so much in any particular feature, as in a general debasement of the
whole, and a decided approximation towards the forms characteristic
of the Negro race. The head is usually broad in the occipital region
(which they consider a great beauty), and narrows towards the top
and in front,--the forehead, though often of good height, appearing
compressed at the sides. The eyes are black and set rather deep, but
never obliquely. The nose is not large, and is generally a good deal
flattened; the nostrils are often larger laterally than forwards, and
the nose is then much depressed at the upper part between the eyes.
The mouth is wide, and the lips, particularly the upper one, thick.
The chin varies, but is most commonly short and broad. The jaws are
larger, and the lower part of the face far more prominent than in the
_Malay_ race. The cheek-bones, also, project forwards as in the Negro,
and not laterally, as in the _Mongol_ variety; notwithstanding which,
the narrowness of the forehead at the temples gives a greater width to
the face at the malar portion than elsewhere. The whole face is longer
and thinner than among the _Polynesians_. The hair is neither straight
nor woolly, but may be properly designated as frizzled. When allowed
to grow without interference, it appears in numerous spiral locks,
eight or ten inches in length, spreading out on all sides of the head.
Sometimes these curls are seen much longer, falling down to the middle
of the back. It is, however, very seldom allowed to grow naturally.
The young boys have it cut very close, and sometimes shaved to the
skin, like the _Tahitians_. In girls, before marriage, it is allowed
to grow long, and is coloured white by washing it with a solution of
lime, except a portion around the crown, which is plastered with a
black pigment. After marriage, it is either cut to the length of one or
two inches, or frizzled out like that of the men: in both cases it is
frequently soaked in colouring liquids, either red or black. The men in
general have their hair dressed so as to form an immense semiglobular
mass, covering the top, back, and sides of the head. The arrangement of
this chevelure is performed for the chiefs by professional barbers, and
is a work of great labour. Six hours are sometimes occupied in dressing
a head; and the process is repeated at intervals of two or three weeks.
It is probably to guard against disarranging this work that the piece
of bamboo which is placed under the neck in sleeping is employed,
instead of the ordinary pillow. For the same purpose the natives
usually wear, during the day, a _sala_ or _kerchief_, of very thin
gauze-like paper cloth, which is thrown over the hair and tied closely
around the head, so as to have very much the appearance of a turban.
"The colour of the _Feejeeans_ is a chocolate-brown, or a hue mid-way
between the jet-black of the Negro, and the brownish yellow of the
_Polynesian_. There are, however, two shades very distinctly marked,
like the blonde and brunette complexions in the white race; besides
all the intermediate gradations. In one of these shades the brown
predominates, and in the other the copper. They do not belong to
distinct castes or classes, but are found indiscriminately among all
ranks and in all tribes. The natives are aware of the distinction, and
call the lighter coloured people, _Viti ndamundamu_, "red _Feejeeans_;"
but they do not seem to regard it as anything which requires or admits
of explanation. These red-skinned natives must not be confounded with
the _Tonga-Viti_, or individuals of mixed _Tongan_ and _Feejeean_
blood, of whom there are many on some parts of the group."
Their ferocious and suspicious character is described in very
unfavourable terms; to which it may be added, that their cannibalism is
undoubted, and that they are skilful in the art of pottery--a fact of
which the import has already been noticed.
The problem that is suggested by the intermediate character of
the Fijis is manifest: it is the question as to whether we have
_intermixture_ or _transition_. Further notice, however, of this point,
will stand over until the next divisions have been disposed of.
THE AUSTRALIAN BRANCH OF THE KELÆNONESIAN STOCK.
_Area._--Australia.
_Physical appearance._--Kelænonesians with hair generally straight, or
waved, sometimes frizzy.
_Fauna._--Absence of ruminants and pachydermata.
_Divisions._--1. Australians. 2. Tasmanians(?).
The differences between the different Australian languages have long
been known and definitely insisted upon.
Less marked differences in frame and physiognomy between the different
Australian tribes, have also been long known and definitely insisted
upon.
Differences of customs and manners have been similarly noticed and
considered. Notwithstanding all this, however, there is no opinion
more generally admitted than the fundamental unity of the Australian
population from Swan River to Botany Bay, from the Gulf of Carpentaria
to Bass's Straits. Captain Grey, Schurman, Teichelman, and all who
have devoted average attention to the language, have given their
evidence to this; and they have supplied facts of various kinds, of
their own collection, towards the proof of it. No man is less inclined
to disturb this view than the present writer. In the Fourth Number
of the Philological Transactions,[72] he enumerated the whole of the
vocabularies then known to him, and added some short lists of the words
wherein the more distant ones agreed with each other. Thus a scanty
vocabulary from the Gulf of Carpentaria, which had seventeen words
in common with one from Endeavour River, had three (perhaps four)
identical.
ENGLISH. CARPENTARIAN. ENDEAVOUR RIVER.
Eye _meal_ _meul_.
Hair _marra_ _morye_.
Fingers _mingel_ _mungal bah_.
As the Endeavour River was the nearest point to the Gulf of Carpentaria
from which we possessed a vocabulary, the circumstance that no more
than three words out of seventeen coincided, was a good measure of
the extent to which the Australian dialects exhibited the phænomenon
of _difference_. Still the likeness, as far as it went, was a fact
to be admitted on the other side. Now, if we go round the whole
coast of Australia, and compare the vocabulary from one point with
the vocabulary of the next known locality to it, we shall find that,
allowing for difference of distance, the similarity or dissimilarity
is, there or thereabouts, the similarity or dissimilarity between the
two vocabularies just mentioned, _i.e._, that the former is shown
by the identity between a few fundamental terms, the latter by a
discrepancy between the majority.
The comparison, however, of contiguous dialects--gives but one series
of facts. It merely shows that we can go all round the island, and
find that, of three dialects compared, the last shall have a partial
agreement with the second; by no means showing that such (or, indeed,
that any) similarity shall exist between the third and first.
Nevertheless, for philological reasoning, such a similarity as the last
is required. This we get at by two methods,--firstly, by comparing
the vocabularies of distant points; secondly, by taking one, or more,
particular vocabularies, and comparing them with some, or all, of the
others _en masse_. By each of these processes, applied to Australian
languages, we arrive at the same conclusion. The second will be
considered in the sequel. A simple instance of the first is, that out
of sixty words from Jervis's Bay, compared with sixty from Gulf St.
Vincent, the following coincide:
ENGLISH. JERVIS'S BAY. GULF ST. VINCENT.
Forehead _holo_ _ioullo_.
Man _mika_ _meio_.
Milk _awanham_ _ammenhalo_.
Tongue _talen_ _talein_.
Hand _maramale_ _malla_.
Nipple _amgnann_ _amma_.
Nails _berenou_ _pere_.
Premising now, that (as all the published grammars exhibit an
agglutinate structure) the evidence taken from the grammatical
character of the Australian languages is confirmatory rather than
derogatory to the evidence taken from the comparison of vocabularies,
we come to a fourth class of facts, viz., the extent to which two or
more Australian dialects agree or disagree with some third language
or class of languages; and as this involves the still more general
question of the _external_ relations of the Australian languages as a
class, its consideration will be deferred for the present. At present
it is sufficient to say that it is affirmative to a fundamental unity
of tongue.
The _kind_ of evidence from which we predicate this unity, is evidently
of a cumulative kind; and it is merely the statement of its being
of this sort that has been laid before the reader: the _details_
would require either a larger volume than the present, or a special
monograph. It may also be added, that as the Australian tribes differ
more from one another in language than in any other respect, it is
the philological portion of their ethnography that presents the most
difficulties.
In respect to their manners, morals, and social customs, the
similarity, lying less below the surface than it does with respect to
their languages, has drawn less attention on the part of investigators.
Still the way in which it shows itself is the same. Two neighbouring
tribes shall differ more than two distant ones: so that similar customs
shall re-appear in distant localities.
As to the physical conformation of the Australians, I believe that it
is so uniform throughout the island, that it has never been made the
basis of a division;--indeed I am inclined to believe that (like the
_dis_similarity of language) the _similarity_ of external appearance
has been over-rated; nevertheless, it is certain that there are
deviations from the general slim and underfed condition of the body;
and (what is of more importance), from the usual straight character of
the hair. Such is the case, according to Mr. Earle, with the trepang
fishers of Arnhem Bay who are bulky men, with broad chests, the lower
extremities being but indifferently formed, and the crooked shin being
common. Then as to the hair--with the Jaako, or Croker Island tribe,
it is coarse and bushy (the whiskers being thick, and curly) and so
short, crisp, and abundant about the breast and shoulders as to conceal
the skin; whereas on the other hand, the Oitbo, or Bidjenelumbo, have
straight silky hair, arched eyebrows, fair complexion, and occasionally
the oblique eye.
The lowest form of humanity has been sought for in Australia, whilst
the physical condition of the country and the absence of those animals
and herbs that supply human food, have made it a likely quarter
to exhibit it. Whether, however, so low a rank in scale of human
development be, upon the whole, a fact or exaggeration, it is certain
that, upon several points, there has been considerable overstatement.
One sample of this sort is the accredited opinion as to the absolute
incapacity of the Australian of forming even the rudest elements of a
mythology--an opinion which engenders the notion that their intellects
are too sluggish for even the evolution of a superstition.
That this was not the case was indicated some years back by Captain
Gray, and that there is _some_ exponent of the religious feeling in the
shape of a rude form of shamanism, has been shown in the account of the
American Exploring Expedition; where the first[73] published details of
the Australian mythology, if so it may be called, are to be found--"It
is not true, however, as has been frequently asserted, that the natives
have no idea of a Supreme Being, although they do not allow this idea
to influence their actions. The Wellington Tribes, at least, believe
in the existence of a Deity called _Baiamai_, who lives on an island
beyond the great sea to the East. His food is fish, which come up to
him from the water when he calls to them. Some of the natives consider
him the maker of all things, while others attribute the creation of
the world to his son _Burambin_. They say of him, that _Baiamai_ spoke,
and _Burambin_ came into existence. When the missionaries first came to
Wellington, the natives used to assemble once a year, in the month of
February, to dance and sing a song in honour of _Baiamai_. This song
was brought there from a distance by strange natives, who went about
teaching it. Those who refused to join in the ceremony were supposed
to incur the displeasure of the god. For the last three years the
custom has been discontinued. In the tribe on Hunter's River, there was
a native famous for the composition of these songs or hymns; which,
according to Mr. Threlkeld, were passed from tribe to tribe, to a great
distance, till many of the words became at last unintelligible to those
who sang them.
"_Dararwirgal_, a brother of _Baiamai_, lives in the far west. It was
he who lately sent the small-pox among the natives, for no better
reason than that he was vexed for want of a tomahawk. But now he is
supposed to have obtained one, and the disease will come no more. The
_Bálumbal_ are a sort of angels, who are said to be of a white colour,
and to live on a mountain at a great distance to the south-east:
their food is honey, and their employment is to do good 'like the
Missionaries.'
"It is possible that some of these stories owe their origin to
intercourse with the whites, though the great unwillingness which the
natives always evince to adopt any customs or opinions from them,
militates against such a supposition. But a being who is, beyond
question, entirely the creation of Australian imagination, is one who
is called in the Wellington dialect, _Wandong_; though the natives
have learned from the whites to apply to him the name of devil. He
is an object not of worship, but merely of superstitious dread.
They describe him as going about under the form of a black man of
superhuman stature and strength. He prowls at night through the woods
around the encampments of the natives, seeking to entrap some unwary
wanderer, whom he will seize upon; and, having dragged him to his fire,
will there roast and devour him. They attribute all their afflictions
to his malevolence. If they are ill, they say _Wandong_ has bitten
them. No one can see this being but the _núrjargir_, or conjurors, who
assert that they can kill him, but that he always returns to life. He
may, however, be frightened away by throwing fire at him (though this
statement seems inconsistent with that respecting his invisibility),
and no native will go out at night without a firebrand to protect him
from the demon.
"There is some difference in the accounts given of this character. By
the tribe of Hunter's River he is called _Koin_ or _Koen_. Sometimes,
when the Blacks are asleep, he makes his appearance, seizes upon one of
them and carries him off. The person seized endeavours in vain to cry
out, being almost strangled. At daylight, however, _Koin_ disappears,
and the man finds himself conveyed safely to his own fireside. From
this it would appear that the demon is here a sort of personification
of the nightmare,--a visitation to which the natives, from their habits
of gorging themselves to the utmost when they obtain a supply of food,
must be very subject.
"At the _Muruya_ River the devil is called _Túlugal_. He was described
to us, by a native, as a black man of great stature, grizzled with age,
who has very long legs, so that he soon overtakes a man; but very short
arms, which brings the contest nearer an equality. This goblin has a
wife who is much like himself; but still more feared, being of a cruel
disposition, with a cannibal appetite, especially for young children.
It would hardly be worth while to dwell upon these superstitions, but
that they seem to characterise so distinctly the people, at once timid,
ferocious, and stupid, who have invented them.
"Their opinions with regard to the soul vary: some assert that the
whole man dies at once, and nothing is left of him; others are of
opinion that his spirit still survives, but upon this earth, either
as a wandering ghost, or in a state of _metempsychosis_, animating a
bird or other inferior creature. But the most singular belief is one
which is found at both Port Stephens and Swan River, places separated
by the whole breadth of the Australian continent. This is, that white
people are merely blacks who have died, passed to a distant country,
and having there undergone a transformation, have returned to their
original homes. When the natives see a white man who strongly resembles
one of their deceased friends, they give him the name of the dead
person, and consider him to be actually the same being."
It is difficult to take an exact measure of the extent to which one
superstition is grosser than another;--hence, all that can be said
respecting the Pantheon, of which _Baiamai_ and _Wandong_ are portions,
is that it is as low in the scale of mythologies as any that has fallen
under the notice of the writer. Still, those of the Blacks of the
Malaccan Peninsula, of Madagascar, and of parts of Africa, are much on
the same level.
_No sound of_ s _in the Australian languages_.--The distribution of
the different elementary articulations over the different languages
of the earth, has not been sufficiently studied to enable us to
predicate anything concerning the absence or presence of particular
sounds, as a measure of the perfection or imperfection of human speech;
nevertheless, it is clear that the power of pronouncing a number of
elementary sounds sufficient to allow of that difference between
word and word, which is necessary for clear and precise language, is
one of the great conditions of articulate and distinct speech; and
hence, a language of which the elementary sounds are too few, or one
wherein the power of combining them to their full extent, is wanting,
is the exponent of a low degree of humanity. Still more so would one
be wherein a large proportion of the sounds is inarticulate--like the
sound of the letter _h_ in English, which is a mere breathing rather
than a true articulation. In respect to this latter class of facts,
the admission of inarticulate elements of speech, there are two only
in the whole range of language; one of which is so common as to occur
in almost all the dialects of the world, the other is so rare as to
be found in one class of tongues only. These are, the power of _h_ as
already stated, and the peculiar _click_ which will be noticed in the
languages of Southern Africa.
