Man, Past and Present - Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (most popular novels txt) 📗

complexion very dark, almost black, hair plentiful with a tendency to curl, head long and nose very broad[1332]. MONGOLO-DRAVIDIAN or Bengali type of Bengal and Orissa, showing fusion with Tibeto-Burman elements. The stature is medium, complexion dark, and head conspicuously broad, nose variable. MONGOLOID of the Himalayas, Nepal, Assam, and Burma, represented by the Kanet of Lahoul and Kulu, the Lepcha of Darjiling, the Limbu, Murmi and Gurung of Nepal, the Bodo of Assam and the Burmese. The stature is short, the complexion dark with a yellowish tinge, the hair on the face scanty. The head is broad with characteristic flat face and frequently oblique eyes.

This classification while more or less generally adopted in outline is not allowed to pass unchallenged, especially with regard to the theories of origin implied. Concerning the brachycephalic element of Western India Risley's belief that it was the result of so-called "Scythian" invasions is not supported by sufficient evidence. "The foreign element is certainly Alpine, not Mongolian, and it may be due to a migration of which the history has not been written[1333]." Ramaprasad Chanda[1334] goes further and traces the broad-headed elements in both "Scytho-Dravidians" (Gujaratis, Marathas and Coorgs) and "Mongolo-Dravidians" (Bengalis and Oriyas) to one common source, "the Homo alpinus of the Pamirs and Chinese Turkestan," and attempts to reconstruct the history of the migration of the Alpine invaders from Central Asia over Gujarat, Deccan, Bihar and Bengal. His conclusions are supported by the reports of Sir Aurel Stein of the Homo Alpinus type discovered in the region of Lob Nor, dating from the first centuries A.D. This type "still supplies the prevalent element in the racial constitution of the indigenous population of Chinese Turkestan, and is seen in its purest form in the Iranian-speaking tribes near the Pamirs[1335]."

But any scheme of classification must be merely tentative, subject to modification as statistics of the vast area are gradually collected. And W. Crooke[1336], while acknowledging the value of Risley's scheme[1337] points out the need of caution in accepting measurements of skull and nose forms applied to the mixed races and half-breeds which form the majority of the people. "The race migrations are all prehistoric, and the amalgamation of the races has continued for ages among a people to whom moral restraints are irksome and unfamiliar. The existing castes are quite a modern creation, dating only from the later Buddhist age." "The present population thus represents the flotsam and jetsam collected from many streams of ethnical movement, and any attempt to sort out the existing races into a set of pigeon-holes, each representing a defined type of race, is, in the present state of our knowledge, impossible[1338]."

In features, says Dalton, the Kols[1339] show "much variety, and I think in a great many families there is a considerable admixture of Aryan blood. Many have high noses and oval faces, and young girls are at times met with who have delicate and regular features, finely-chiselled straight noses, and perfectly formed mouths and chins. The eyes, however, are seldom so large, so bright, and gazelle-like as those of pure Hindu maidens, and I have met strongly marked Mongolian features. In colour they vary greatly, the copper tints being about the most common [though the Mirzapur Kols are very dark]. Eyes dark brown, hair black, straight or wavy [as all over India]. Both men and women are noticeable for their fine, erect carriage and long, free stride[1340]."

The same variations are found among the Dravidians, where, as should be expected, there are many aberrant groups showing divergences in all directions, as amongst the Kurumba and Toda of the Nilgiris, the former approximating to the Mongol, the latter to the Aryan standard. W. Sikemeier, who lived amongst them for years, notes that "many of the Kurumbas have decided Mongoloid face and stature, and appear to be the aborigines of that region[1341]." The same correspondent adds that much nonsense has been written about the Todas, who have become the trump card of popular ethnographists. "Being ransacked by European visitors they invent all kinds of traditions, which they found out their questioners liked to get, and for which they were paid." Still the type is remarkable and strikingly European, "well proportioned and stalwart, with straight nose, regular features and perfect teeth," the chief characteristic being the development of the hairy system, less however than amongst the Ainu, whom they so closely resemble[1342]. From the illustrations given in Thurston's valuable series one might be tempted to infer that a group of proto-Aryans had reached this extreme limit of their Asiatic domain, and although W. H. R. Rivers has cleared away the mystery and established links between the Todas and tribes of Malabar and Travancore, the problem of their origin is not yet entirely solved[1343].

The Dravidians occupy the greater part of the Deccan, where they are constituted in a few great nations--Telugus (Telingas), Tamils (numbers of whom have crossed into Ceylon and occupied the northern and central parts of that island, working in the coffee districts), Kanarese, and the Malayalim of the west coast. These with some others were brought at an early date under Aryan (Hindu) influences, but have preserved their highly agglutinating Dravidian speech, which has no known affinities elsewhere, unless perhaps with the language of the Brahuis, who are regarded by many as belated Dravidians left behind in East Baluchistan.

But for this very old, but highly cultivated Dravidian language, which is still spoken by about 54 millions between the Ganges and Ceylon, it would no longer be possible to distinguish these southern Hindus from those of Aryan speech who occupy all the rest of the peninsula together with the southern slopes of the Hindu-Kush and parts of the western Himalayas. Their main divisions are the Kashmiri, many of whom might be called typical Aryans; the Punjabis with several sub-groups, amongst which are the Sikhs, religious sectaries half Moslem half Hindu, also of magnificent physique; the Gujaratis, Mahratis, Hindis, Bengalis, Assamis, and Oraons of Orissa, all speaking Neo-Sanskritic idioms, which collectively constitute the Indic branch of the Aryan family. Hindustani or Urdu, a simplified form of Hindi current especially in the Doab, or "Two waters," the region between the Ganges and Jumna above Allahabad, has become a sort of lingua franca, the chief medium of intercourse throughout the peninsula, and is understood by certainly over 100 millions, while all the population of Neo-Sanskritic speech numbered in 1898 considerably over 200 millions.

