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

existence. Thus, the notion of race, as a zoological expression in the sense of a pure breed or strain, falls still more into the background, and, as Virchow aptly remarks, "this term, which always implied something vague, has in recent times become in the highest degree uncertain[127]."

Hence Ehrenreich treats the present populations of the earth rather as zoological groups which have been developed in their several geographical domains, and are to be distinguished not so much by their bony structure as by their external characters, such as hair, colour, and expression, and by their habitats and languages. None of these factors can be overlooked, but it would seem that the character of the hair forms the most satisfactory basis for a classification of mankind, and this has therefore been adopted for the new edition of the present work. It has the advantage of simplicity, without involving, or even implying, any particular theory of racial or geographical origins. It has stood the test of time, being proposed by Bory de Saint Vincent in 1827, and adopted by Huxley, Haeckel, Broca, Topinard and many others.

The three main varieties of hair are the straight, the wavy and the so-called woolly, termed respectively Leiotrichous, Cymotrichous and Ulotrichous[128]. Straight hair usually falls straight down, though it may curl at the ends, it is generally coarse and stiff, and is circular in section. Wavy hair is undulating, forming long curves or imperfect spirals, or closer rings or curls, and the section is more or less elliptical. Woolly hair is characterised by numerous, close, often interlocking spirals, 1-9 mm. in diameter, the section giving the form of a lengthened ellipse. Straight hair is usually the longest, and woolly hair the shortest, wavy hair occupying an intermediate position.

SCHEME OF CLASSIFICATION.

ULOTRICHI (Woolly-haired). 1. The African Negroes, Negrilloes, Bushmen. 2. The Oceanic Negroes: Papuans, Melanesians in part, Tasmanians, Negritoes. LEIOTRICHI (Straight-haired). 1. The Southern Mongols. 2. The Oceanic Mongols, Polynesians in part. 3. The Northern Mongols. 4. The American Aborigines.

III. CYMOTRICHI (Curly or Wavy-haired). 1. The Pre-Dravidians: Vedda, Sakai, etc., Australians. 2. The "Caucasic" peoples: A. Southern Dolichocephals: Mediterraneans, Hamites, Semites, Dravidians, Indonesians, Polynesians in part. B. Northern Dolichocephals: Nordics, Kurds, Afghans, some Hindus. C. Brachycephals: Alpines, including the short Cevenoles of Western and Central Europe, and tall Adriatics or Dinarics of Eastern Europe and the Armenians of Western Asia.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] Thus Lucretius:

"Posterius ferri vis est aerisque reperta, Sed prior aeris erat quam ferri cognitus usus."

[67] J. Dechelette points out that the term Copper "Age" is not justified for the greater part of Europe, as it suggests a demarcation which does not exist and also a more thorough chemical analysis of early metals than we possess. He prefers the term aeneolithic (aeneus, copper, [Greek: lithos], stone), coined by the Italians, to denote the period of transition, dating, according to Montelius, from about 2500 B.C. to 1900 B.C. Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique, II. 1, Age du Bronze, 1910, pp. 99-100, 105.

[68] Eth., Chap. XIII.

[69] See G. Elliot Smith, The Ancient Egyptians, 1911, pp. 97-8.

[70] Paper on "The Transition from Pure Copper to Bronze," etc., read at the Meeting of the Brit. Assoc. Liverpool, 1896.

[71] Loc. cit. p. 3. But cf. H. R. Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East, 1912, pp. 33 and 90 n. 2.

[72] G. A. Reisner, The Early Cemeteries of Naga-ed-der (University of California Publications), 1908, and Report of the Archaeological Survey of Nubia, 1907-8.

[73] "Campagnes de 1907-8," Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1908, p. 373.

[74] Cf. J. Dechelette, Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique, II. 1, Age du Bronze, 1910, pp. 53-4.

[75] Cf. L. W. King, A History of Sumer and Akkad, 1910, p. 26.

[76] G. Coffey, The Bronze Age in Ireland, 1913, p. 6.

[77] L'Anthropologie, 1896, p. 526 sq. This antiquary aptly remarks that "l'expression age de cuivre a une signification bien precise comme s'appliquant a la partie de la periode de la pierre polie ou les metaux font leur apparition."

[78] L'Anthropologie, 1896, p. 526 sq.

[79] In Die Kupferzeit in Europa, 1886.

[80] "Neuere Studien ueber die Kupferzeit," in Zeitschr. f. Eth. 1896, No. 2.