The inability to combine articulations, which, when taken singly, are
sufficiently easy of pronunciation, is another sign of deficiency of
power over language, as an instrument, or medium, and, in some form
or other, it is a common phænomenon; _e.g._, the sound of _s_, and
the sound of[74]_tsh_, are pronounceable enough when taken singly;
since we can say _shest_, and we can say _tshest_. The _combination_,
however, of _stsh_ is difficult--at least to English organs. There is
none such in our language; yet it is a favourite juxtaposition in the
Slavonic tongues. Again, to a person unused to comparative philology,
it may seem strange to be told that in the Finlandic dialects the
combination of any two consonants in the same syllable, is rare: and
that such words as _stab_, &c., in order to become pronounceable must
be converted into _setab_, or _estab_, &c. Yet this inability to
combine consonants with one another is, perhaps, the rule rather than
the exception in language.
Again, without admitting the notion of an aristocracy amongst the
elements of the alphabet, and calling sounds like _r_ and _s_ the
_noble_ letters, just as gold and silver are designated as the
_noble_ metals, we may ask whether their absence in some of the more
uncivilized languages, is not a fact of some import in the natural
history of Man. It seems so to the present writer.[75]
These episodical observations, however, form a long prelude to a very
simple fact, viz.: that, as far as we are enabled to make a negative
statement, the sound of _s_, wanting in many of the Polynesian
dialects, is wanting in all the Australian ones.
_Incomplete numeration of the Australians._--The import of an
Australian having no more than the three, four, or five first numerals,
and being thereby as unable to count the number of the fingers of his
hands, as that of the hair of his head, is less equivocal. It speaks,
at once, to a _minimum_ amount of intellectual power. Nevertheless,
the same inability occurs elsewhere; especially in certain languages
of South America. The only vocabulary of Australia, where the numerals
run beyond five, is that of King George's Sound, as given in Mitchell's
Australia.
The political constitution (if so it can be called) of the Australians
is preeminently simple, exhibiting a society of families rather than
of tribes; and one of the facts connected with the evidence in favour
of the unity of the Australian division of mankind is the remarkable
distribution of families bearing the same name. The principal of
these are the Ballaroke, the Tdondarup, the Ngotok, the Nagarnook,
the Nogonyuk, the Mongalung, and the Narrangar.[76] Now, persons
bearing one or the other of these names, may be found in parts of
the country five hundred miles apart. Nor does this appear to be the
effect of migration, since each tribe is limited by the jealousy of its
neighbours to its own hunting-ground, beyond which it seldom passes.
Polygamy, in Australia, is what we find and expect to find. The
practice of circumcision is what we find, perhaps, without expecting
it. The habit of the children taking the name of the mother, will
occur again in the south of India. The rule that a man cannot marry a
woman of his own family-name will also re-appear, and that amongst the
Indians of North America.
_The Kobong_[76]--"Each family among the Australians, adopts some
animal or plant, as a kind of badge or armorial emblem, or, as they
call it, its _kobong_. A certain mysterious connection exists between a
family and its kobong, so that a member of the family will not kill an
animal, or pluck any plant of the species to which his kobong belongs,
except under particular circumstances. This institution again, which
in some respect resembles the Polynesian _tabú_, though founded on a
different principle, has its counterpart in the customs of the native
Americans. Captain Gray observes, citing Mr. Gallatin, that among the
Hurons,[77] the first tribe is that of the bear; the two others, those
of the wolf and turtle. The Iroquois have the same divisions, and the
turtle family is divided into the great and little turtle. The Sioux
are named on a similar principle. According to Major Long, one part of
the superstition of these savages, consists in each man having some
totem, or favourite spirit, which he believes to watch over him. The
_totem_ assumes the shape of some beast, and therefore they never kill
or eat the animal whose form they suppose their totem to bear."
"_The ceremony of initiation._--When the boys arrive at the age of
puberty (or about fourteen), the elders of a tribe prepare to initiate
them into the duties and privileges of manhood. Suddenly, at night,
a dismal cry is heard in the woods, which the boys are told is the
_Bubu_ calling for them. Thereupon all the men of the tribe (or rather
of the neighbourhood) set off for some secluded spot previously fixed
upon, taking with them the youths who are to undergo the ceremony.
The exact nature of this is not known, except that it consists of
superstitious rites, of dances representing the various pursuits in
which men are engaged, of sham fights, and trials designed to prove
the self-possession, courage, and endurance of the neophytes. It is
certain, however, that there is some variation in the details of
the ceremony, in different places; for among the coast tribes, one
of these is the knocking out of an upper front tooth, which is not
done at Wellington, and farther in the interior. But the nature and
object of the institution appear to be everywhere the same. Its design
unquestionably is, to imprint upon the mind of the young man, the rules
by which his future life is to be regulated; and some of these are
so striking, and, under the circumstances, so admirable, that one is
inclined to ascribe them to some higher state of mental cultivation
than now prevails among the natives. Thus, the young men, from the time
they are initiated, till they are married, are forbidden to approach or
speak to a female. They must encamp at a distance from them at night,
and if they see one in the way, must make a long detour to avoid her.
Mr. Watson told me that he had often been put to great inconvenience in
travelling through the woods, with a young man for his guide, as such a
one could never be induced to approach an encampment where there were
any women. The moral intent of this regulation is evident.
"Another rule requires the young men to pay implicit obedience to their
elders. As there is no distinction of rank among them, it is evident
that some authority of this kind is required, to preserve the order and
harmony of social intercourse.
"A third regulation restricts the youth to certain articles of diet.
They are not allowed to eat fish, or eggs, or the _emu_, or any of the
finer kinds of opossum and kangaroo. In short, their fare is required
to be of the coarsest and most meagre description. As they grow older,
the restrictions are removed, one after another; but it is not till
they have passed the period of middle age that they are entirely
unrestrained in the choice of food. Whether one purpose of this law be
to accustom the young men to a hardy and simple style of living may be
doubted; but its prime object and its result certainly are to prevent
the young men from possessing themselves, by their superior strength
and agility, of all the more desirable articles of food, and leaving
only the refuse to the elders.
"2. The ceremony of marriage, which, among most nations, is considered
so important and interesting, is with this people one of the least
regarded. The woman is looked upon as an article of property, and is
sold or given away by her relatives without the slightest consideration
of her own pleasure. In some cases she is betrothed, or rather
promised, to her future husband in the childhood of both; and in this
case, as soon as they arrive at a proper age, the young man claims
and receives her. Some of them have four or five wives, and in such a
case, they will give one to a friend who may happen to be destitute.
Notwithstanding this apparent laxity, they are very jealous, and resent
any freedom taken with their wives. Most of their quarrels relate
to women. In some cases, the husband who suspects another native of
seducing his wife, either kills or severely injures one or both of
them. Sometimes the affair is taken up by the tribe, who inflict
punishment after their own fashion. The manner of this is another of
the singularities of their social system.
"3. When a native, for any transgression, incurs the displeasure of
his tribe, their custom obliges him to "stand punishment," as it is
called; that is, he stands with a shield, at a fair distance, while the
whole tribe, either simultaneously or in rapid succession, cast their
spears at him. Their expertness generally enables those who are exposed
to this trial to escape without serious injury, though instances
occasionally happen of a fatal result. There is a certain propriety
even in this extraordinary punishment, as it is very evident that the
accuracy and force with which the weapons are thrown will depend very
much upon the opinion entertained of the enormity of the offence.
"When the quarrel is between two persons only, and the tribe declines
to interfere, it is sometimes settled by a singular kind of _duello_.
The parties meet in presence of their kindred and friends, who form
a circle round them as witnesses and umpires. They stand up opposite
one another, armed each with a club about two feet long. The injured
person has the right of striking the first blow, to receive which
the other is obliged to extend his head forward, with the side turned
partially upwards. The blow is inflicted with a force commensurate with
the vindictive feeling of the avenger. A white man, with an ordinary
cranium, would be killed outright, but, owing to the great thickness
of their skulls, this seldom happens with the natives. The challenged
party now takes his turn to strike, and the other is obliged to place
himself in the same posture of convenience. In this way the combat is
continued, with alternate buffets, until one of them is stunned, or the
expiation is considered satisfactory.
"4. What are called wars among them may more properly be considered
duels (if this word may be so applied) between two parties of men.
One or more natives of a certain part of the country, considering
themselves aggrieved by the acts of others in another part, assemble
their neighbours to consult with them concerning the proper course
to be pursued. The general opinion having been declared for war,
a messenger or ambassador is sent to announce their intention to
the opposite party. These immediately assemble their friends and
neighbours, and all prepare for the approaching contest. In some cases,
the day is fixed by the messenger, in others not; but, at all events,
the time is well understood.
"The two armies (usually from fifty to two hundred each) meet, and
after a great deal of mutual vituperation, the combat commences. From
their singular dexterity in avoiding or parrying the missiles of their
adversaries, the engagement usually continues a long time without any
fatal result. When a man is killed (and sometimes before), a cessation
takes place; another scene of recrimination, abuse, and explanation
ensues, and the affair commonly terminates. All hostility is at an end,
and the two parties mix amicably together, bury the dead, and join in
a general dance.
"5. One cause of hostility among them, both public and private, is the
absurd idea which they entertain, that no person dies a natural death.
If a man perishes of disease, at a distance from his friends, his death
is supposed to have been caused by some sorcerer of another tribe,
whose life must be taken for satisfaction. If, on the other hand, he
dies among his kindred, the nearest relative is held responsible. A
native of the tribe at Hunter's River, who served me as a guide, had
not long before beaten his own mother nearly to death, in revenge for
the loss of his brother, who died while under her cure. This was not
because he had any suspicions of her conduct, but merely in obedience
to the requirements of a senseless custom."[78]
In the notice of the _physical appearance_ of the natives of Waigiú
and Rawack (p. 212), the statement that the _molar portion of the
alveolar arch is thick_, is printed in Italics. This was for the sake
of preparing the reader for an observation of Professor Owen's upon a
peculiarity of the structure of the teeth of the tribes in question.
_a._ In the second upper molar, the connate character of the lateral
fangs, which is common in Europeans, is extremely exceptional in
Australians.
_b._ In the third upper molar three separate and well-developed fangs,
exceptional with the European, are normal with the Australian.
THE TASMANIAN BRANCH OF THE KELÆNONESIAN STOCK.
_Area._--Van Dieman's Land.
_Physical appearance._--Negritos, with curly, frizzy, or woolly
hair; _i.e._, with the character of the Papua, but not within
the Papua geographical area.
The native population is nearly extinct; and but few specimens exist of
their language.
[Illustration: Fig. 8.]
It fell into, at least, four dialects--mutually unintelligible:
probably into more.
Writers who are not, otherwise, over-prone to exaggerate differences,
have separated the Tasmanians from the Australians; and this
arrangement is followed in the present work. The physical difference
is chiefly that of the hair. The language, as far as the imperfect
vocabularies have allowed me to examine it, has fewer affinities with
the southern dialects of Australia than even the known amount of
dissimilarity between fundamentally allied languages prepares us for.
Furthermore--it was my impression, that such philological affinities
as existed were with New Caledonia rather than Australia. If so, the
philology and the physical appearance go together; and the Tasmanian
population came _round_ Australia rather than _across_ it.
The present position, therefore, of the Tasmanians is provisional.
* * * * *
_Necdum finitus Orestes._--There are two other Negrito localities;
which, _geographically_ speaking, are scarcely Amphinesian, and not at
all Kelænonesian. From the latter area they lie wholly apart. With the
Protonesian portion of Amphinesia they are less disconnected; indeed
they seem, at first, to form a prolongation of the northern extremity
of Sumatra.
I allude to two groups in the portion of the Bay of Bengal, on the
Siamese side, almost parallel with the line of the continent, and
forming a series of stepping-stones from Cape Negrais, in the Môn
country, to the Malay island of Sumatra.
These are--1. The Andaman Islands. 2. The Nicobar Islands.
THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS.
_Native name of the inhabitants._--Mincopie.
_Nearest point of the Continent._--Cape Negrais.
_Language._--Apparently not monosyllabic. Not considered to be
Protonesian.
_Native Fauna._--Rats, hogs, dogs.
_Religion and habits._--Pagan cannibals.--_Lieutenant
Colebrook's Asiatic Researches_, vol. iv.
_Physical appearance._--Colour extremely dark, perhaps black.
Heads woolly, lips thick, noses flat. Stature small, limbs
ill-formed and slender, bellies prominent.
Little as the Andamans, from the ferocious character of the
inhabitants, are known, they are noticed by the Arabian travellers
of the twelfth century, and also by Marco Polo; the early accounts
being quite as unfavourable as the late ones. "Angaman is a very large
island, not governed by a king. The inhabitants are idolators, and
are a most brutish and savage race, having heads, eyes, and teeth
resembling those of the canine species. Their dispositions are cruel,
and every person, not being of their own nation, whom they can lay
hands on, they kill and eat."--_Marco Polo, Marsden's Translation_.
THE NICOBAR ISLANDS.
_Locality._--Between the Andamans and Sumatra.
_Nicobar._--Inhabitants copper-coloured, with oblique eyes, yellowish
sclerotica, small flat noses, large mouth, thick lips, and black
teeth; undersized. Hair strong and black; beard scanty. Ears large and
perforated. Occipito-frontal profile brakhykephalic, the hinder part of
the head being flat and compressed.
The Nicobars are the people who, from the year A.D. 1647, until a
recent period, had the credit of having tails, like those of cats,
which they moved in a similar manner. This arose from a mistake of
Keoping, a Swede, who mistook for a caudal appendance a stripe of cloth
hanging down behind. That there is no real prolongation of the _os
coccygis_ is expressly stated by Fontana. The people _now_ supposed to
present this anatomical peculiarity are a tribe from the interior of
Africa.
The evidence of Keoping as to the cannibalism of the Nicobarians is
more conclusive than his assertion as to their tails. Having "sent a
boat on shore with five men, who did not return at night, as expected,
the day following a larger boat was sent, well manned, in quest of
their companions, who, it was supposed, had been devoured by the
savages, their bones having been found strewed on the shore, the boat
taken to pieces, and the iron of it carried away."
