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

paper on this collection of Finnish songs C. U. Clark (Forum, April, 1898, p. 238 sq.) shows from the primitive character of the mythology, the frequent allusions to copper or bronze, and the almost utter absence of Christian ideas and other indications, that these songs must be of great antiquity. "There seems to be no doubt that some parts date back to at least 3000 years ago, before the Finns and the Hungarians had become distinct peoples; for the names of the divinities, many of the customs, and even particular incantations and bits of superstitions mentioned in the Kalevala are curiously duplicated in ancient Hungarian writings."

[714] When Ohthere made his famous voyage round North Cape to the Cwen Sea (White Sea) all this Arctic seaboard was inhabited, not by Samoyeds, as at present, but by true Finns, whom King Alfred calls Beormas, i.e. the Biarmians of the Norsemen, and the Permiaki (Permians) of the Russians (Orosius, I. 13). In medieval times the whole region between the White Sea and the Urals was often called Permia; but since the withdrawal southwards of the Zirynians and other Permian Finns this Arctic region has been thinly occupied by Samoyed tribes spreading slowly westward from Siberia to the Pechora and Lower Dvina.

[715] See A. Hackman, Die Bronzezeit Finnlands, Helsingfors, 1897; also M. Aspelin, O. Montelius, V. Thomsen and others, who have all, on various grounds, arrived at the same conclusion. Even D. E. D. Europaeus, who has advanced so many heterodox views on the Finnish cradleland, and on the relations of the Finnic to the Mongolo-Turki languages, agrees that "vers l'epoque de la naissance de J. C., c'est-a-dire bien longtemps avant que ces tribus immigrassent en Finlande, elles [the western Finns] etaient etablies immediatement au sud des lacs d'Onega et de Ladoga." (Travaux Geographiques executes en Finlande jusqu'en 1895, Helsingfors, 1895, p. 141.)

[716] Finska Forminnesfoereningens Tidskrift, Journ. Fin. Antiq. Soc.1896, p. 137 sq.

[717] "Les Finnois et leurs congeneres ont occupe autrefois, sur d'immenses espaces, les vastes regions forestieres de la Russie septentrionale et centrale, et de la Siberie occidentale; mais plus tard, refoules et divises par d'autres peuples, ils furent reduits a des tribus isolees, dont il ne reste maintenant que des debris epars" (Travaux Geographiques, p. 132).

[718] A word of doubtful meaning, commonly but wrongly supposed to mean swamp or fen, and thus to be the original of the Teutonic Finnas, "Fen People" (see Thomsen, Einfluss d. ger. Spr. auf die finnisch-lappischen, p. 14).

[719] "Þa Finnas, him þuhte, and þa Beormas spraecon neah an geetheode" (Orosius, I. 14).

[720] See my paper on the Finns in Cassel's Storehouse of Information, p. 296.

[721] The fullest information concerning Finland and its inhabitants is found in the Atlas de Finlande, with Texte (2 vols.) published by the Soc. Geog. Finland in 1910.

[722] Laila, Earl of Ducie's English ed., p. 58. The Swedish Bothniais stated to be a translation of Kwaen, meaning low-lying coastlands; hence Kainulaiset, as they call themselves, would mean "Coastlanders."

[723] A Boat Journey to Inari, Viking Club, Feb. 1, 1895.

[724] The Great Frozen Land, 1895, p. 61.

[725] The Great Frozen Land, p. 84.

[726] Cf. M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, 1914, pp. 162, 289 n.

[727] Notes sur les Votiaks payens des Gouvernements de Kazan et Viatka, Paris, 1897. They are still numerous, especially in Viatka, where they numbered 240,000 in 1897.

[728] See especially Schafarik's classical work Slavische Alterthuemer, II. p. 159 sq. and V. de Saint-Martin, Etudes de Geographie Ancienne et d'Ethnographie asiatique, II. p. 10 sq., also the still indispensable Gibbon, Ch. XLII., etc.

[729] Decline and Fall, XLII.

[730] Rubruquis (thirteenth century): "We came to the Etil, a very large and deep river four times wider than the Seine, flowing from 'Great Bulgaria,' which lies to the north." Farther on he adds: "It is from this Great Bulgaria that issued those Bulgarians who are beyond the Danube, on the Constantinople side" (quoted by V. de Saint-Martin).

[731] Evidently much nearer to the Ural Mountains, for Jean du Plan Carpin says this "Great Hungary was the land of Bascart," that is, Bashkir, a large Finno-Turki people, who still occupy a considerable territory in the Orenburg Government about the southern slopes of the Urals.

[732] With them were associated many of the surviving fugitive On-Uigurs (Gibbon's "Ogors or Varchonites"), whence the report that they were not true Avars. But the Turki genealogies would appear to admit their claim to the name, and in any case the Uigurs and Avars of those times cannot now be ethnically distinguished. Kandish, one of their envoys to Justinian, is clearly a Turki name, and Varchonites seems to point to the Warkhon (Orkhon), seat in successive ages of the eastern Turks, the Uigurs, and the true Mongols.