[81] Otto Helm, "Chemische Untersuchungen vorgeschichtlicher Bronzen," in Zeitschr. f. Eth. 1897, No. 2. This authority agrees with Hampel's view that further research will confirm the suggestion that in Transylvania (Hungary) "eine Kupfer-Antimonmischung vorangegangen, welche zugleich die Bronzekultur vorbereitete" (ib. p. 128).

[82] Proc. Soc. Bib. Archaeol. 1892, pp. 223-6.

[83] For the chronology of the Copper and Bronze Ages see p. 27.

[84] Copper and tin are found together in abundance in Southern China, but this is archaeologically speaking an unknown land; "to search for the birth-place of bronze in China is therefore barren of positive results," British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, 1904, p. 10.

[85] T. Rice Holmes, Ancient Britain, 1907, pp. 483-498.

[86] British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, 1904, p. 10.

[87] J. de Morgan, Les Premieres Civilisations, 1909, pp. 169, 337 ff.

[88] J. Dechelette, Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique, II. 1, Age du Bronze, 1910, pp. 98 and 397 ff.

[89] J. Dechelette, loc. cit. p. 63 n.

[90] G. Coffey, The Bronze Age in Ireland, 1913, pp. V, 78.

[91] J. Dechelette, Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique, II. 1, Age du Bronze, 1910, p. 355 n.

[92] Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age (British Museum), 1905, p. 2.

[93] Wainwright, "Pre-dynastic iron beads in Egypt," Man, 1911, p. 177. See also H. R. Hall, "Note on the early use of iron in Egypt," Man, 1903, p. 147.

[94] W. Belck attributes the introduction of iron into Crete in 1500 B.C. to the Phoenicians, whom he derives from the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf. He suggests that these traders were already acquainted with the metal in S. Arabia in the fourth millennium, and that it was through them that a piece found its way into Egypt in the fourth dynasty. "Die Erfinder des Eisentechnik," Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie, 1910. See also F. Stuhlmann, Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika, 1910, p. 49 ff., who on cultural grounds derives the knowledge of iron in Africa from an Asiatic source.

[95] E. Meyer, "Aegyptische Chronologie," Abh. Berl. Akad. 1904, and "Nachtraege," ib. 1907. This chronology has been adopted by the Berlin school and others, but is unsatisfactory in allowing insufficient time for Dynasties XII to XVIII, which are known to contain 100 to 200 rulers. Flinders Petrie therefore adds another Sothic period (1461 years, calculated from Sothis or Sirius), thus throwing the earlier dynasties a millennium or two further back. Dynasty I, according to this computation starts in 5546 B.C. and Dynasty XII at 3779. H. R. Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East, 1912, p. 23.

[96] L. W. King, The History of Sumer and Akkad, 1910, and "Babylonia," Hutchinson's History of the Nations, 1914.

[97] C. H. Hawes and H. Boyd Hawes, Crete the Forerunner of Greece, 1909.

[98] J. Dechelette, Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique, II. 1, Age du Bronze, 1910, p. 61.

[99] J. Dechelette, loc. cit. p. 105 ff. based on the work of O. Montelius and P. Reinecke.

[100] The Dynasty of Akkad is often dated a millennium earlier, relying on the statement of Nabonidus (556-540 B.C.) that Naram-Sin (the traditional son of Sargon of Akkad) reigned 3200 years before him; but this statement is now known to be greatly exaggerated. See the section on chronology in the Art. "Babylonia," in Ency. Brit. 1910.

[101] Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age (British Museum), 1905, p. 1.

[102] Cf. J. Dechelette, Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique, II. 2, Premier Age du Fer, 1913, pp. 546, 562-3.

[103] The Early Age of Greece, 1900, pp. 594-630.

[104] "Die Hallstattperiode," Ass. francaise p. l'av. des sciences, 1905, p. 278, and Kultur der Urzeit, III. Eisenzeit, 1912, p. 54.

[105] "Ein Schaedel aus der aelteren Hallstattzeit," in Verhandl. Berlin. Ges. f. Anthrop. 1896, pp. 243-6.

[106] Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age (British Museum), 1905, p. 8.

[107] Hans Seger, "Figuerliche Darstellungen auf schlesischen Graebgefaessen der Hallstattzeit," Globus, Nov. 20, 1897.

[108] Ibid. p. 297.

[109] Homer's [Greek: hemitheon genos andron], Il. XII. 23, if the passage is genuine.

[110] Such as the Greek Andreas, the "First Man," invented in comparatively recent times, as shown by the intrusive d in [Greek: andres] for the earlier [Greek: aneres], "men." Andreas was of course a Greek, sprung in fact from the river Peneus and the first inhabitant of the Orchomenian plain (Pausanias, IX. 34, 5).