Their huts are raised from the ground, and entered by a ladder;
inhabited by more families than one, and ornamented with boar-skulls.
Marriages are easily formed, and easily dissolved.[79] The dead are
buried; and for every person that dies a cocoa-nut tree is cut down;
and his name is never afterwards mentioned.
The changes of the moon are productive of their great festivities; and
it is by these only that they reckon; seven to each monsoon. At the
beginning of the north-east monsoon a brisk trade, carried on by means
of large canoes, begins with the other islands. The extent of this, and
the amount to which it has introduced European articles of commerce
is considerable; indeed, in the Carnicobar Island the Portuguese has
partially become a _lingua franca_.
The habit of artificially flattening the back of the head is of more
importance. It is a custom "to compress with their hands the occiput
of the new-born child, in order to render it flat. By this method the
hair remains close to the head; as nature intended it, and the upper
fore-teeth very prominent out of the mouth." This is, apparently, so
exclusively an American custom that its presence here is remarkable;
and it is equally remarkable that the only other approach to it, is to
be found in these parts. It is mentioned as being a practice of certain
Arakan tribes.
The most characteristic disease is the _Cochin-leg_, a form of
elephantiasis; arising, perhaps, from the extent to which their aliment
is either fish or pork, to the exclusion of other sorts of animal food.
Instances, too, of longevity, are said to be rare.
Malabar and Bengal settlers to a considerable extent make the
Nicobarians a _mixed_, rather than a pure population.
_Carnicobar._--Inhabitants well made, but undersized, with Malay
features.
_Chowry._[80]--South of Carnicobar. Trade between the Chowrians and
Carnicobarians; the former selling canoes, the latter cloth.
Nancowry is described by Marco Polo, as being under the government of
no king, the people being "little removed from the condition of brutes,
all of them both males and females going naked, without a covering to
any part of the body. They are idolators."[81]
One of the most remarkable of their customs is the way in which they
celebrate the anniversary of the burial of any near relation, when
"their houses are decorated with garlands of flowers, fruits, and
branches of trees. The people of each village assemble, dressed in
their best attire, at the principal house in the place, where they
spend the day in a convivial manner; the men, sitting apart from the
women, smoke tobacco and intoxicate themselves, while the latter are
nursing their children, and employed in preparations for the mournful
business of the night. At a certain hour of the afternoon, announced
by striking the coung, the women set up the most dismal howls and
lamentations, which they continue without intermission till about
sunset; when the whole party gets up, and walks in procession to the
burying-ground. Arrived at the place, they form a circle around one
of the graves, when the stake, planted exactly over the head of the
corpse, is pulled up. The woman who is nearest of kin to the deceased,
steps out from the crowd, digs up the skull, and draws it up with
her hands. At sight of the bones, her strength seems to fail her;
she shrieks, she sobs, and tears of anguish abundantly fall to the
mouldering object of her pious care. She clears it from the earth,
scrapes off the festering flesh, and laves it plentifully with the milk
of fresh coco-nuts, supplied by the bystanders; after which she rubs it
over with an infusion of saffron, and wraps it carefully in a piece of
new cloth. It is then deposited again in the earth, and covered up; the
stake is replanted, and hung with the various trappings and implements
belonging to the deceased. They proceed then to the other graves, and
the whole night is spent in repetitions of these dismal and disgustful
rites."[82]
* * * * *
By referring to p. 209, the reader will find that three questions
connected with the distribution of the Polynesians--and, through
them, with that of the Oceanic tribes, altogether stand over for
consideration; these being--
A. The general question, as to their origin and distribution in
respect to their connection with the Continent, and with each other.
B. The date of the migrations. C. The inferences to be drawn from the
existence of a darker-coloured population in areas more especially
belonging to the brown and olive-coloured tribes.
A. Connection with the Continent of (1) The Kelænonesians, (2) The
Polynesians.
1. A. _Of the Papua Kelænonesians._-The Papuans of New Guinea are, more
probably, a continuation of the population of the Eastern Moluccas
than aught else. This is what their geographical position indicates;
and (such being the case) it is the _primâ facie_ doctrine. At the
same time, they are a continuation of the black or black-like portion
of the Moluccan area, rather than of the Mahometan Malays. The chief
difference lies in the texture of the hair, a difference which has,
most likely, been over-rated.
B. _Of the Australian Kelænonesians._--The _a priori_ view as to
the source of the Australian population is complicated, as may be
understood by looking at the distance between Cape York and New Guinea
on one side, and that between Cape Van Dieman and Timor on the other.
The difference in breadth between the interspaces of ocean in these
two parts is nearly the same: that, however, of Torres Straits is
the smaller;--besides which, there is a numerous series of islands
which would serve as stepping-stones to emigrants from New Guinea;
assuming that to be the line. Now as it is a general rule to derive
the population of islands forming part of a series from the nearest
inhabited point between the area under consideration and the Continent,
_unless reasons can be shown to the contrary_, the apparent _primâ
facie_ view is in favour of the south of New Guinea having peopled
the north of Australia. Nevertheless, it not only is highly probable
that such is not the case, but it is by no means certain that, _all
conditions considered_, it is a correct view even _a priori_. In many
instances those reasons for believing that one particular island has
supplied a population to another, which are based on the principle
of simple contiguity, are modified by the relations of the supposed
_immediate_ source of population to the supposed _remote_ one; in
which case, although the land and sea conditions between the two last
links of the chain may be of the most favourable kind, those between
the last link but one and the first, may be the contrary. Thus, in the
case before us, the fact of Torres Straits being the narrowest portion
of Ocean between Australia and the inhabited land, on the side of the
continent next to it, _taken by itself_, constitutes a reason for
deriving the Australians from the Papuans. It is complicated, however,
by the circumstance of the line between New Guinea and the Continent
being by no means of the most direct and straightforward sort. Hence,
if there were any other point of inhabited land which should at one and
the same time be not much farther from some part of Australia than New
Guinea is from Cape York, and much nearer the _remote_ source (assumed
to be on the Continent) of the Australian population, such a locality
would divide with New Guinea the claims for having been the _immediate_
origin of the occupants of the great island in question; inasmuch as
the slight difference between the favourable conditions of one kind,
would counterbalance the preponderating conditions of another.
Now such a locality is really found in the case before us in the
relations already noticed between the north-east point of Timor and
Cape Van Diemen; so that, _upon the whole_, the _a priori_ views are
as much in favour of the Timor range of islands, being the connecting
link between Australia and the Continent, as they are in favour of New
Guinea being so.
The distinction just indicated is of more importance, as illustrative
of a general principle, than as a fact affecting the particular point
in question. The special facts of the case are, in the mind of the
present writer, in favour of Timor and _not New Guinea_, having been
the quarter from whence Australia was peopled, the particular part
of the Timorian stock being, of course, the darker, wilder, and,
apparently, more ancient tribes of the west and of the interior.
2. _Of the Polynesians._--In investigating the relations between
Polynesia and the Continent, with an exclusive view to the land-and-sea
conditions between the different portions of the connecting series
of islands, we should at once derive the population of the Eastern
Archipelagoes from the islands which lay nearest to them on the west,
and so proceed until we came to the Samoan Archipelago, to the Tonga
group, or to the Fijis. These we should connect with the New Hebrides,
or Solomon's Isles, and these last with New Guinea, the Moluccas, and
the Continent. We should then assume a spread of the population, as
far to the North and East as it had been found to occur westwards; and
so derive the Micronesians from the northern Polynesians. We should
not be afraid of even deriving the people of the Pelew Islands from
the same quarter; the similarity of language and habits having already
been recognised, and the distance between the Pelews and the nearest
portion of Protonesia being greater than (or at least as great as) any
interspace of ocean between Polynesia and the Continent. I say that
this is what we should do if we looked exclusively to the discovery of
that line of connexion where the land-and-sea conditions should be the
most favourable; in other words, where the interspaces of sea should
be the smallest. Nevertheless, in so doing we should, probably, commit
an error in our inference, and certainly violate a principle in our
method; a principle which has been suggested in a previous[83] part of
the present Volume, and which is founded upon the circumstance of the
population of the line of the Papuan Islands, being _not Amphinesian
but Negrito_: so that the ethnological continuity, and the geographical
continuity, disagree; a fact which throws us upon a line of greater
geographical, but of less ethnological complexity; and in favour of
which the probabilities arise out of a composition of the conflicting
difficulties. This is the line from either the Philippines, or the
northern Moluccas to the Pelews (_via_ Lord North's Isle, Sonsoral,
or Johannes I.), the cluster of Goulou, the cluster of Yap, the Egoy
Isles, the Lamoursek and Satawal groups; the Proper Caroline group, the
Chains of Ralik, and Radak, the Tarawan group, the Navigators' Isles or
Samoan Archipelago.
Now the Samoan Archipelago is very nearly the point from which we
should have derived the _proper_ Polynesian population, had we taken
the course of the Papuan islands; so that it constitutes a point
wherein the two lines meet. Hence, if upon historical, philological,
or any other points of external evidence, we gave a preference to
the Samoan Archipelago, over the Tonga group, as the source of the
population for other parts of Polynesia Proper, we should reduce the
_general_ question as to the original of South Pacific islanders to
that of the origin of the Samoans. This, however, is a matter of
detail, of less importance than the recognition of the necessity of
making the geographical continuity of the chain which connects the
Polynesians with the Continent, agree with the ethnological. This can
only be done by deriving the Polynesian population from Micronesia. In
this case the stream of migration goes _round_ the Kelænonesian area,
and not _across_ it.
The rule of taking, as lines of insular migration, those series where
the _maximum_ interspaces of ocean are the smallest, has already been
twice insisted on, and in both cases it has been qualified by the
indication of particular reasons, which might, in certain cases, lead
us to depart from it. These reasons have not been exhibited in detail.
Two sorts, however, of them have occurred, as it were spontaneously,
_i.e._, in the natural course of our investigations. These showed
themselves, first in the preference given to Timor over New Guinea,
as the origin of the Australian population; and next, in the case of
Polynesia, just discussed. A _third_ sort will now present itself,
_i.e._, _the effect of winds and currents_; since it is clear that it
is easier to pass over a large interspace of sea with wind and current
(one or both) in your favour, than over a small one with either one or
both against you.
_The prevailing winds in the Pacific are against a line of insular
migration, being from west to east, at all; since for three fourths of
the year they blow from America towards Amphinesia rather than from
Amphinesia to America._
_Valeat quantum._ All that can possibly be got would be a chance of
three to one in favour of an American origin for the Polynesians,
_provided that all other conditions were equal_. But this is not the
case; the _a priori_ probabilities are neutralized by a vast difference
in the maximum interspaces of ocean, and by the non-American character
of both Micronesia and Polynesia.
It is most likely, then, that Polynesia Proper was peopled from
Micronesia, and Micronesia from either the Philippines or the Moluccas.
C. The date of the migrations. This is either relative or absolute:
_relative_ when we ascertain whether one division of the Oceanic
populations migrated before or after another; _absolute_ when we fix
the chronological date of a migration. As a general rule the latter
is unattainable--Iceland and a few other areas, peopled within the
historical period, forming the exceptions.
Respecting, then, the absolute date of the Polynesian migration, there
is no reason why it should not be known _in particular islands_; for
instance, in the Dangerous Archipelago, where only a small proportion
of the clusters is peopled even at present, any given island may
receive a population so late as this, the eleventh hour of the
extension of the human species; yet it is evident that the knowledge
of such a migration would throw but little light upon the broader
question of the date of the Polynesian population _en masse_. Of this
it may safely be said, that no important group has received its first
occupants within the Polynesian _historical_ period. This, however, is
but a short one.
Will the longer range of the _traditionary_ period supply any such
information? I think not. Nevertheless it must be added, that in
Nukahiva pedigrees run up to the eighty-fifth generation, the founders
of them being connected with the first occupancy of the island. Even,
however, if we admit so long a genealogy as an historical fact, it only
gives the date for one particular island.
Proper _ethnological_ reasoning is, from its very nature, inapplicable
to the investigation of a definite epoch in chronology; since it only
begins where the evidence of testimony ends. Furthermore, it is only
approximate, since it simply calculates, by means of an imperfect
induction, the _minimum_ period required to account for differences;
and the _maximum_ period that will account for resemblances; _e.g._ for
the Polynesians to differ as they do from the Micronesian, a certain
time must have elapsed; and for them to differ no more than they do,
that time must have a limit.
Applied to the _relative_ date of the Oceanic migrations, ethnological
reasoning gives for even the most recent of them, a geological rather
than an historical epoch; and this is as much as it is safe to say. Its
other probable conclusions are more definite.
1. Occupancy had begun in Australia before migration across Torres
Strait had commenced in New Guinea.
2. Occupancy had begun in New Guinea before Polynesian migration had
commenced in Protonesia. The first of these facts we infer from the
physical differences between the Australian and the Papuan, taken with
the fact that it is scarcely likely that the Papuans of Torres Straits
would have failed in extending themselves to Australia had that island
been unoccupied.
The second is an inference from the diversion of the Protonesian
population from New Guinea to the Micronesian line, since the best
reason that can be assigned for the Protonesians not having taken
possession of the Papuan isles, is to be found in the assumption that
they were previously inhabited.
This brings us to the third question, as to the import of the darker
coloured populations in areas more especially belonging to the brown
and olive-coloured tribes.--I do not see how we can consider these as
aught else but the lighter-coloured populations in a ruder stage of
society; since unless we take this view we must look upon them as the
representatives of a separate section of the human kind; a supposition
against which there are the two following objections.
_a._ That the difficulties respecting the population of the Polynesian
area are just doubled by such an assumption; since instead of having
to account for the undoubted Polynesians alone (a matter quite
difficult enough of itself) we should then have to account for an
earlier migration of Negritos as well.
_b._ That if such a previous migration had taken place, we should
expect to find--considering the vast number of Polynesian islands--_at
least one_ island where the blacker race remained unmixed, and (as
such) speaking the original non-polynesian language, which is implied
in the assumed independence of origin; since it is exceedingly unlikely
that a second migration should have so nearly coincided with a former
one as to people and leave unpeopled exactly the same areas. Now out of
all the isles of the South Sea none presents the phenomenon of a pure
black population, as determined by the double test of colour and of
language.
