collignon.)
FIG.137.—Trarza-Moor of the Senegal.(Phot. Collignon.)
The nomadic or settledMoors(Fig.137) of the western Sahara, extending from Morocco to the Senegal (theTrarza,theBrakna, etc.), speak Arabic and “Zenagha,” which is a Berber dialect. These are Berbers more or less crossed with Negro blood. It must further be observed that the name of Moors is very wrongly applied to the Mussulman inhabitants of the towns of Algeria and Tunis and to theRiffiansof Morocco.[493]
TheFellaheen, Mussulmans (635,600 in 1894) of the lower valley of the Nile (as far as the first cataract), mixed descendants of the ancient Egyptians, must be included among the Arabo-Berbers because they have abandoned the speech of their ancestors, adopting that of the Arabs, but many of them have preserved intact the type of the primitive Egyptians, fundamentally Ethiopian, so well represented on various monuments in the valley of the Nile.[494]The ancient Egyptian language is preserved, however, under the form of theCopticdialect which, until quite recent times, served as the liturgical language to the Christian section of the inhabitants of Lower Egypt, known by the name ofCopts(500,000 in 1894; cephalic index 76, according to Chantre).
We must likewise add to the Arabo-Berber group theBarabra(in the singularBerberi) inhabiting to the number of about 180,000 the part of the Nile valley situated between the first and the fourth cataract. It is a people sprung from the intermingling of Ethiopians, Egyptian Fellaheen, and Arabs (ceph. ind. 76). One of the most commercial tribes of this ethnic group is that of theDanaglainhabiting the country of Dongola.
II. TheEthiopiansorKushito-Hamites, who are sometimes calledNubaorNubians,[495]inhabit the north-east of Africa, from the 25th degree lat. N. to the 4th degree lat. S. They occupy almost all the coast land of the Red Sea, and that of the Indian Ocean from the Gulf of Aden to Port Durnford or Wubashi. Their territory is bounded on the west by the Nile, the Bahr-el-Azrek, the western edge of the Abyssinian plateau, Lake Rudolf and Mount Kenia.[496]
In the northern part of this territory dwell theBejasorNubians, the different tribes of which,BejasorBisharin,Hamrans(Fig.138),Hadendowas,Hallengas, etc., are stationed one after another between the Red Sea and the Nile, from the first cataract to the Abyssinian plateau. Certain Beja tribes, like theAbabdeh(19,500), to the north in Upper Egypt, partly of settled habits, theBeni-Amerto the east, theJalinto the west, are in a large measure Arabised, but still speak a Hamitic language, while side by side with them dwell Semitised Ethiopian tribes, speaking only Arabic like theHababand theHassaniehof the Bayuda steppe or theAbu-RofandShukriehof the lower basin of the Blue Nile.[497]It is in the same category of Semitised Ethiopians, but speaking theAmharingaandTigrengadialects, etc., which have sprung from a different Semitic language,Ghéez, that we must place the inhabitants of the north and east of Abyssinia, as well as the natives of Kaffa and the east of Shoa, who have sprung from the intermingling of theGallas(see below) with the Arabs.