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

purely social and the religious institutions of primitive peoples great diversity of opinion prevails even amongst the best observers regarding the religious views of the Australian aborigines. The existence of a "tribal All-Father" is perhaps most clearly emphasised by A. W. Howitt[993], who finds this belief widespread in the whole of Victoria and New South Wales, up to the eastern boundaries of the tribes of the Darling River. Amongst those of New South Wales are the Euahlayi, whom K. Langloh Parker describes[994] as having a more advanced theology and a more developed worship (including prayers, pp. 79-80) than any other Australian tribe. These now eat their hereditary totem without scruple--a sure sign that the totemic system is dying out, although still outwardly in full force. Amongst the Arunta, Kaitish, and the other Central and Northern tribes studied by Spencer and Gillen, totemism still survives, and totems are even assigned to the mysterious Iruntarinia entities, vague and invisible incarnations of the ghosts of ancestors who lived in the Alcheringa time, the dim remote past at the beginning of everything. These are far more powerful than living men, because their spirit part is associated with the so-called churinga, consisting of stones, pieces of wood or any other objects which are deemed sacred as possessing a kind of mana which makes the yams and grass to grow, enables a man to capture game, and so forth. "That the churinga are simply objects endowed with mana is the happy suggestion of Sidney Hartland[995] whose explanation has dispelled the dense fog of mystification hitherto enveloping the strange beliefs and observances of these Central and Northern tribes[996]." N. W. Thomas[997] reviews the whole question of Australian religion, and after describing Twanjiraka, Malbanga and Ulthaana, of the Arunta, Baiame or Byamee, famous in anthropological controversy[998], Daramulun of the Yuin, Mungan-ngaua (our father) of the Kurnai, Nurrundere of the Narrinyeri, Bunjil or Pundjel, often called Mamingorak (our father) of Victoria, and others, he concludes "These are by no means the only gods known to Australian tribes; on the contrary it can hardly be definitely asserted that there is or was any tribe which had not some such belief[999]."

FOOTNOTES:

[961] E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 1909.

[962] P. and F. Sarasin, Ergebnisse Naturwissenschaftlicher Forschungen auf Ceylon. Die Steinzeit auf Ceylon, 1908; H. Parker, Ancient Ceylon, 1909. The most complete account is given by C. G. and B. Z. Seligman, The Veddas, 1911.

[963] W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, 1906; R. Martin, Die Inlandstaemme der Malayischen Halbinseln, 1905.

[964] Fritz Sarasin, Versuch einer Anthropologie der Insel Celebes. Zweiter Teil: Die Varietaeten des Menschen auf Celebes, 1906.

[965] A. C. Haddon, Appendix to C. Hose and W. McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, II. 1912.

[966] Federal Handbook, Brit. Ass. for Advancement of Science, 1914, p. 36.

[967] The Tasmanians can scarcely be termed Negritoes. The important point to be noted is that this early population was ulotrichous, cf. p. 159.

[968] Loc. cit. p. 34. Or the Strait may then have been very narrow.

[969] Loc. cit. p. 34.

[970] Two Representative Tribes of Queensland, 1910, p. 30.

[971] Loc. cit. p. 34.

[972] Reports Camb. Exped. to Torres Straits, III. 1907, p. 528.

[973] Die Mon-Khmer Voelker, 1906. Schmidt has for many years studied the Australian languages and has published his results in Anthropos, Vols, VII., VIII. 1912, 1913, from which, and also from Man, No. 8, 1908, the following summarised extracts are taken.

[974] See Man, No. 8, 1908, pp. 184-5.

[975] See the map constructed by P. W. Schmidt and P. K. Streit, Anthropos, VII. 1912.

[976] See Globus, XC. 1906, and "Die sozialen Systeme d. Suedsee," Ztschr. f. Sozialwissenschaft, XI. 1908. Schmidt's divergence from Graebner's views are dealt with in Zeitschr. f. Ethnologie, 1909, pp. 372-5, and Anthropos, VII. 1912, p. 246 ff.

[977] Anthropos, VII. 1912, pp. 247, 248.

[978] N. W. Thomas, "The Disposal of the Dead in Australia," Folklore, XIX. 1908.

[979] A. R. Brown, MS.

[980] Federal Handbook, British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1914, p. 76.