On the other hand, it may be urged--_a._ That, although it may be
a matter of doubt with competent judges whether improved physical
and social conditions have so great an influence upon the colour of
the skin and the texture of the hair as is imagined by some extreme
thinkers on the point, it is generally admitted that they have _some_
influence.
_b._ That in some groups (and sometimes in particular islands) the
identity of the darker and lighter-coloured population is beyond a
doubt; coinciding, as it does, with such differences.
_c._ That transitional forms occur where it is wholly gratuitous to
assume the influence of intermixture.
With this opinion our view of the relations between the continuous
Kelænonesian areas and the areas of the mixed population would be as
follows:--
_a._ That at a period anterior to the development of the proper Malay
and Polynesian characters of the typical Protonesians, New Guinea
and Australia were peopled from the Moluccas and Timor respectively;
the immigrants having a type which might lose or gain Kelænonesian
characters according to circumstances.
_b._ That the conditions of Protonesia and Polynesia favoured the
change from dark to fair; those of New Guinea and Australia from fair
to dark.
I will now add a remark of Mr. Blaxland from Mr. Jukes's Voyage of the
_Fly_, which will further illustrate this position:--"The geographical
boundary of the Papuan islander is precisely coincident with that of
the north-west monsoon. This wind, from the months of November to March
inclusive, is the prevalent one over all the space extending from the
equator to 10° or 15° south latitude, and in longitude from Sumatra to
the Fejee Islands. It is sometimes experienced to the west of Sumatra
as far as the north of Madagascar, and it sometimes also extends
to the east of the Fejee Islands into the Pacific Ocean; but these
extensions are irregular, and its usual eastern boundary is precisely
that of the Papuan race before described. Mr. Blaxland deduces from
this fact, coupled with the little skill of that race in navigation,
the inference, that they have travelled from the west into the Pacific
Ocean, and extended their migration only as far as the monsoon allowed
them."[84]
This gives us the following theory:--
1. That Kelænonesia was peopled when navigation was so much in its
infancy as for the Protonesians to be limited in their migrations by
the north-west monsoon.
2. That Polynesia was peopled when it was sufficiently advanced for the
same people to be independent of it.
3. That the _differentiæ_ between the lighter and darker Protonesians
is referable to the influences of Asiatic civilization.
The observations of Mr. Blaxland, taken along with the colour of
the people, lead to the inference that the Fijis were peopled from
Kelænonesia. The language, however, is against this. The conflict of
difficulties is best reconciled by considering them a mixed race;
of which the older element belongs to the line of population which
supplied Kelænonesia with its inhabitants, the newer to the Polynesian
system.
If this view be unsatisfactory we must consider them as members of the
darker Polynesian population, with its differential characteristics
at their _maximum_--a view probable enough of itself, but rendered
suspicious by the fact of its occurring so precisely in the
neighbourhood of Kelænonesia.
That they form a true transition between the Kelænonesians and
Polynesians, _as a continuation_ of a line of population from the New
Hebrides to Polynesia, is of all views the most improbable.
In the opinion of the present writer, the Fiji Islands are the
localities where the stream of population which went _round_ New Guinea
met, and amalgamated with the extremity of the line that came _across_
that country; the antagonism between the evidence of the language,
the evidence of the physical conformation being the effect of the
intermixture.
Respecting the ethnological relations of the Andaman and Nicobarian
islanders, I am not prepared with an opinion.
* * * * *
The following facts connected with the Polynesian languages, are
laid before the reader, less for the sake of enlarging the list of
Polynesian peculiarities than as a preparation for certain philological
phænomena, which will occur in the ethnology of America, and with
the view of showing a process by which language, over and above the
changes which are brought about by _natural_ changes, may be modified
_artificially_--a point upon which we have few _data_, but plenty of
extreme opinions.
_Ceremonial language of parts of Polynesia._--The Samoans, ceremonious
to each other, are preeminently so towards their chiefs; one of their
methods of showing respect being to eschew certain words in common
use, when addressing a superior, and to substitute for them others,
which are considered more refined. Hence, a careful speaker will never
address a higher personage in the terms appropriate to an inferior one.
To a common man, on entering a house, the salutation is _ua mai=you
have come_.
To a householder, _ua alala mai_.
To a low chief, _ua malui mai_.
To a high chief, _ua susu mai_.
To the sovereign, _ua afio mai_.
In Tonga there are traces of a second order of ceremonial synonyms;
_i.e._ over and above those ordinarily in use, there is a series for
the particular _divine_ chief Tiutonga.[85]
CEREMONIAL. TIUTONGA. COMMON. ENGLISH.
Fofonga langi mata _face_.
Ilo taumafa kai _eat_.
Mamata taka tio _see_.
Ofai hala mate _dead_.
Tengitangi buluhi mahaki _sick_.
Toka tofa moe _sleep_.
In Tahitian, an excessively figurative manner of speech is said to
supersede the proper system of ceremonial synonyms, the _houses_ of the
chief being the _clouds of heaven_; his _canoe_, the _rainbow_; his
_voice_, the _thunder_, and so on.
The names too of the chiefs are almost always significant, and almost
always compound, and, in some cases, they run to a very considerable
length, as _Tai-ma-le-langi=sea and sky_; _Tau-i-te-ao-bu=suspended in
the blue heavens_; _Ta-lana-tupu-a-pai-ta-lani-nui=the sky increasing
and striking the great heaven_. Now the owners of any such names as
these are supposed to be complimented by the Tahitians ceasing to
employ, in the language of their daily intercourse, one, or more,
of the words which formed parts of them; so that, in the case of
_Tai-ma-le-langi_, the syllables _tai_, _mai_, _le_, or _langi_,
are lost to the common language, until the death of the chief, so
designated. After his decease, however, they return to the language. In
this way, between the voyages of Cook and Vancouver, no less than forty
or fifty words had been superseded by new ones: indeed, of the first
ten numerals, four are now different from what they were in Cook's time.
ORIGINAL FORM. PRESENT FORM.
2. Rua piti.
4. Ha maha.
5. Rima pae.
6. Ono fene.
_Note 1._--Since the notice of the Fiji Islands was written a youth of
that group--_i.e._ from the island of Lafu--has been brought over to
England by Mr. James Boyd, been presented at the Ethnological Society,
and is now in London. The most remarkable point is a reddish tinge,
clearly perceptible under a cross light, in his otherwise black and
frizzy hair. If I am right in referring this shade to the use of
alkaline washes used in youth for the purposes of whitening the hair,
it shows the unsafeness of talking about _naturally_ red hair for any
of Oceanic islands; since, in the case in question, it was upwards of
five years since any alkaline wash had been applied.
* * * * *
_Note 2._--In _p._ 184. I have overstated the extent to which the
notion that Polynesia Proper was peopled from Kelænonesia rather than
from Micronesia was _general_. Although not found (as far as I know) in
any of the systematic works on the subject of human migration, it is by
no means singular. It is the opinion of Mr. Norriss, and--subject to an
alternative--the recorded opinion of Mr. Jukes, who writes,--
"The Papuan race exclusively possesses the islands on the north-east
of Australia, namely, New Guinea with New Britain and New Ireland, the
Solomon Islands, the islands called Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo,
and the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia. It extends also to the Feejee
Islands, where it is more or less mingled with the Polynesian race, and
where the language appears to be of Polynesian origin. It is probable
that from New Caledonia proceeded the colony, or whatever it was, that
reached Tasmania, and there mingled with the Australian race. To the
westward of New Guinea scattered tribes, apparently of Papuan race,
are said to occur in the interior of many islands as far west as that
called Endé Flores or Mangeray, and as far north as the Philippine
Islands. It has even been said that the Andaman Islands, in the Bay
of Bengal, are inhabited by a people much resembling the Papuans, and
I have been struck with the similarity of many of their customs to
those which are said to characterize some of the wild hill tribes in
the centre of India. I believe, however, that many of the stories of
tribes of people being found in the various parts of the Archipelago,
must be received with much caution, and that most of the wild people so
described will be found, like the Dyaks of Borneo, or the wild tribes
of the Malacca Peninsula, to be really of Polynesian race. A mingling
of the Papuan race with the Australian, probably takes place at the
present day in the neighbourhood of Torres Strait, but not, perhaps,
to so great an extent as might be expected, for I am inclined to think
that the Australians give way and retreat before the islanders. * * * *
Whatever may have been the origin of the Polynesians, it is certainly
most probable that their reason for going round these Papuan islands
(whether from the east or west), and not taking possession of them, was
the fact of their being previously inhabited by the Papuans."[86]
FOOTNOTES:
[49] Terms applied to geographical distribution rather than to physical
conformation; _Malay_ and _Negrito_ being terms expressive of physical
conformation rather than of geographical distribution.
[50] History of Sumatra, p. 383.
[51] History of Sumatra, p. 41.
[52] Marsden's, History of Sumatra.
[53] History of Sumatra, p. 53.
[54] Prichard, vol. v.
[55] A division of the Kelænonesians.
[56] The _g-_ pronounced as in _get_.
[57] Rajah Brooke's Journal, vol. i. p. 83.
[58] Brooke, vol. ii. p. 65.
[59] Description des Isles Philippines.
[60] From Prichard, vol. v. p. 220.
[61] Page 302, &c.
[62] United States' Exploring Expedition.
[63] According to the map and nomenclature of Dumont Durville.
[64] In Tahitian, Taaroa.
[65] Beechey.
[66] _Amphi-nesian_, from _amfi_=_around_, and _næsos_=_island_;
_Protonesian_, from _protos_=_first_; _Kelino-nesian_, from
_kelainos_=_black_. This last term is Prichard's. I am aware that all
these forms are, etymologically, incorrect. The first part is Greek,
the termination, _-an_, Latin; so that they are impossible words in
the language from which they are supposed to be taken. Still the forms
_Polynesian_ and _Peloponnesian_, establish a convenient, though
exceptionable, precedent.
[67] "This house resembled the smaller houses we afterwards saw in New
Guinea, and it may have been erected merely in imitation of those the
islanders have seen in that country. We afterwards saw, on Masseed, a
solitary house like those of Darnley and Murray Islands."
[68] See page 168.
[69] Prichard. Vol. v., p. 232.
[70] Denoting that by some writers the Vanikoro tribes have been placed
in another class. Their language has been considered as Polynesian
rather than Papua.
[71] See p. 204.
[72] February 10, 1843.
[73] Vol. vi. p. 110.
[74] As the _ch_ in _chest_.
[75] A work of Purkinje on the distribution of the sounds in different
languages, I know only from the reference to it in Müller's Physiology.
The beautiful application of this by Professor Graves, of Dublin, will
be noticed when speaking of the ethnology of Ireland.
[76] Captain Gray; from Prichard. Vol. v.
[77] _Qu?_--Delawares.
[78] United States' Exploring Expedition, vol. vi.
[79] Parum fecundæ mulieres; apud quas quinta Lucina rarissimum.
Viri inculpantur; quorum Venus plerumque præcox et effræna, ebrietas
perpetua.
[80] Zoffany; Asiatic Researches, vol. ii.
[81] Marsden's Translation, p. 619.
[82] Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 131.
[83] Page 185.
[84] Vol. ii. p. 251.
[85] See p. 193.
[86] Voyage of the _Fly_, p. 251.
D.
HYPERBOREAN MONGOLIDÆ.
We are now in Siberia rather than in Central Asia; along the courses
of large rivers rather than at their head-waters; and in a region of
_tundras_, or flat barren morasses, rather than on elevated steppes. We
are also in the country of the rein-deer and dog rather than the horse
and sheep. Fishing and fur-hunting, too, will form a portion of the
occupations of the Hyperborean Mongolidæ. These conditions, different
as they are in many respects from the general conditions of the Turk
and Mongolian Turanians, have still been met with before, _i.e._ with
the Northern Ugrians, the Northern Tungusians, and the Yakuts. One of
the nations about to be enumerated, occupies the most northern portion
of the inhabited world, _i.e._ the Samöeids of the Northern promontory
of Asia.
HYPERBOREAN NATIONS AND TRIBES.
_Physical conformation._--Undersized Mongols.
_Languages._---Agglutinate; neither monosyllabic nor
pauro-syllabic.
_Political relations._--Subject to either Russia or China.
_Religion._--Shamanism or imperfect Christianity.
_Distribution._--The coasts of the Arctic Ocean; the courses of
the Yenisey and Kolyma. Area _discontinuous_.
_Divisions._--1. The Samöeids, 2. The Yeniseians. 3. The
Yukahiri.
The discontinuity of the Hyperborean area is to the following extent:--
_a._ The Samöeid class falls into two divisions, a northern and a
southern; and these are separated from one another by Turk, Yeniseian,
and Ugrian tribes.
_b._ The Yeniseians are surrounded by Ugrians, Turks, and Tungusians,
with which they have less affinity than with the Samöeids, from whom
they are separated.
_c._ The most western Yukahiri are separated from the most eastern
Samöeids by Yakut Turks and Tungusians.
This discontinuity of area must be taken along with two other facts.
_a._ That the Hyperborean nations are nations of a _receding_ frontier.
_b._ That the Turks, Tungús, and (in relation to the Hyperborean), the
Ugrians, are nations of an _encroaching_ frontier. These give, as an
inference, the probability of the three separate divisions having once
been continuous; so that the original Hyperborean populations must be
considered to have been broken up, and partially superseded by the
Turks and Tungusians, and to exist, at present, only in the form of
fragments.
SAMÖEIDS.
_SOUTHERN DIVISION (SOIOT)._
_Localities._--_a._ The parts around Lake Ubsa, within the
limits of the Chinese Empire; the river Bashkus, which expands
into the Lake Altin, or Teleakoi, and becomes one of the
sources of the Obi.
_b._ Tunkinsk, on the south-west extremity of the Lake Baikal,
within the Russian territory.
_c._ Abakansk on the left branch of the Upper Yenisey. From
Abakansk, they moved eastwards in A.D. 1618.
_d._ The River Uda between the two branches of the Upper
Yenisey.
_Tribes._--_a._ Of the Lake Ubsa, the Uriangchai or Soiot.
_b._ Of the Uriangchai, the Bagari, the Matlar, the Tozhin, the
Ulek.
_c._ Of Abakansk; the Matorzi, or Motori, and Koibal. Probably
now extinct; since in 1722, only ten families of the Modori
remained. The Kamash.
_d._ Of the Uda; the Karakash.
_Conterminous_ with the Mongols, Tungusians, Yeniseians, and
Turks. Separated by the last two from the Northern Samöeids.
_Vocabularies._--Of the Motori, Koibal, and Kamash.