Classification derives little help from the consideration of caste, whatever view be taken of the origin of this institution. The rather obvious theory that it was introduced by the handful of Aryan conquerors to prevent the submergence of the race in the great ocean of black or dark aborigines, is now rejected by many investigators, who hold that its origin is occupational, a question rather of social or industrial pursuits becoming hereditary in family groups than of race distinctions sanctioned by religion. They point out that the commentator's interpretation of the Pancha Ksitaya, "Five Classes," as Brahmans(priests), Kshatriyas (fighters), Vaisya (traders), Sudra(peasants and craftsmen of all kinds), and Nishada (savages or outcasts) is recent, and conveys only the current sentiment of the age. It never had any substantial base, and even in the comparatively late Institutes of Manu "the rules of food, connubium and intercourse between the various castes are very different from what we find at present"; also that, far from being eternal and changeless, caste has been subject to endless modifications throughout the whole range of Hindu myth and history. Nor is it an institution peculiar to India, while even here the stereotyped four or five divisions neither accord with existing facts, nor correspond to so many distinct ethnical groups.

All this is perfectly true, and it is also true that for generations the recognised castes, say, social pursuits, have been in a state of constant flux, incessantly undergoing processes of segmentation, so that their number is at present past counting. Nevertheless, the system may have been, and probably was, first inspired by racial motives, an instinctive sense of self-preservation, which expressed itself in an informal way by local class distinctions which were afterwards sanctioned by religion, but eventually broke down or degenerated into the present relations under the outward pressure of imperious social necessities[1344].

* * * * *

Beyond the mainland and Ceylon no Caucasic peoples of Aryan speech are known to have ranged in neolithic or prehistoric times. But we have already followed the migrations of a kindred[1345], though mixed race, here called INDONESIANS, into Malaysia, the Philippines, Formosa, and the Japanese Archipelago, which they must have occupied in the New Stone Age. Here there occurs a great break, for they are not again met till we reach Micronesia and the still more remote insular groups beyond Melanesia. In Micronesia the relations are extremely confused, because, as it seems, this group had already been occupied by the Papuans from New Guinea before the arrival of the Indonesians, while after their arrival they were followed at intervals by Malays perhaps from the Philippines and Formosa, and still later by Japanese, if not also by Chinese from the mainland. Hence the types are here as varied as the colour, which appears, going eastwards, to shade off from the dark brown of the Pelew and Caroline Islanders to the light brown of the Marshall and Gilbert groups, where we already touch upon the skirts of the true Indonesian domain[1346].

A line drawn athwart the Pacific from New Zealand through Fiji to Hawaii will roughly cut off this domain from the rest of the Oceanic world, where all to the west is Melanesian, Papuan or mixed, while all to the right--Maori, some of the eastern Fijians, Tongans, Samoans, Tahitians, Marquesans, Hawaiians and Easter Islanders--is grouped under the name POLYNESIAN, a type produced by a mixture of Proto-Malayan and Indonesian. Dolichocephaly and mesaticephaly prevail throughout the region, but there are brachycephalic centres in Tonga, the Marquesas and Hawaiian Islands. The hair is mostly black and straight, but also wavy, though never frizzly or even kinky. The colour also is of a light brown compared to cinnamon or cafe-au-lait, and sometimes approaching an almost white shade, while the tall stature averages 1.72 m. (5 ft. 7-3/4 ins.).

Migrating at an unknown date eastwards from the East Indian archipelago[1347], the first permanent settlements appear to have been formed in Samoa, and more particularly in the island of Savaii, originally Savaiki, which name under divers forms and still more divers meanings accompanied all their subsequent migrations over the Pacific waters. Thus we have in Tahiti Havaii[1348], the "universe," and the old capital of Raiatea; in Rarotonga Avaiki, "the land under the wind"; in New Zealand Hawaiki, "the land whence came the Maori"; in the Marquesas Havaiki, "the lower regions of the dead," as in to fenua Havaiki, "return to the land of thy forefathers," the words with which the victims in human sacrifices were speeded to the other world; lastly in Hawaii, the name of the chief island of the Sandwich group.

The Polynesians are cheerful, dignified, polite, imaginative and intelligent, varying in temperament between the wild and energetic and politically capable Maori to his indolent and politically sterile kinsmen to the north, who have been unnerved by the unvarying uniformity of temperature. Wherever possible, they are agriculturalists, growing yams, sweet potatoes and taro. Coconuts, bread-fruit and bananas form the staple food in many islands. Scantily endowed with fertile soil and edible plants the Polynesians have gained command over the sea which everywhere surrounds them, and have developed into the best seamen among primitive races. Large sailing double canoes were formerly in use, and single canoes with an outrigger are still made. Native costume for men is made of bark cloth, and for women ample petticoats of split and plaited leaves. Ornaments, with the exception of flowers, are sparingly worn. The bow and arrow are unknown, short spears, clubs and slings are used, but no shields. The arts of writing, pottery making, loom-weaving and the use of metals were, with few exceptions, unknown,