[981] A. C. Haddon, "The Outrigger Canoes of Torres Straits and North Queensland," Essays and Studies Presented to W. Ridgeway, 1913, p. 621, and W. H. R. Rivers, "The Contact of Peoples," in the same volume, p. 479.

[982] Man, No. 32, 1910.

[983] The Family among the Australian Aborigines, 1913.

[984] G. C. Wheeler, The Tribe, and intertribal relations in Australia, 1910, p. 163.

[985] A. R. Brown, "Marriage and Descent in North Australia," Man, No. 32, 1910.

[986] W. Baldwin Spencer, loc. cit. p. 50.

[987] W. Baldwin Spencer, loc. cit. p. 44.

[988] The Family among the Australian Aborigines, 1913, p. 304.

[989] MS.

[990] A. R. Brown, "Three Tribes of Western Australia," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XLIII. 1913.

[991] A. W. Howitt, The Native Tribes of South-east Australia, 1904, p. 311.

[992] W. Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia, 1899, Chap. VI., and The Northern Tribes of Central Australia, 1904, Chap. IX.

[993] The Native Tribes of South-east Australia, 1904, p. 500.

[994] The Euahlayi Tribe, 1905.

[995] Presidential Address (Section H) Brit. Ass. York, 1906.

[996] A. H. Keane, Art. "Australasia," in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 1909, p. 244.

[997] The Natives of Australia, 1906, Chap. XIII. Religion.

[998] E. B. Tylor, Journ. Anthr. Inst. XXI. p. 292; A. Lang, Magic and Religion, p. 25; Myth, Ritual and Religion, Chap. XII.; K. Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, 1905, Chap. II.; M. F. v. Leonhardi, Anthropos, IV. 1909, p. 1065, and many others.

[999] The following should be consulted:

Original memoirs: C. Strehlow, Die Aranda- und Loritza-Staemme in Zentral-Australien, 1907; W. E. Roth, Ethnological Studies among the north-west-central Queensland Aborigines, 1897; North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletins 1-8, 1901-6, and Bulletins 9-18; Records of the Australian Museum, VI.-VIII. Sydney, 1890-1910.

Compilations and discussions: E. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: a Study in Religious Sociology (translated by J. W. Swain), a very suggestive study based on Australian custom and belief; J. G. Frazer, Exogamy and Totemism, I. 1910; The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, I. pp. 67-169, 1913.

CHAPTER XIII(THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES)

General Considerations--Constituent Elements--Past and Present Range--Cradle-land: Africa north of Sudan--Quaternary "Sahara"--Early European and Mauretanian types--The Guanches, Types and Affinities--Origin of the European Brachycephals-- Summary of Orthodox View--Linguistic Evidence--The Basques-- The Iberians--The Ligurians in Rhineland and Italy. Sicilian Origins--Sicani; Siculi--Sard and Corsican Origins--Ethnological Relations in Italy--Sergi's Mediterranean Domain--Range of the Mediterraneans--The Pelasgians-- Theory of pre-Hellenic Pelasgians--Pelasgians and Mykenean civilisation--Aegean Culture--Other Views--Range of the Hamites in Africa--The Eastern Hamites--The Western "Moors"--General Hamitic Type--Foreign Elements in Mauretania--Arab and Berber Contrasts-- The Tibus--The Egyptian Hamites--Origins--Theory of Asiatic Origins--Proto-Egyptian type--Armenoid type--Asiatic influence on Egyptian Culture--Negroid mixture--The Fulah--Other Eastern Hamites--Bejas--Somals--Somal Genealogies--The Galla--The Masai.

CONSPECTUS.

#Present Range.# All the extra-tropical habitable lands, except Chinese empire, Japan, and the Arctic zone; intertropical America, Arabia, India, and Indonesia; sporadically everywhere.

Three main types:--1. Southern dolichocephals, #Mediterranean#; 2. Northern Dolichocephals, #Nordic#; 3. Brachycephals, #Alpine#.