_NORTHERN DIVISION (KHASOVO)._
_Area._--From the Mezene, between the Petchora and Archangel,
and falling into the White Sea, to the Chatunga in 105° east
longitude, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and on the
lower courses of the Petchora, Obi, and Yenisey.
Southwards; on the Yenisey to Turokansk, on the Obi, as far as
Tomsk. This is their nearest point to the Southern Samöeids.
_Conterminous_ with the Yakuts and Tungusians(?) on the east,
the Yeniseians and Turks on the south, and the Ostiaks and
Russians on the west.
_Name._--Of the northern Samöeids on the River Tas, between the
Yenisey and the Obi, _Mokase_. Of those of the Lower Obi and
White Sea, _Khasovo_=_men_.
Some of the Samöeid tribes are improperly called Ostiaks.
Called by themselves _Nyenech_=_men_.
" ---- _Khasovo_=_men_.
" the Obi Ostiaks _Jergan-yach_.
" Tungusians _Dyândal_.
" Syranians _Yarang_.
" Woguls _Yorran-kum_.
" Russians _Samöeid_.
_Vocabularies._--1. From Pustoserk, at the mouth of the
Petchora. The north-westernmost locality.
2. From Obdorsk, at the mouth of the Obi.
3. From the River Tym, on the right side of the Obi.
4. From the River Ket, _ibid._
5. From Narym between the two.
6. From Pumpokolsk north of the Tym.
7. From Tomsk, the southernmost locality.
8. From the parts between the Obi and Yenisey, the Yurass, the
Tas, Mangaseia vocabularies.
9. From Turuchansk.
10. From the east of Turuchansk. The Karass vocabulary.
11. From the parts about the Chatunga. The Tawgi vocabulary.
These the most easterly specimens.
12. The Laak vocabulary.
Of all the tribes of Siberia the Samöeids are nearest to the Eskimo, or
Greenlanders, in their physical appearance. Varieties, however, have
been described; some tribes having been called _tall_, others _fair_.
The general character is that of the Laplander, and the Eskimo--the
other circumpolar divisions of the human species.[87]
The Koibals are in all probability the most advanced of the
Samöeids--being the owners of herds, flocks, horses, and camels(?).
[Illustration: Fig. 9.]
As early as A.D. 1096, the term _Samöeid_ appears in the Russian
chronicles, and it is to be found again in the Travels of Plan Carpin,
a hundred and fifty years later.
YENISEIANS.
_Locality._--Each side of Yenisey, limited by the Northern
Samöeids between Inbask and Turuchansk, and by the Southern
Samöeids and Turks, in the neighbourhood of Krasnoiarsk. On the
west are the south-eastern tribes of the northern Samöeids. On
the east Tungusians and Turks.
_Native name._--Könniyüng.
_Vocabularies._--1. Inbask. 2. Pumpokolsk. 3. Assan. 4. Kott.
5. Arinzi. 6. Denka.
YUKAHIRI.
_Native name._--Andon-Domni. Called by the Koræki
Atal=_spotted_, from wearing rein-deer skins.
_Locality._--Valley of the Kolyma, originally of the Yana and
Indijirka also.
_Particular tribes._--1. Tsheltiere, on the River Omolon.
2. Omoki, on the Atasey. 3-4. Tshuvantsi and Kudinski on
the Anisey. 5. Konghini, on the Kolyma. 6. Shelagi, on the
promontory of Shelagskoi Noss.
_Conterminous_ with the Yakut Turks, the Lamut Tungusians, and
the Koriaks.
The Yukahiri, although said to have been, even as late as the beginning
of the last century, a powerful people, are at present rapidly
diminishing. The Omoki and Shelagi are either extinct, or nearly so. So
also, most probably, are the Tseltiere, the Kudinski, and the Konghini.
Laying out of the account the influence of Russia, the northern Koriaks
on the east, the Yakuts on the west, and the Lamut Tungusians on the
south, have been the chief encroaching tribes.
The writer who has paid most attention to the language of these three
divisions of the Siberian population is Klaproth; who, I believe, was
also the first who separated the Yeniseians from the Ugrians. With
these they were confounded, from the fact of their being denominated
by the Russians, _Ostiaks_; a term, which from being already applied
to the Ugrians of the Obi, was equivocal. To obviate this ambiguity,
it was necessary to speak of two kinds of Ostiaks, those of the Obi,
and those of the Yenisey; and so the nomenclature became confused. All
this, however, is remedied by adhering to Klaproth's term _Yeniseian_.
And such is the present custom of philologists.
Respecting the extent to which the Yeniseian, the Samöeid, and
Yukahiri, are isolated languages; the classification of the present
writer is opposed to that of the Asia Polyglotta. Klaproth raises each
to the rank of a separate family, and neither admits any definite
relationship between the three, as compared with each other, nor yet
between any one of them and any of the neighbouring languages. Still he
indicates some important _general_ and _miscellaneous_ affinities; and
Prichard does the same. The following table helps to verify the present
classification.
A.
_The Yeniseian of the Asia Polyglotta, and the Yukahiri of the
Asia Polyglotta_.
_English_, beard
Inbask, _kulye_, _kulgung_
Pumpokolsk, _clépuk_
Assan, _culup_, _chulp_
Kott, _hulup_
Arinzi, _korolep_
Yukahiri, _bu-gylbe_
_English_, head
Inbask, _tshig_
Yukahiri, _yok_
_English_, mouth
Pumpokolsk, _khan_
Yukahiri, _anya_
_English_, nose
Inbask, _olgen_, _olen_
Pumpokolsk, _hang_
Assan, _ang_
Yukahiri, _yongul_, _iongioula_.
_English_, tongue
Assan, _alûp_
Kott, _alûp_
Arinzi, _alyap_
Yukahiri, _andzhub_
_English_, ear
Assan, _kologan_, _klokan_
Kott, _kalogan_
Yukahiri, _golondzhi_
_English_, man
Inbask, _çet_, _blet_
Pumpokolsk, _ilset_
Kott, _hatket_
Yukahiri, _yadu_
_English_, dog
Inbask, _tsip_, _tip_
Yukahiri, _tabaha_
_English_, thunder
Arinzi, _esbath-yantu_
Yukahiri, _yendu_
_English_, lightning
Inbask, _yakene-bok_
Yukahiri, _bug-onshe_
_English_, egg
Inbask, _onge_
Arinze, _ang_
Pumpokolsk, _tanyangeeg_
Yukahiri, _langdzhango_
_English_, leaf
Assan, _yepan_
Kott, _dipang_
Yukahiri, _yipan_
_English_, eat
Assan, _rayali_
Yukahiri, _lagul_
_English_, yellow
Kott, _shuiga_
Yukahiri, _tshakatonni_
_English_, moon
Pumpokolsk, _tui_
Arinzi, _shui_
Yukahiri, _kinin-shi_
B.
_The Yeniseian_ _of the Asia Polyglotta, and the Samöeid of the
Asia Polyglotta_.
_English_, arm
Arinzi, _khinang_
Mangaseia, _kannamunne_
_English_, finger
Inbask, _tokan_
Pumpokolsk, _tok_
Tawgi, _fyaaka_
Yurass, _tarka_
_English_, flesh
Arinzi, _is_
Assan, _iç_, _içi_
Pumpokolsk, _ziç_
Mangaseia, _osa_
Turuchansk, _odzha_
Narym, &c., _ueç_
Karass, _hueç_
_English_, fir-tree
Inbask, _ei_
Arinzi, _aya_
Obdorsk, _ye_
_English_, egg
Inbask, _ong_
Arinzi, _ang_
Pumpokolsk, _eg_
Tas, _iga_
_English_, egg
Assan, _shulei_
Kott, _shulei_
Motorian, _shlok_
_English_, tree
Assan, _atsh_
Kott, &c., _açshe_
Motorian, &c., _cha_
_English_, brother
Assan, _pobesh_
Koibal, _pabim_=_younger_
_English_, butter
Assan, &c., _kayak_
Motorian, _chayak_
_English_, moon
Assan, _shui_
Koibal, _kui_
_English_, sun
Assan, &c., _ega_
Motorian, _kaye_
_English_, stone
Inbask, _çijgs_, _tyes_
Pumpokolsk, _çys_, _kit_
Assan, _shish_
Kott, _shish_
Arinzi, _khes_
Motorian, _dagia_
_English_, summer
Assan, _shega_
Kott, _chushshega_
Arinzi, _shei_
Motor, _daghan_
Koibal, _taga_
_English_, they
Assan, _hatin_
Arinzi, _itang_
Motor, _tin_
_English_, woman
Inbask, _bgim_
Arinzi, _byk-hamalte_
Obdorsk, _pug-utsu_
Pustoserk, _pug-iça_
_English_, river
Denka, _chuge_
Pustoserk, _yaga_
_English_, great
Assan, _paça_
Arinzi, _birkha_
Pustoserk, _pirçe_
_English_, evening
Inbask, _bis_
Pumpokolsk, _biçidin_
Assan, _pidziga_
Yurass, _pausema_
Obdorsk, _paus-emya_
Pustoserk, _paus-emye_
_English_, hill
Inbask, &c., _chai_
Samöeid, _syeo_, _ko_
_English_, bed
Inbask, _chodzha_
Obdorsk, _choba_
Tawgi, _kufu_
_English_, birch-tree
Inbask, _uusya_
Assan, _uça_
Kott, _uça_
Pustoserk, _chu_
Tawgi, &c., _kuie_
Ket, _tiue_
_English_, leaf
Yeniseian, _yp-an_
Pumpokolsk, _efig_
Pustoserk, _wyba_
Obdorsk, _wiibe_
Yurass, _newe_
Tomsk, _tyaba_
Narym, _çabe_
Kamash, _dzhaba_
Nevertheless, the present class is provisional. All that is at present
asserted, is that the three divisions which it contains, are not
sufficiently distinct to be separated. Whether, however, the whole
section may not, hereafter, become a sub-division of either the
Turanian, or the Peninsular Mongolidæ, is doubtful. Most probably it
will.
FOOTNOTES:
[87] Mammarum summitates apud Samöeidas nigerrimæ. Sic apud authores
reperi; quos, suspicor, aut gravidas, aut viragines fusciores vidisse.
Idem de Lapponibus traditur. Præcox, quoque, pro borealibus, puellarum
Venus; catameniis ante duodecimum annum accedentibus.
E.
PENINSULAR MONGOLIDÆ.
This division comprises tribes which, I believe, have not hitherto
been thrown in the same class, tribes separated from each other by
considerable breaks in the geographical, and even in the ethnological
continuity. Some of these lie within the Arctic Circle; others as far
south as 26° north latitude. Not less distant are the two extremes of
their social development; one section of the group partaking of the
civilization of China, another exhibiting the rudeness of the Samöeid,
and Yeniseian.
PENINSULAR NATIONS AND TRIBES.
_Physical conformation._--Mongol.
_Languages._--Agglutinate. In some cases excessively
_poly_-syllabic.
_Area._--Islands and peninsulas of the north-eastern coast of
Asia.
_Divisions._--1. The Koreans. 2. The Japanese. 3. The Aino. 4.
The Koriaks. 5. The Kamskadales.
After indicating the points of difference, it is necessary to justify
the present classification by showing in what way the divisions of the
Peninsular Mongolidæ agree.
1. They agree in their land and water relations--being, as is expressed
by the epithet applied to them, the inhabitants of either _peninsulas_
or of islands that form an extension of them; a fact wherein we have,
to a certain extent, common conditions in the way of physical, and
common conditions in the way of social development.
2. They lie within a few degrees of the same _longitude_. This,
however, is a mere consequence of their position on the same side of
the same continent.
3. They are more maritime in locality than in habit; the Japanese being
the chief navigators of the group. Compared, however, with the Chinese
and Malays, the Japanese are but moderate navigators.
4. Although at present interrupted, there is good reason for believing
that the original area was continuous. The parts that are broken are
the tracts between Korea and the mouth of the Amur, and the south-west
coast of the sea of Okhotsk. Now this interval is filled up by the
Tungusian tribes; tribes whose area has certainly been an _encroaching_
one.
5. As compared with the Chinese, the Japanese and Korean languages are
_not_ monosyllabic.
6. As compared with the Yakut Turk, and the Lamut Tungusian, the
Kamskadale and Koriak are not Turanian.
7. What applies to the language of the Peninsular tribes applies to
their physical appearance also.
All this, however, may be the case without affording the least proof
of a true ethnological connection, _i.e._ of a connection in the way
of descent and affiliation; since even the similarity of physical
appearance, which, making allowance for differences of latitude and
civilization, is, from all accounts, very close, may merely be the
effect of common climatologic conditions, wholly independent of
relationship.
To prove this a fresh set of facts is required. Nor are they wanting.
1. The Peninsular languages have a general _glossarial_ connection
with each other; the _grammatical_ structure of only one of them (the
Japanese) being known.
2. The Peninsular languages have a general glossarial connection with a
third class.
In the opinion of the present writer the Peninsular languages agree
in the general fact of being more closely akin to those of _America_
than any other; and this, of itself, he considers to be a sufficient
reason for placing them in a separate division. It also, to a certain
extent, removes the evidence of their mutual affinity to another part
of the work, _i.e._ that which treats of the origin of the American
population; inasmuch as the same tables which connect the American
languages with the Peninsular ones, connect these last with each other.
In a series of monographs these proofs could have been given separate;
in a systematic work, however, it is necessary to economise space by
making the same lists prove two points at once. Hence, they will appear
in the sequel.
THE KOREANS.
_Locality._--The peninsula of Korea; in Chinese, Kao-li.
_Political relations._--Subject to China.
_Religion._--That of Fo, modified.
_Alphabet._--Not rhæmatographic.
_Chief foreign influences._--Chinese, Mantshu, and Japanese; in
the thirteenth century, Mongolian.
_Physical appearance._--"The Kooraïan is superior in stature
to the Japanese; yet his height seldom exceeds five-and-a-half
Parisian feet: he is of strong, vigorous make, his figure
well-proportioned, active, and full of life. The shape of his
features bears in general the impress of the Mongolian race:
the coarse broad countenance; the projecting cheek-bones; the
strong under-jaw; the nose depressed at the root or upper
part, and broadly-spread alæ; the large mouth, with broad
lips; the peculiar position of the eyes, apparently angular
in the direction of their opening; the rough, thick, black
hair of the head, often inclined to a red brown colour; thick
eyebrows; thin beard; with a reddish-yellow, wheat-coloured
(_weitzen-farbich_), or straw-coloured complexion, announce
him at once and at the first look, as an inhabitant of the
north-eastern parts of Asia. This type is common to most of the
Kooraïans observed by us, and they recognise it as that which
is most distinctive of their nation."--SIEBOLD.[88]
The political relations towards China, the great amount of Chinese
influences upon the civilization of Korea, and the physical likeness
between the Koreans and the Chinese have had, in many instances,
the effect of diverting the attention of ethnologists from the true
affinities of this division of the Peninsular Mongolidæ; and it
should be added that the last of the three facts just enumerated is a
legitimate ground for looking, in the first instance, to China.