[111] For instance, the flooding of the Thessalian plain, afterwards drained by the Peneus and repeopled by the inhabitants of the surrounding mountains (rocks, stones), whence the myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who are told by the oracle to repeople the world by throwing behind them the "bones of their grandmother," that is, the "stones" of mother Earth.

[112] Such instances as George Guest's Cherokee system, and the crude attempt of a Vei (West Sudanese) Negro, if genuine, are not here in question, as both had the English alphabet to work upon. A like remark applies to the old Irish and Welsh Ogham, which are more curious than instructive, the characters, mostly mere groups of straight strokes, being obvious substitutes for the corresponding letters of the Roman alphabet, hence comparable to the cryptographic systems of Wheatstone and others.

[113] Maspero, The Dawn of Civilisation, 1898, p. 728.

[114] Ibid.

[115] Ibid. p. 233.

[116] See P. Giles, Art. "Alphabet," Ency. Brit. 1910.

[117] See A. J. Booth, The Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions, 1902.

[118] L'Anthr. XV. 1904, p. 164.

[119] Recent Discoveries bearing on the Antiquity of Man in Europe (Smithsonian Report for 1909), 1910, p. 566 ff.

[120] Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique, I. 1908.

[121] "Les signes libyques des dolmens," Bul. Soc. d'Anthrop. 1896, p. 319.

[122] Eth. Chap. XIII.

[123] Address, Meeting British Assoc. Ipswich, 1895.

[124] Amer. J. of Sociology, Jan. 1898, pp. 467-8.

[125] A. Vierkandt, Globus, 72, p. 134.

[126] Elements d'Anthropologie Generale, p. 207.

[127] Rassenbildung u. Erblichkeit; Bastian-Festschrift, 1896, p. 1.

[128] From Gk. [Greek: leios], smooth, [Greek: kuma], wave, [Greek: oulos], fleecy, and [Greek: thrix], [Greek: trichos], hair. J. Deniker (The Races of Man, 1900, p. 38) distinguishes four classes, the Australians, Nubians etc. being grouped as frizzy. He gives the corresponding terms in French and German:--straight, Fr. droit, lisse, Germ. straff, schlicht; wavy, Fr. onde, Germ. wellig; frizzy, Fr. frise, Germ. lockig; woolly, Fr. crepu, Germ. kraus.

CHAPTER III(THE AFRICAN NEGRO: I. SUDANESE)

 

Conspectus--The Negro-Caucasic "Great Divide"--The Negro Domain-- Negro Origins--Persistence of the Negro Type--Two Main Sections: Sudanese and Bantus--Contrasts and Analogies--Sudanese and Bantu Linguistic Areas--The "Drum Language"--West Sudanese Groups--The Wolofs: Primitive Speech and Pottery; Religious Notions--The Mandingans: Culture and Industries; History; the Guine and Mali Empires--The Felups: Contrasts between the Inland and Coast Peoples; Felup Type and Mental Characters--Timni--African Freemasonry--The Sierra Leonese--Social Relations--The Liberians--The Krumen--The Upper Guinea Peoples--Table of the Gold Coast and Slave Coast Tribes--Ashanti Folklore--Fetishism; its true inwardness--Ancestry Worship and the "Customs"--The Benin Bronzes--The Mossi--African Agnostics--Central Sudanese--General Ethnical and Social Relations--The Songhai--Domain--Origins-- Egyptian Theories--Songhai Records--The Hausas--Dominant Social Position--Speech and Mental Qualities--Origins--Kanembu; Kanuri; Baghirmi; Mosgu--Ethnical and Political Relations in the Chad Basin--The Aborigines--Islam and Heathendom--Slave-Hunting--Arboreal Strongholds--Mosgu Types and Contrasts--The Cultured Peoples of Central Sudan--Kanem-Bornu Records--Eastern Sudanese--Range of the Negro in Eastern Sudan--The Mabas--Ethnical Relations in Wadai-- The Nubas--The Nubian Problem--Nubian Origins and Affinities-- The Negro Peoples of the Nile-Congo Watersheds--Political Relations--Two Physical Types--The Dinka--Linguistic Groups-- Mental Qualities--Cannibalism--The African Cannibal Zone--Arts and Industries--High Appreciation of Pictorial Art--Sense of Humour.

CONSPECTUS OF SUDANESE NEGROES.

#Present Range.# Africa south of the Sahara,