#Hair#: 1. Very dark brown or black, wiry, curly or ringletty. 2. Very light brown, flaxen, or red, rather long, straight or wavy, smooth and glossy. 3. Light chestnut or reddish brown, wavy, rather short and dull. All oval in section; beard of all full, bushy, straight, or wavy, often lighter than hair of head, sometimes very long. #Colour#: 1. Very variable--white, light olive, all shades of brown and even blackish (Eastern Hamites and others). 2. Florid. 3. Pale white, swarthy or very light brown. #Skull#: 1 and 2 long (72 to 79); 3 round (85 to 87 and upwards); all orthognathous. Cheek-bone of all small, never projecting laterally, sometimes rather high (some Berbers and Scotch). #Nose#, mostly large, narrow, straight, arched or hooked, sometimes rather broad, heavy, concave and short. #Eyes#: 1. Black or deep brown, but also blue. 2. Mainly blue. 3. Brown, hazel-grey and black.

#Stature#: 1. Under-sized (mean 1.630 m. 5 ft. 4 in.), but variable (some Hamites, Hindus, and others medium or tall). 2. Tall (mean 1.728 m. 5 ft. 8 or 9 in.). 3. Medium (mean 5 ft. 6 in.), but also very tall (Indonesians 1.750 m. to 1.830 m. 5 ft. 9 to 6 ft.). #Lips#, mostly rather full and well-shaped, but sometimes thin, or upper lip very long (many Irish), and under lip pendulous (many Jews). #Arms#, rather short as compared with Negro. #Legs#, shapely, with calves usually well developed. #Feet#: 1 and 3 small with high instep; 2 rather large.

#Temperament#: 1 and 3. Brilliant, quick-witted, excitable and impulsive; sociable and courteous, but fickle, untrustworthy, and even treacherous (Iberian, South Italian); often atrociously cruel (many Slavs, Persians, Semites, Indonesians and even South Europeans); aesthetic sense highly, ethic slightly developed. All brave, imaginative, musical, and richly endowed intellectually. 2. Earnest, energetic, and enterprising; steadfast, solid, and stolid; outwardly reserved, thoughtful, and deeply religious; humane, firm, but not normally cruel.

#Speech#, mostly of the inflecting order with strong tendency towards analytical forms; very few stock languages (Aryan, Ibero-Hamito-Semitic), except in the Caucasus, where stock languages of highly agglutinating types are numerous, and in Indonesia, where one agglutinating stock language prevails.

#Religion#, mainly Monotheistic, with or without priesthood and sacrifice (Jewish, Christian, Muhammadan); polytheistic and animistic in parts of Caucasus, India, Indonesia, and Africa. Gross superstitions still prevalent in many places.

#Culture#, generally high--all arts, industries, science, philosophy and letters in a flourishing state now almost everywhere except in Africa and Indonesia, and still progressive. In some regions civilisation dates from an early period (Egypt, South Arabia, Babylonia; the Minoan, Hellenic, Hittite, and Italic cultures). Indonesians and many Hamites still rude, with primitive usages, few arts, no science or letters, and cannibalism prevalent in some places (Gallaland).

#Mediterranean type#: most Iberians, Corsicans, Sards, Sicilians, Italians; some Greeks; Berbers and other Hamites; Arabs and other Semites; some Hindus; Dravidians, Todas, Ainus, Indonesians, some Polynesians.

#Nordic type#: Scandinavians, North-west Germans, Dutch, Flemings, most English, Scotch, some Irish, Anglo-Americans, Anglo-Australasians, English and Dutch of S. Africa; Thrako-Hellenes, true Kurds, most West Persians, Afghans, Dards and Siah-post Kafirs.

#Alpine type#: most French, South Germans, Swiss and Tyrolese; Russians, Poles, Chekhs, Yugo-Slavs; some Albanians and Rumanians; Armenians, Tajiks (East Persians), Galchas.

* * * * *

It is a remarkable fact that the Caucasic division of the human family, of which nearly all students of the subject are members, with which we are in any case, so to say, on the most intimate terms, and with the constituent elements of which we might consequently be supposed to be best acquainted, is the most debatable field in the whole range of anthropological studies. Why this should be so is not at first sight quite apparent, though the phenomenon may perhaps be partly explained by the consideration that the component parts are really of a more complex character, and thus present more intricate problems for solution, than those of any other division. But to some extent this would also seem to be one of those cases in which we fail to see the wood for the trees. To put it plainly, few will venture to deny that the inherent difficulties of the subject have in recent times been rather increased than diminished by the bold and often mutually destructive theories, and, in some instances one might add, the really wild speculations put forward in the earnest desire to remove the endless obscurities in which the more fundamental questions are undoubtedly still involved. Controversial matter which seemed thrashed out has been reopened, several fresh factors