It is one which the present writer has no wish to conceal. The
question, however, must be viewed in all its bearings; in which case
we meet with the important fact that the Korean language is anything
rather than monosyllabic. Siebold, as I learn from Prichard, thought
that he perceived some analogies between the Japanese, the Korean, and
the Aino. He might have done more. He might have been sure of their
existence--and that to an extent sufficient to throw the three tongues
in the same category.
According to Klaproth,[89] speaking on the authority of Chinese
writers, the present inhabitants of Korea represent the mixture of
two separate populations; the true aborigines being the Koreans of
the south, called by the Chinese, the _Sam Han_=_the three tribes of
Han_. The northern are a people who came originally from a country
lying to the northward of the Chinese province of Tshy-li, called by
the Chinese writers _Sian-pi_. Whether this mixture, supposing it to
be real, represents the juxtaposition of tribes, widely different or
different in little more than name, is uncertain. Prichard, however,
has truly remarked that the physical characters of both must have been
nearly alike, inasmuch as they were each within the region where the
Turanian type prevails. It may also be added that no traces of a second
philological element in the difference between the Northern and the
Southern Korean dialects have yet been pointed out. In a language,
however, so imperfectly understood, this is not saying much.
In regard to the physical difference between different Korean
individuals no such negative statement can be made. Dr. Siebold[90]
writes as follows:--"In the countenances of the Kooraïans we may
recognise the characteristics of two different races of people. The
nose pressed down near the inner angle of the orbit and expanding
itself into broad alæ; the eyes obliquely placed, with the inner
angles widely separated from each other; the greater projection of
the cheek-bones; are marks of the race first described. But when
the root of the nose is more raised and the nose more straight,
the configuration of the countenance approaches to the stamp of
the Caucasian type, and the form of the eyes is more like that of
Europeans; the cheek-bones, too, are less prominent, and the sharp
profile, which is wanting to the Mongolian race, now makes its
appearance. The more the countenance belongs to the former cast the
less beard does it display, whereas, in persons of a sharp profile,
the beard is often rather strong. The skull is in these instances less
compressed, the forehead, which elsewhere retreats, is straight, and
the whole aspect of the countenance displays a certain noble expression
which is looked for in vain in the rough traits of the Mongolian type."
As evidence, however, to the presence of a foreign element of the kind
implied in the Chinese account, this is imperfect--indeed I have no
reason to believe that it is meant to be such--since it is not said by
Dr. Siebold that this difference of feature coincides with the northern
and southern portions of the population.
THE JAPANESE.
_Localities._--From south to north--the Lú Chú Islands, Kiúsiú,
Sikoko, Nipon, the southern part of Jesso.
_Political relations._--Independent.
_Alphabet._--Not rhæmatographic.
_Religion._--_a._ Of Chinese origin--1. That of Fo, modified;
2. The philosophical system of Confucius, modified.
_b._ The original Paganism.
_Physical Appearance._--"The people of this nation are well
made, active, free, and easy in their motions, with stout
limbs, although their strength is not to be compared with
that of the northern inhabitants of Europe. The men are of
the middling size, and in general not very corpulent; yet I
have seen some that were fat. They are of a yellowish colour
all over, sometimes bordering on brown, and sometimes on
white. The lower class of people, who in summer, when at work,
lay bare the upper part of their bodies, are sun-burnt, and
consequently brown. Ladies of distinction, who seldom go out
in the open air without being covered, are perfectly white.
It is by their eyes that, like the Chinese, these people are
distinguishable. These organs have not that rotundity, which
those of other nations exhibit, but are oblong, small, and are
sunk deeper in the head, in consequence of which these people
have almost the appearance of being pink-eyed. Their eyes are
dark-brown, or rather black, and the eyelids form in the great
angle of the eye a deep furrow, which makes the Japanese look
as if they were sharp-sighted, and discriminates them from
other nations. The eyebrows are also placed somewhat higher.
Their heads are in general large, and their necks short; their
hair black, thick, and shining, from the use they make of
oils. Their noses, although not flat, are yet rather thick and
short."--THUNBERG.[91]
"The population of Fizen, as well as that of the whole island
of Kiúsiú, is divided between the dwellers on the coast,
and those of the interior and of the towns, who differ from
each other in their physical aspect, language, manners, and
character.
"The coasts, and the numberless islands which border on them,
are inhabited by fishers and seafaring people, men small
but vigorous, of a deeper colour than those of the other
classes. Their hair, more frequently black than of a red brown
colour,--_brun-rougeâtre_,†--is crisped in some individuals
who have also the facial angle strongly marked,--_très
prononcée_,--their lips puffed,--_enflées_,--the nose small,
slightly aquiline, and depressed at the root,--_renfoncée à la
racine_.
"Address, perseverance, boldness, a frankness which never
amounts to effrontery, a natural benevolence and a complaisance
which approaches to the abject; such are the characteristic
qualities of the sea-coast people.
"The natives of the interior of Kiúsiú, who devote themselves
chiefly to agriculture, are a larger race, and are
distinguishable by a broad and flattened countenance; by the
prominence of their cheek-bones, and the distance between
the inner canthi; by their broad and very flat nose, their
large mouth; by their hair, which is of a deep brown colour,
inclining to red-brown, _tirant sur le brun-rougeâtre_,--and by
the clearer colour of their skin. Among the cultivators, who
are perpetually exposed to the air and sun, the skin becomes
red: the women, who protect themselves from the influence of
the atmosphere, have generally a fine and white skin, and the
cheeks of the young girls display a blooming carnation.
"This agricultural race is laborious, sober, pious, cordial,
and consequently hospitable. The savage nature, tempered from
infancy by the constant observance of the forms of politeness
and the etiquette of the country, does not exclude a certain
nobility, and never degenerates into grossness as among the
peasantry of Europe. The husbandmen of Fizen are even too
ceremonious."--SIEBOLD.[92]
Of the nobles of Japan, Kæmpfer says, they "are somewhat more
majestic in their shape and countenance than the generality,
and are more like Europeans."[93]
The notices of tribes darker in colour than the dominant part of
the population, of which we have seen so much in the oceanic area,
re-appear in the history of Japan. They are stated to belong to either
the interior or to the southern portion of the empire. This, however,
may be the case without involving the necessity of assuming a second
source for the population; at the same time such a second source is no
ethnological improbability. The darker Amphinesians of Formosa, may
possibly have tended farther northward.
The Japanese Alphabet is of Chinese origin; changed from a
rhæmatographic to a syllabic form. Indeed the great civilizing
influence in Japan has been from China. This, according to the doubts
expressed in a previous[94] part of the present work, limits the
antiquity of the Japanese history, and the value of the Japanese
traditions.
The original paganism of Japan is probably to be studied in the Kurile
Islands. Siebold's notice of it (extracted from Prichard)[95], is as
follows:--
"The Kamis or gods of the original Japanese, were, according to a
collection of the national traditions, not eternal. The first five gods
originated at the separation of elements in which the world began:
they are the Amatsukami. A bud, similar to that of the _Asi_, the
_Erianthus Japonicus_, expanded itself between heaven and earth and
produced _Kuni-soko-tatsino-mi-koto_, or the 'Maker of the dry land,'
who governed the world, as yet unfashioned, during an immeasurable
space of time, which was more than a hundred thousand millions of
years. This kami had many successors whose reigns were nearly as long.
Their temples are still places of worship in Oomi and Ise, districts
of Japan. There were seven dynasties of celestial gods. The last,
Iza-na-gi, standing on a bridge that floated between heaven and earth,
said to his wife, Iza-na-mi, 'Come on; there must be some habitable
land: let us try to find it.' He dipped his pike, ornamented with
precious stones, into the surrounding waters and agitated the waves:
the drops which fell from his pike when he raised it thickened and
formed an island, named 'Ono-koro-sima.' On this island Iza-na-gi
and his wife descended, and made the other provinces of the Japanese
empire. From them descended the five dynasties or reigns of earthly
gods. From the last of these originated Zin-moo-teu-woo, the ruler
of men, who, as above mentioned, founded the empire of Japan, and
conquered the aboriginal tribes. From Zin-moo's reign is dated the
first year of the epoch of Japanese chronology, coinciding with the
seventh year of the Chinese emperor Hoéï-wâng, B. C. 660. Such is the
cosmogony of the Japanese. Their highest adoration is given to the
deity of the sun, offspring of Iza-na-gi and Iza-na-mi: to him are
subordinate all the genii or demons which govern the elements and all
the operations of nature, as well as the souls of men, who after death
go to the gods or to an infernal place of punishment, according to
their actions on earth. Sacred festivals are held at certain seasons
of the year and at changes of the moon. The whole number of kamis or
gods worshipped by the Japanese amounts to three thousand one hundred
and thirty-two. These gods are worshipped in different temples without
idols."
THE LÚ-CHÚ ISLANDS.
_Name._--Chinese, Lieou-Khieou. Native, Oghii.
_Religion._--Buddhism.
_Political relations._--Tribute paid both to China and Japan.
_Language._--Akin to the Japanese.
_Alphabets._--Chinese and Japanese.
_Physical appearance._--"Their hair, which is of a glossy
black, is shaved off the crown. Their beards and mustachios
are allowed to grow. They are rather low in stature, but
are well formed, and have an easy, graceful carriage. Their
colour is not good, some being very dark, and others nearly
white, but in most instances they are of a deep copper. This
is fully compensated by the sweetness and intelligence of
their countenance. Their eyes, which are black, have a placid
expression."[96]
THE AINO.
_Locality._--_a._ On the Continent.--1. The mouth of the Amur.
2. The southernmost extremity of Kamskatka. _b._ The Kurile
Islands, and the northern part of Jesso. _c._ The island, or
peninsula of Saghalin.
_Political relations._--Subject to China, Russia, and Japan.
_Religion._--Imperfect Buddhism. The doctrine of Siúdú.
Paganism.
_Physical appearance._--Skin darker than that of the Japanese,
but, probably (from the iris being lighter) this is through
being more exposed.
An Aino tribe occupying the banks of the Amur, and noticed by
Timkowski,[97] under the name of Kileng, or Kilerzi, is probably the
same with the Gilacken[98] of Von Middendorf. Of these the appearance
is varied, sometimes Japanese, sometimes Caucasian.
The moral character of the Aino has generally been described in highly
favourable terms. Their religion is probably allied to the original
paganism of Japan.
"The sun, the moon, the sea, and other striking objects of nature, are
the divinities of the Aino: they represent them under rude symbols and
offer sacrifices to them. The men of Karafto burn upon the shore the
heads of animals which they have caught, as a gift to the sea. Daily
the Aino addresses the following words to the divinity who protects
his cabin:--'We thank thee,[99] Kamoï, for having dwelt here in our
coast and watched for us,' and he repeats after the prayer, 'Kamoï ever
take care of us.' They believe likewise that there is a God of heaven
and of hell; this is the residence of Nitsul Kamoï. They have also
little wooden temples containing images of their idols carved in wood.
Yearly they have a festival termed Omsia, when all the family regale
themselves with _saké_ and bear's flesh. In their marriages the Aino
are careful to avoid too near relationship. In Karafto, the inhabitants
of the north take wives from the southern part. The chief of the
village confirms the marriage, which is concluded on the dowry or price
being paid to the father of the betrothed. The women are free, and in
Karafto rule their husbands.
"Before funerals the Aino puts on a new coat made of fine bark. The
Smerenkow burns the body and collects the ashes which are kept in a
little chapel, makes offerings to the presiding idol, and covers with
branches the spot where the body was consumed. They erect stakes in
honour of the defunct, from the wood of the house, which is always
pulled down. Bodies of the rich receive honours of a different kind:
they are embalmed, filled with odoriferous herbs, and dried during a
year, then placed in a sepulchre, where they are annually visited by
their relatives. Yet the Aino have no calendar and reckon time by the
fall of the leaf. They have neither letters nor money. They apply two
remedies in case of all sickness, a '_boletus laricis_' and the root
_ikeme_, supposed to be a sort of _asclepias_."[100]
Two statements have been made concerning the Aino, which are curious
if true.
1. That of all men they are the most covered with hair; even their
backs being covered with it. I am inclined to class this with the tails
of the Nicobar islanders.
2. That they ride upon bears; which the females suckle when young,
and so tame; a fact, when verified, of equal novelty in zoology and
ethnography.
The Peninsula of Sagalin, and the island of Jesso are the probable
lines by which Japan was peopled; at least so far as the simple
land-and-water conditions are concerned. And I know nothing that
counteracts them.
_The Kachhall._--This is a tribe mentioned by Von Middenorf as
inhabiting the south bank of the Amur. He knows it, however, only from
the description given by the Ainos. Their stature is short; the lower
extremities disproportionately so.
THE KORIAKS.
_Present area._--The parts between the Omolon, an eastern
branch of the Kolyma, the Arctic Ocean, Behring's Straits, and
the Gulf of Anadyr, except only a tract of coast in the two
latter localities, inhabited by the _Namollos_. Southwards, to
the middle of the Peninsula of Kamskatka, across the northern
portion of which it extends. The head of the Gulf of Penjinsk,
in the Sea of Okhotsk. Conterminous with the Yukahiri, Lamut
Tungusians, Kamskadales, and Namollos.
_Supposed ancient area._--As far west as the Kolyma, possibly
farther. Probably also farther south. On the other hand, _not_
so far east as at present; the Namollos being believed to have
extended so far as Shelagskoi Noss.
_Divisions._--_a._ Northern Koriaks, or Tshuktshi; _b._
Southern Koriaks, or Koræki. The two divisions separated by the
river Anadyr.
_Habits._--Nomadic. _Kora_, which is said to mean a rein-deer,
is held to be the root of the term Koræki, a name which, for
the southern Koriaks, is stated to be indigenous.
_Religion._--Shamanism. In some cases an imperfect Christianity.
_Political relations._--The Southern Koriaks tributary to
Russia; the Northern, (or Tshuktshi) independent.