[733] Ethnology, p. 309.

[734] Vambery, perhaps the best authority on this point, holds that in its structure Magyar leans more to the Finno-Ugric, and in its vocabulary to the Turki branch of the Ural-Altaic linguistic family. He attributes the effacement of the physical type partly to the effects of the environment, partly to the continuous interminglings of the Ugric, Turki, Slav, and Germanic peoples in Pannonia ("Ueber den Ursprung der Magyaren," in Mitt. d. K. K. Geograph. Ges., Vienna, 1897, XL. Nos. 3 and 4).

[735] T. Peisker, "The Asiatic Background," Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. I. 1911, p. 356.

[736] "Das Volk steht und faellt mit der Sprache" (Urbewohner Brasiliens, 1897, p. 14).

CHAPTER X(THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES)

 

American Origins--Fossil Man in America--The Lagoa-Santa Race--Physical Type in North America--Cranial Deformation--The Toltecs--Type of N.W. Coast Indians--Date of Migrations--Evidence from Linguistics--Stock Languages--Culture--Classification-- By Linguistics--Ethnic Movements--Archaeological Classification--Cultural Classification--Eskimo Area--Material Culture--Origin and Affinities--Physical Type--Social Life--Mackenzie Area--The Dene--Material Culture--Physical Type--Social Life--North Pacific Coast Area--Material Culture--Physical Type--Social Life--Plateau Area--Material Culture--Interior Salish--Social Organisation--Californian Area--Material Culture--Social Life--Plains Area--Material Culture--Dakota--Religion--The Sun Dance--Pawnee--Blackfeet-- Arapaho--Cheyenne--Eastern Woodland Area--Material Culture-- Central Group--Eastern Group--Iroquoian Tribes: Ojibway-- Religion--Iroquois--South-eastern Area--Material Culture-- Creeks--Yuchi--Mound-Builders--South-western Area--Material Culture--Transitional or Intermediate Tribes--Pueblos--Cliff Dwellings--Religion--Physical Type--Social Life.

CONSPECTUS.

#Present Range.# N. W. Pacific Coastlands; the shores of the Arctic Ocean, Labrador, and Greenland; the unsettled parts of Alaska and the Dominion; Reservations and Agencies in the Dominion and the United States; parts of Florida, Arizona, and New Mexico; most of Central and South America with Fuegia either wild and full-blood, or semi-civilised half-breeds.

#Hair#, black, lank, coarse, often very long, nearly round in transverse section; very scanty on face and practically absent on body; #Colour#, differs, according to localities, front dusky yellowish white to that of solid chocolate, but the prevailing colour is brown; #Skull#, generally mesaticephalous (79), but with wide range from 65 (some Eskimo) to 89 or 90 (some British Columbians, Peruvians); the #os Incae# more frequently present than amongst other races, but the #os linguae# (hyoid bone) often imperfectly developed; #Jaws#, massive, but moderately projecting; #Cheek-bone#, as a rule rather prominent laterally, and also high; #Nose#, generally large, straight or even aquiline, and mesorrhine; #Eyes#, nearly always dark brown, with a yellowish conjunctiva, and the eye-slits show a prevailing tendency to a slight upward slant; #Stature#, usually above the medium 1.728 m. (5 ft. 8 or 10 in.), but variable--under 1.677 m. (5 ft. 6 in.) on the western plateaux (Peruvians, etc.), also in Fuegia and Alaska; 1.829 m. (6 ft.) and upwards in Patagonia (Tehuelches), Central Brazil (Bororos) and Prairie (Algonquians, Iroquoians); the relative proportions of the two elements of the arms and of the legs (radio-humeral and tibio-femoral indices) are intermediate between those of whites and negroes.

#Temperament#, moody, reserved, and wary; outwardly impassive and capable of enduring extreme physical pain; considerate towards each other, kind and gentle towards their women and children, but not in a demonstrative manner; keen sense of justice, hence easily offended, but also easily pacified. The outward show of dignity and a lofty air assumed by many seems due more to vanity or ostentation than to a feeling of true pride. Mental capacity considerable, much higher than the Negro, but on the whole inferior to the Mongol.

#Speech#, exclusively polysynthetic, a type unknown elsewhere; is not a primitive condition, but a highly specialised form of agglutination, in which all the terms of the sentence tend to coalesce in a single polysyllabic word; stock languages very numerous, perhaps more so than all the stock languages of all the other orders of speech in the rest of the world.

#Religion#, various grades of spirit and nature worship, corresponding to the various cultural grades; a crude form of shamanism prevalent amongst most of the North American aborigines, polytheism with sacrifice and priestcraft amongst the cultured peoples (Aztecs, Mayas, etc.); the monotheistic concept nowhere clearly evolved; belief in a natural after-life very prevalent, if not universal.