_Physical appearance._--The Koræki are taller, and with eyes
less sunken, and noses less depressed than the Kamskadales;
differential points which are still more marked in the
Tshuktshi.
The southern Koriaks have probably encroached upon the Kamskadales,
and been encroached upon by the Lamut Tungusians. The Tshuktshi have,
in like manner, receded in one quarter and encroached in another.
Before the Russians they have retreated towards the east and north.
The Yukahiri tribes, however, they have displaced and, in some cases,
exterminated. They still hold their independence.
This, in some measure, accounts for our imperfect knowledge of them,
little being ascertained except their uncivilized, nomadic character,
their political independence, the Shamanistic nature of their religion,
and their general resemblance in respect to physical conformation to
the _American_ Indians.
Polygamy is general amongst them, and according to Von Matiushkin,
the chief authority upon the subject, the women, although certainly
slaves, are allowed more influence, and are subjected to less labour
than is the case amongst most other rude tribes. Deformed children are
destroyed, and so are those which, for other reasons, are likely to
become difficult to rear. So also are such aged and infirm persons, as
have become unfit for wear and tear of a nomadic life within the Arctic
circle.
So great is the influence of the Shamans, or so low is the value set
upon human life, that in 1814, after a terrible storm, followed by a
fatal epidemic, and by a murrain among the cattle, the result of a
general consultation having been, that one of the most respected of the
chiefs, named Kotshen, must be sacrificed, to appease the irritated
spirits, the sacrifice took place accordingly. In the first instance,
indeed, the commands of the Shamans were rejected. The plague, however,
continued, when Kotshen at last declared his willingness to submit. No
one, however, could be found to be his executioner; until his own son
plunged a knife in his heart, and gave his body to the Shamans.
The Tshuktshi habitations consist of an outer and larger tent, under
which are two or three smaller ones; these last being made of skins
stretched over laths, and so low, that the persons inside can only sit
upon the ground. It has no opening for air or light, and is entered by
an aperture barely large enough for the body of the owner. An earthen
vessel filled with train oil, and with a wick of moss, serves as a lamp
rather as a fire; and so close is the atmosphere, that the heat which
it affords is sufficient. Here the family sit, during the intense cold
of an Arctic winter, either wholly naked, or with the very scantiest
clothing.
They call themselves _Tshekto_=_people_. "They are distinguished from
the other Asiatic races, by their stature and physiognomy, which
appears to me to _resemble that of the Americans_,[101] but the
language is different."
THE KAMSKADALES.
_Locality._--The southern half (or third) of the Peninsula
of Kamskatka, with the exception of the extreme point of the
peninsula; which is inhabited by the Aino.
_Native name._--Itülmen.
_Dialects._--Four. That of Tigil, so much mixed with Koriak, as
to be sometimes quoted as the Koriak of Tigil.
_Physical appearance._--Undersized Mongols, with little beard,
sunken eyes and depressed noses.
The true Kamskadales are a nearly extinct race. Amongst the causes of
their rapid diminution a kind of death, rare amongst savage nations, is
enumerated--suicide.
"According to Steller, the Kamtschatkans have no idea of a Supreme
Being, but this must have been true only in some peculiar sense of
the expression, for he adds an account of their mythology, which in
part contradicts the above statement. They believe, as he says, in
the immortality of souls. All creatures, even to the smallest fly,
are destined, as they believe, to another eternal life under the
earth, where they are to meet with similar adventures to those of
their present state of existence, but never to suffer hunger. In that
world there is no punishment of crimes, which, in the opinion of the
Kamskadales, meet their chastisement in the present life, but the rich
are destined to become poor and the poor here are to be enriched. The
sky and stars existed before the earth, which was made by Katchu, or,
as others say, brought by Katchu and his sister Katligith with them
from heaven and fastened upon the sea. After Katchu had made the earth
he left heaven and came to dwell in Kamtschatka. He had a son, Tigil,
and a daughter, Sidanka, who married and became parents of offspring:
the latter clothed themselves with the leaves of trees and fed upon
the bark, for beasts were not yet made, and the gods knew not how to
catch fish. When Katchu went to drink, the hills and valleys were
formed under his feet, for the earth had till then been a flat surface.
Tigil finding his family increase invented nets and betook himself to
fishing. The Kamtschatkans have, like other pagans, images of their
gods."[102]
Now _Tigil_ is the name of the chief river of Kamskatka; the one which
divides the Kamskadales from the Korki; so that, in Tigil the god, we
have the _eponymus_ of what in the Bodo, as in many other countries
besides, is a common object of reverence.[103]
FOOTNOTES:
[88] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 522-3.
[89] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 497.
[90] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 526.
[91] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 521-2.
[92] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 527-8.
[93] Id. vol. iv. p. 528.
[94] See pp. 55-60.
[95] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 496.
[96] Captain Hall's Voyage to the Great Loo-choo Island, p.
71.--Prichard, vol. iv.
[97] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 451.
[98] Transactions of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science for 1846.
[99] _Kami_=_God_ in Japanese.
[100] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 455-6.
[101] Von Matiushkin.
[102] Prichard, vol. iv. p. 449-50.
[103] Apud hanc gentem agarici cujusdam succus potui, inter convivia
inservit. Ebrietatem inducit; quodque magis mirum est, urina ebriorum,
quæ ipsa ab aliis potatur, idem pollet. Neque vim amittit per tertiam
vel quartam vesicam transmissa.
F.
AMERICAN MONGOLIDÆ.
The phænomena which occur in Asiatic ethnology, in Caucasus and High
Asia, prepare us for those of the ethnology of America. In Asia we
found, on one side, the Turk tribes spread over a space nearly as large
as Europe, and that with but little variation--a typical instance of
what constitutes a large ethnological area. Then, on the other hand,
were the fastnesses of Caucasus, where we found, packed up within a
very limited area, a multiplicity of mutually unintelligible languages,
languages that were counted by the dozen and the score--the Circassian,
Georgian, Lesgian, Mizjeji, and their subordinate dialects. So that
within a small geographical range we had, in juxtaposition with each
other, the _maximum_ of extension and the _maximum_ of limitation.
Now this is what we shall find in America--large areas, like the Turk,
in contact with small ones, like the Ossetic.
But, in America, there are two points of difference--
1st. The multiplicity of languages within a limited area is the rule
rather than the exception.
2nd. There is not always so peculiar a class of physical conditions
as is to be found in the mountain fastnesses of Caucasus to account
for it; since in America we find steppes and prairies, like those of
Turkestan and Mongolia, inhabited by tribes as different from each
other as those of the most isolated and isolating mountain-valleys.
Furthermore--when the American languages differ from one another, they
differ in a manner to which Asia has supplied no parallel.
Also--when the American languages agree with one another, they agree in
a manner to which Asia has furnished no parallel. This, however, is at
present only indicated. Its explanation will find place when we have
treated of the Eskimo, Kolúch, and certain other families.
THE ESKIMO.
Unimportant as are the Eskimo in a political and historical view,
their peculiar geographical position gives them an importance in all
questions of ethnology: since one of the highest problems turns upon
the affinities of this family.
It has long been known that the nation which inhabits Greenland and
Labrador is the nation which inhabits the North-western parts of
Russian America as well. It is found on the American side of Behring's
Straits, and it is found on the Asiatic side also. So that the _Eskimo
is the only family common to the Old and New World_; an important fact
in itself, and one made more important still by the Eskimo localities
being the only localities where the two continents come into proximity.
Now, if these facts had stood alone, unmodified by any phænomena that
detracted from their significance, the peopling of America would have
been no more a mystery than the peopling of Europe. Such, however, is
not the case. They neither stand alone, nor stand unmodified.
The reasons that lie against what is, at the first blush, the common
sense answer to the question, _how was America peopled?_ are, chiefly,
as follows--
1. The distance of the north-eastern parts of Asia from any probable
centre of population--_cradle of the human race_--so-called. For these
parts to have been the passage, Kamskatka must have been full to
overflowing before the the Mississippi had been trodden by the foot of
a human being.
2. The physical differences between the Eskimo and the American Indian.
3. The difficulties presented by the Eskimo language.
It is only these two last reasons to which I attribute much validity.
The first of the three I put low in the way of an objection; _i. e._,
not much higher than I put the systems founded upon the Icelandic and
Welsh traditions, the drifting of Japanese junks, and the effects
of winds and currents upon Polynesian canoes. Without, at present,
doubting whether the occurrences here alluded to have happened
_since_ America was peopled by the present race, I limit myself to an
expression of dissent from the doctrine that by any such unsatisfactory
processes the _original_ population found its way: in other words, I
believe that our only choice lies between the doctrine that makes the
American nations to have originated from one or more separate pairs
of progenitors, and the doctrine that either Behring's Straits or the
line of Islands between Kamskatka and the Peninsula of Aliaska, was the
highway between the two worlds--from Asia to America, or _vice versâ_.
I say _vice versâ_, since it by no means follows that, because Asia
and America shall have been peopled by the same race, the original
of that race must, _necessarily_, have arisen in Asia; inasmuch as
the statement that _the descendants of the same pair peopled two
continents_, taken alone, proves nothing as to the particular continent
in which that pair first appeared. Against America, and in favour of
Asia being the birthplace of the Human Race--its unity being assumed--I
know many valid reasons; reasons valid enough and numerous enough to
have made the notion of _New_ World being the oldest of two a paradox.
Nevertheless, I know no absolutely conclusive ones.
Omitting, however, this question, the chief _primâ facie_ objections to
the view that America was peopled from North-eastern Asia, lie in the--
1. _Physical differences between the Eskimo and the American
Indian._--Stunted as he is in stature, the Eskimo is essentially a
Mongol in physiognomy. His nose is flattened, his cheek-bones project,
his eyes are often oblique, and his skin is more yellow and brown than
red or copper-coloured. On the other hand, in his most typical form,
the American Indian is _not_ Mongol in physiognomy. With the same black
straight hair, he has an aquiline nose, a prominent profile, and a skin
more red or copper-coloured than either yellow or brown. Putting this
along with other marked characteristics, moral as well as physical, it
is not surprising that the American should have been taken as the type
and sample of a variety in contrast with the Mongolian.
2. _Philological arguments._--Few languages, equally destitute of
literature, have been better or longer known than the Eskimo. For
this we have to thank the Danish missionaries of Greenland--Egede,
most especially. From the grammar of Fabricius, the Eskimo was soon
known to be a language of long compound words, and of regular, though
remarkable, inflections. It was known, too, to be very unlike the
better-known languages of Europe and Asia. Finally, it has been
admitted to be, in _respect to its grammatical structure at least_,
American.
So much for the ethnographical philology of the Eskimo language as
determined by its grammatical structure; upon which we may notice the
remarkable antagonism of the two tests. Physically, the Eskimo is a
Mongol and Asiatic. Philologically, he is American--at least in respect
to the principles upon which his speech is constructed.
And now we may examine the details of the geographical area occupied by
the Eskimo. Its direction is _double_.
From east to west (or _vice versâ_) it runs along the shores of the
Arctic Sea, in a line of irregular breadth; a line which is either
wholly continuous or else broken at one point only--a point which will
be noticed in the sequel. On the coast of the Atlantic the line widens,
and in Greenland it attains its maximum breadth.
From north to south it equally keeps the line of coast, extending to
irregular distances inland, but rarely very far.
However, between the direction in latitude, and the direction in
longitude, as this distribution of the Eskimo area may be called, there
is a difference which is a very important one. The Eskimos of the
Atlantic are not only easily distinguished from the tribes of American
aborigines which lie to the south or west of them, and with which they
come in contact, but they stand in strong contrast and opposition
to them--a contrast and opposition exhibited equally in appearance,
manners, language, and one which has had full justice done to it by
those who have written on the subject.
It is not so with the Eskimos of Russian America, and the parts that
look upon the Pacific. _These_ are so far from being separated by any
broad and trenchant line of demarcation from the proper Indians or
the so-called Red Race, that they pass gradually into it; and that
in respect to their habits, manner, and appearance, equally. So far
is this the case that he would be a bold man who should venture, in
speaking of the southern tribes of Russian America, to say _here the
Eskimo area ends, and here a different area begins_.
Whenever this has been done, it has been done on the strength of an
undue extension of the phenomena of the Eskimo area on the Atlantic; it
being supposed that as the Eskimo and Indians differ unequivocally on
one side of the continent, they must needs do so on the other also--a
natural, but a hasty and incorrect assumption.
Beginning with the Eskimo of the parts between Asia and America, the
first we meet with are--
_The Aleutians._--The inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands, properly
so-called (_i.e._, of Behring's and Copper Islands), of the
Rat-Islands, of the Andreanowsky Islands, of the Prebülowüni-Islands,
of Unalashka, and of Kadiak, are all Eskimo; a fact which numerous
vocabularies give us full means of ascertaining. In respect to the
difference of speech between particular islands, there is external
evidence that it is considerable. The people of Atcha have a difficulty
in understanding the Unalashkans, and _vice versâ_. Again, the
Kadiak vocabulary, as found in Lisiansky, differs very notably from
the Unalashkan of the same author; indeed, I doubt whether the two
languages are mutually intelligible.
_The Namollos._--These are the Asiatic Eskimo of the Continent. The
distribution is along the coast from Tshuktshi-Noss to the mouth of
the Anadyr; from each of which we have vocabularies in Klaproth's Asia
Polyglotta. In respect to their position in Asia, two views may be
taken.
1. That they are the aborigines of the country which they inhabit,
and, consequently, that they are an _older_ stock than those of
America.--This is favoured by the fact, that habitations of a Namollo
character have been found in the country of Tshuktshi, and even in that
of the Yukahiri.
2. That they are of comparatively recent date as Asiatics, and, as
such, but offsets from the parent stock in America.--This is favoured
by the similarity of language; since the differences between the
Namollo and the American Eskimo are not such as indicate a very long
separation.
_The Konægi._--Occupants of the Island of Kadiak, and of the Peninsula
of Aliaska.
_The Tshugatsi._--These are the natives of Prince William's Sound,
closely allied to the Kadiaks. According to tradition, they came from
the North.
This is the proper place for noticing an element in the traditions,
or rather in the mythology, of the Eskimo of these parts. All or most
of them agree in deriving their origin from one or two animals--the
_raven_ or _dog_. Now the Tshugatsi take their descent from the _dog_.
The name _Tshugatsi_ is so like that of the northern Koriaks
(Tshuktshi) that it is unlikely that both are native. In which quarter
it is applied correctly, is a point that some future investigator must
decide.