#Culture#, highly diversified, ranging from the lowest stages of savagery through various degrees of barbarism to the advanced social state of the more or less civilised Mayas, Aztecs, Chibchas, Yungas, Quichuas, and Aymaras; amongst these pottery, weaving, metal-work, agriculture, and especially architecture fairly well developed; letters less so, although the Maya script seems to have reached the true phonetic state; navigation and science rudimentary or absent; savagery generally far more prevalent and intense in South than in North America, but the tribal state almost everywhere persistent.

Eskimo. Mackenzie Area. Dene tribes. 1 Yellow Knives, 2 Dog Rib, 3 Hares, 4 Slavey, 5 Chipewyan, 6 Beaver, 7 Nahane, 8 Sekani, 9 Babine, 10 Carrier, 11 Loucheux, 12 Ahtena, 13 Khotana.

III. North Pacific Area. 14 Tlingit, 15 Haida, 16 Kwakiutl, 17 Bellacoola, 18 Coast Salish, 19 Nootka, 20 Chinook, 21 Kalapooian.

Plateau Area. 22 Shahapts or Nez Perces, 23 Shoshoni, 24 Interior Salish, Thompson, 25 Lillooet, 26 Shushwap. Californian Area. 27 Wintun, 28 Pomo, 29 Miwok, 30 Yokut. Plains Area. 31 Assiniboin, 32 Arapaho, 33 Siksika or Blackfoot, 34 Blood, 35 Piegan, 36 Crow, 37 Cheyenne, 38 Comanche, 39 Gros Ventre, 40 Kiowa, 41 Sarsi, 42 Teton-Dakota (Sioux), 43 Arikara, Hidatsa, Mandan, 44 Iowa, 45 Missouri, 46 Omaha, 47 Osage, 48 Oto, 49 Pawnee, 50 Ponca, 51 Santee-Dakota (Sioux), 52 Yankton-Dakota (Sioux), 53 Wichita, 54 Wind River Shoshoni, 55 Plains-Ojibway, 56 Plains-Cree.

VII. Eastern Woodland Area. 57 Ojibway, 58 Saulteaux, 59 Wood Cree, 60 Montagnais, 61 Naskapi, 62 Huron, 63 Wyandot, 64 Erie, 65 Susquehanna, 66 Iroquois, 67 Algonquin, 68 Ottawa, 69 Menomini, 70 Sauk and Fox, 71 Potawatomi, 72 Peoria, 73 Illinois, 74 Kickapoo, 75 Miami, 76 Abnaki, 77 Micmac.

VIII. South-eastern Area. 78 Shawnee, 79 Creek, 80 Chickasaw, 81 Choctaw, 82 Seminole, 83 Cherokee, 84 Tuscarora, 85 Yuchi, 86 Powhatan, 87 Tunican, 88 Natchez.

South-western Area. Pueblo tribes. 89 Hopi, 90 Zuni, 91 Rio Grande, 92 Navaho, 93 Pima, 94 Mohave, 95 Jicarilla, 96 Mescalero.

[Illustration: MAP OF AREAS OF MATERIAL CULTURE IN NORTH AMERICA (after C. Wissler, Am. Anth. XVI. 1914).]

#North America#: Eskimauan (Innuit, Aleut, Karalit); Athapascan(Dene, Pacific division, Apache, Navaho); Koluschan; Algonquian(Delaware, Abnaki, Ojibway, Shawnee, Arapaho, Sauk and Fox, Blackfeet); Iroquoian (Huron, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga); Siouan (Dakota, Omaha, Crow, Iowa, Osage, Assiniboin); Shoshonian(Comanche, Ute); Salishan; Shahaptian; Caddoan; Muskhogean(Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole); Pueblo (Zunian, Keresan, Tanoan).

#Central America#: Nahuatlan (Aztec, Pipil, Niquiran); Huaxtecan(Maya, Quiche); Totonac; Miztecan; Zapotecan; Chorotegan; Tarascan; Otomitlan; Talamancan; Choco.

#South America#: Muyscan (Chibcha); Quichuan (Inca, Aymara); Yungan (Chimu); Antisan; Jivaran; Zaparan; Betoyan; Maku; Pana (Cashibo, Karipuna, Setebo); Ticunan; Chiquitan; Arawakan(Arua, Maypure, Vapisiana, Ipurina, Mahinaku, Layana, Kustenau, Moxo); Cariban (Bakairi, Nahuqua, Galibi, Kalina, Arecuna, Macusi, Ackawoi); Tupi-Guaranian (Omagua, Mundurucu, Kamayura, Emerillon); Gesan(Botocudo, Kayapo, Cherentes); Charruan; Bororo; Karayan; Guaycuruan (Abipones, Mataco, Toba); Araucanian or Moluchean; Patagonian or Tehuelchean (Pilma, Yacana, Ona); Enneman (Lengua, Sanapana,