_The Kuskokwim._--Locality from Cape Rodney to the Peninsula of
Aliaska. Numbers, according to Baer, about 7,000.
Such is the direction of the Eskimos of the Asiatic side of America. It
is, however, inconvenient to say that they form the _eastern_ branch of
the stock, because, when we begin with the Atlantic side of America,
we find that they become _western_; indeed, they are either one or the
other, according to the point from which we begin to describe them.
We now take the other extremity of the Eskimo area, which is the
southernmost point of Greenland, Cape Farewell, within a few days' sail
of the European island of Iceland. Doing this, we move from east to
west, and determine where the two divisions meet.
_Greenlanders._--The language of the natives of Greenland, and those
of the coast of Labrador, is mutually intelligible; the similarity in
physical appearances and in manners being equally close.
_Proper Eskimo._--These are the inhabitants of the shores of Hudson's
Bay, and the coast of Labrador. Their dialect is understood at least
as far as the Mackenzie-river, in 137° W. L.; where Captain Franklin's
interpreter, who came from Hudson's Bay, found no difficulty in being
understood by the natives of the parts last mentioned. About three
degrees westward, however, the Eskimo of Greenland and Labrador comes
_to be understood with difficulty at first_. Here, then, it is, where
the two divisions of the Eskimo dialects meet.
THE KOLÚCH.
I adopt this term in deference to the usage of ethnologists, without
professing to give a value to it in the way of classification, since
I think it much more likely that the so-called Kolúch languages form
a sub-division of the Eskimo than a separate substantive class of
their own. _Geographically_, however, the term means the languages
spoken along the coast of the North-Pacific from Cook's Inlet to the
parts immediately north of Queen Charlotte's Islands; languages which
are distinguished from the Eskimo to the north, the Athabascan to
the east, and the Nas and Haidah to the south, and languages which
_politically_ belong to Russian America; since the Tungaas, which
is the southernmost (so-called) Kolúch dialect, is the most northern
with which the traders of the Hudson-Bay Company come in contact. The
extension towards the interior seems limited. The particular Kolúch
dialect best known is that of Sitka, which, in Lisiansky's Voyage, is
compared with the Kenay, Kadiak, and Unalashkan. Now it is a fact upon
which the present author lays considerable stress, that the affinities
between the Sitka and Kenay, which are _both_ considered as Kolúch, are
but little more numerous than those between the Sitka and Kadiak, the
Kenay and Unalashkan, &c., where only _one_ is considered as Kolúch.
The chief Kolúch dialects are as follows:--
_The Kenay of Cook's Inlet._--These are about 460 families strong. They
assert that they are derived from the hills of the interior, whence
they moved coastwards. In the way of mythology, they are descended from
the _raven_.
_The Atna of the Copper River._--Here the reader must be cautioned
against being misled by the name; as it will appear again, applied to
another division of Indians, the Atnas or Shushwap, who are a distinct
people from the Atnas of the Copper River. These last occupy the river
last-named; where they work in iron, as well as in copper, burn their
dead, and derive their descent from the _raven_.
_The Koltshani._--These are the Kolúches of the interior, falling
into two divisions; the language of one of which is intelligible to
the Atnas, and the Kenays equally. The more distant one is savage and
inhospitable, with the credit of indulging in cannibalism. The name
seems to belong to the Atna language; where _Koltshani_=_stranger_.
It also seems the word on which the scientific term, Kolúch, has been
founded.
_The Ugalents, or Ugalyakhmutsi._--About thirty-eight families.
Locality, King William's Sound, and the parts around Mount Elias.--The
Ugalyakhmutsi are conterminous with the Tshugatsi Eskimo, and as (on
the sea-coast at least) the Kenays lie to the north of these last,
there is a partial discontinuity of the Eskimo area. The difference
between the Ugalyakhmutsi, and the Eskimo tongues is exhibited in
the Mithridates. The present writer considers that it is exceedingly
over-rated. Indeed, from the first investigations which he made upon
the subject, where he compared the Ugalyakhmutsi of the Mithridates
with the Sitka, Kenay, Kadiak, and Unalashkan of Lisiansky, he was
inclined to place the Ugalents in the Eskimo class at once--_and
that in its more limited extent_. Nevertheless, the tables of Baer's
Beyträge sufficiently show that it has a closer resemblance to the
Atnah and Kolooch. At all events, its transitional character is
undoubted. In manners and appearance the Ugalentses are Kolúch, and in
their manner of life, migratory nomades and fishers.
_The Sitkans._--Of the Sitka dialect we have numerous vocabularies; one
by Cook, under the name of the Norfolk Sound language. The number who
speak this, is put by Mr. Green, an American missionary, at 6500.
_The Tungaas._--Of this we have only a short vocabulary of Mr. Tolmic,
which is stated by Dr. Scouler, to exhibit affinities with the Sitkan.
This is the case. Whether, however, these affinities with the languages
to the north of the Tungaas localities, are so much greater than
those with the tongues spoken southwards, as to justify us in drawing
a line between the true Kolúch dialects and those that will soon be
enumerated, has yet to be ascertained. Assuming, however, that this is
the case, and, again, insisting upon the conventional character of the
present class, and the transitional nature of the Kolúch languages, I
consider that the undoubted Kolúch dialects end in the neighbourhood of
Queen Charlotte's Islands.
Still there are tribes to the back of those on the coast which have yet
to be noticed:--
_The Inkhuluklait._--Dwelling on the river Chulitna, and allied to the--
_Magimut._--who are allied to the--
_Inkalit._--These, in one village alone, are 700 strong; their language
has been said to be a mixture of the Kenay, _Unalashkan_, and Atna. The
Inkalit are neighbours of the Kuskokwim, with whom they are continually
at war.
It is highly probable that the Inkalit language, when better known,
will present the same phenomenon of transition with the Ugalyakhmutsi.
DOUBTFUL KOLÚCHES.
1. THE DÍGOTHI(?)
_Synonym._--Loucheux.
_Locality._--The Peel River, a feeder of the M'Kenzie.
The ethnological position of the _Dígothi_, _Loucheux_, or _Squinters_,
is uncertain. Mr. Isbister, who in 1847 laid before the British
Association for the Advancement of Science a short notice of them,
stated that their language was soon learned by the Eskimo, and _vice
versâ_. It was also soon learned by the Chippewyans, and _vice versâ_.
This was _primâ facie_ evidence of its intermediate or transitional
character. More important, however, is the following short vocabulary;
which is Mr. Isbister's also. Here the closest affinities are with the
_Kenay_, itself a language of so doubtful a position, that although the
present writer considers it to be Kolúch, most others isolate it.
ENGLISH. LOUCHEUX. KENAY.
_White man_ Manah-gool-ait
_Indian_ Tenghie[104] teena=_man_.
_Eskimo_ nak-high "
_Wind_ etsee "
_Head wind_ newatsee "
_Fair wind_ jeatsee "
_Water_ tchon[105] thun-agalgus.
_Sun_ shethie channoo.
_Moon_ shet-sill tlakannoo.
_Stars_ kumshaet ssin.
_Meat_ beh kutskonna.
_Deer_ et-han "
_Head_ umitly aissagge.
_Arm_ tchiegen skona.
_Leg_ tsethan "
_Coat_ chiegee "
_Blanket_ tsthee "
_Knife_ tlay kissaki.
_Foot_ jetly "
_Yes_ eh "
_No_ illuck-wha "
_Far_ nee-jah "
_Near_ neak-wha "
_Strong_ nehaintah "
_Cold_ kateitlee ktckchuly.
_Long_ kawa "
_Enough_ ekcho, ekatarainyo "
_Eat_ beha "
_Drink_ chidet-leh "
_Come_ chatchoo "
_Go away_ eenio "
_I_ see su
_Thou_ nin nan.
_(My) father_ (se) tsay stukta.
_(My) son_ (se) jay _ssi_-ja.
_(My) daughter_ (se) zaa _ssx_-za.
_(My) wife_ (te) chiliquah "
_(My) brother-in-law_ sundayee "
In physical appearance the Dígothi are athletic fine-looking men,
considerably above the average stature, most of them above six feet
high, and well-proportioned. They have black hair, fine sparkling eyes,
moderately high cheek-bones, regular teeth, and a fair complexion.
Their countenances are handsome and expressive.
2. THE NEHANNI.(?)
_Extract from Mr. Isbister_.--These range the country between
the Russian settlements on the Stikine River and the Rocky
Mountains, where they are conterminous with the Carriers of
New Caledonia on the south, and the Daho-dinnies of M'Kenzie's
River on the west. They are a brave and warlike race; the
scourge and terror of the country round. It is a curious
circumstance, and not the less remarkable from the contrast
to the general rule in such cases, that this turbulent and
ungovernable horde were under the direction of a _woman_, who
ruled them, too, with a rod of iron, and was obeyed with a
readiness and unanimity truly marvellous. She was certainly a
remarkable character, and possessed of no ordinary share of
intelligence. From the fairness of her complexion and hair,
and the general cast of her features, she was believed to have
some European blood. Whether through her influence or not,
the condition of the females among the Nehannies stands much
higher than among the American Indians generally. The proper
locality of the Nehanni tribe is the vicinity of the sea-coast,
where they generally pass the summer. In the winter they range
the country in the interior for the purpose of bartering, or
plundering, furs from the inland tribes; acting as middlemen
between them and the Russian traders. They agree in general
character with the Koloochians, having light complexions, long
and lank hair, fine eyes and teeth, and many of them strong
beards and moustaches. They are not generally tall, but active
and vigorous, bold and treacherous in disposition; fond of
music and dancing, and ingenious and tasteful in their habits
and decorations. They subsist principally on salmon, and evince
a predilection for a fish diet, which indicates their maritime
origin. Like all the north-west tribes, they possess numerous
slaves; inhabitants, it is understood, of some of the numerous
islands which stud the coast, and either taken in war or bought
of the neighbouring tribes.[106]
The languages which now follow are known but imperfectly; so that the
classes which they form are all provisional, and of uncertain value. It
is certainly not safe to call them Kolúch, although they all contain a
notable per-centage of Kolúch words; nor yet is it advisable to throw
them all together as members of a separate division--equivalent to,
but distinct from, the Kolúch. For this, they are hardly sufficiently
like each other, and hardly sufficiently unlike those spoken to the
north of them. In other words we are now in one of those difficult
ethnological areas, where we have no broad and trenchant lines of
demarcation, but the phenomena of intermixture instead. This is the
coast and a little beyond the coast of the Pacific, where the common
climatologic conditions presented by a deeply-indented sea-board, make
this arrangement natural as well as convenient.
THE HAIDAH DIALECTS OR LANGUAGES.
_Locality._--Queen Charlotte's Islands, and the southern
extremity of the Prince of Wales's Archipelago.
_Spoken by._--_a_, the Skittegats; _b_, Massets; _c_,
Kumshahas; _d_, Kyganie.
CHEMMESYAN.
_Locality._--N.L. 55°, sea-coast and islands.
_Divisions._--1. Naaskok, inhabiting Observatory Inlet; 2.
Chemmesyan, in Dundas's Island, and Stephenson's Island; 3, 4,
Kitshatlah and Kethumish, in Princess Royal Islands.
BILLECHÚLA.
_Locality._--The mouth of the Salmon River.
In M'Kenzie's Travels we find a few words from a tribe on
the Salmon River. Their locality is called by M'Kenzie the
_Friendly Village_. By the aid of Mr. Tolmie's vocabularies we
can now place this hitherto unfixed dialect. It belongs to the
Billechoola tongue.
ENGLISH. FRIENDLY VILLAGE. BILLECHOOLA.
_Salmon_ zimilk shimilk.
_Dog_ watts watz.
_House_ zlaachle shmool.
_Bark mat_ yemnez "
_Cedar-bark blanket_ " tzummi.
_Beaver_ couloun couloun.
_Stone_ aichts quilstolomick.
_Water_ ulkan kullah.
_Mat_ gitscom stuchom.
_Bonnet_ ilcaette kayeete.
HAELTZUK AND HAILTSA.
_Locality._--Sea-coast from Hawkesbury Island to Broughton's
Archipelago; the northern part of Quadra's and Vancouver's
Island(?).
_Tribes._--Hyshalla, Hyhysh, Esleytuk, Weekenoch, Nalatsenoch,
Quagheuil, Tlatla-Shequilla, Lequeeltoch.
The language of Fitz-Hugh Sound, of which we find the numerals in the
Mithridates, seems to be Hailtsa. On the other hand, the termination,
_-scum_, reappears in the Blackfoot numerals.
ENGLISH. _Two_.
_F. Sound_ malscum.
_Haeltzuk_ malook.
English _three_.
_F. Sound_ utascum.
_Haeltzuk_ yootook.
English _four_.
_F. Sound_ moozcum.
_Haeltzuk_ moak.
_Billechoola_ moash.
English _five_.
_F. Sound_ thekaescum.
_Haeltzuk_ skeowk.
_Billechoola_ tzeiuch.
English _six_.
_F. Sound_ kitliscum.
_Haeltzuk_ katlowk.
English _seven_.
_F. Sound_ atloopooskum.
_Haeltzuk_ malthlowsk.
English _ten_.
_F. Sound_ nighioo.
_Haeltzuk_ aikas.
By Mr. Hales, the Hailtsa, of which he gives a vocabulary, differing in
some several points from the Haeltzuk (although the two words are most
likely the same), is placed, along with the Chemmesyan and Billechúla
in a single section, called the _Nas_ class of languages, and probably
this is the right view. The difficulty, however, in these parts is
not to connect one tongue with another, but to _dis_connect it from
others. The Hailtsa has certainly affinities with the Chemmesyan, &c.,
but whether these are greater than those with the Atna, Skittegat,
or Wakash tongue is doubtful. Probably, however, it is as Mr. Hales'
tables make it.
THE NÚTKANS.
_Localities._--_a._ The greater portion of Quadra and
Vancouver's Island; _b._ The parts about Cape Flattery, on the
continent.
_Divisions._--_a._ _Insular._ 1. The Naspatle; 2. Proper
Nutkans; 3. Tlaoquatsh; 4. Nittenat. _b._ _Continental._--1.
Klasset; 2. Klallems. _General name for the language_.--Wakash.
Such is the line of languages from Behring's Straits to the parts
opposite Quadra and Vancouver's Island, as they are spoken along the
sea-coast as far south as Frazer's River; concerning which it may
also be predicated that they are spoken along the sea-coast almost
exclusively--_i.e._ that none of them extends far inland.