British Association, not the least has been the aid it has afforded in
the publication of that most useful little manual entitled _Notes and
Queries on Anthropology_, of which the first edition was brought out
exactly twenty years ago (1874), under the supervision and partly at the
expense of General Pitt-Rivers. Since that time the subject has made
such great advances that a second edition, brought up to the
requirements of the present time, was urgently called for. A Committee
of the British Association, appointed to consider the report upon the
best means of doing this, recommended that the work should be placed in
the hands of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
This recommendation was approved by the Association, and grants
amounting to £70 were made to assist in defraying the cost of
publication. The Council of the Anthropological Institute appointed a
Committee of its members to undertake the revision of the different
subjects, with Dr. J. G. Garson and Mr. C. H. Read as editors
respectively of the two parts into which it is divided. The work was
published at the end of the year 1892, and is invaluable to the
traveller or investigator in pointing out the most important subjects of
inquiry, and in directing the observations he may have the means of
making into a methodical and systematic channel.
Besides those I have already mentioned, the Association has aided many
other anthropological investigations by the appointment of Committees to
carry them out, and in some cases by the more substantial method of
giving grants from its funds, and by defraying the cost of publication
of the results in its journal. Among these I may specially mention the
series of very valuable Reports upon the Physical Characters, Languages,
and Industrial and Social Condition of the North-Western Tribes of the
Dominion of Canada, drawn up by Mr. Horatio Hale, Dr. F. Boas, and
others, the importance of which has been recognised by the Canadian
Government in the form of a grant in aid of the expenses.
Another very interesting investigation into the Habits, Customs,
Physical Characteristics, and Religion of the Natives of Northern India,
initiated by Mr. H. H. Risley, and carried on under his supervision by
the Indian Government, though it has received little more than moral
support from the Association, may be mentioned here on account of the
illustration it affords of the value of exact anthropometric methods in
distinguishing groups of men. Although a practised eye can frequently
tell at a glance the tribe or caste of a man brought before him for the
first time, the special characters upon which the opinion is based have
not hitherto been reduced to any definite and easily comparable method
of description. In Mr. Risley’s examination, the nose, for instance
(which I have always held to be one of the most important of features
for classificatory purposes), instead of being vaguely described as
broad or narrow, is accurately measured, and the proportion of the
greatest width to the length (from above downwards), or the “nasal
index,” as it is termed (though it must not be confounded with the nasal
index as defined by Broca upon the skull), gives a figure by which the
main elements of the composition of this feature in any individual may
be accurately described. The average or mean nasal indices of a large
number of individuals of any race, tribe, or caste offer means of
comparison which bring out most interesting results. By this character
alone the Dravidian tribes of India are easily separated from the Aryan.
“Even more striking,” as Mr. Risley remarks, “is the curiously close
correspondence between the gradations of racial type indicated by the
nasal index and certain of the social data ascertained by independent
inquiry. If we take a series of castes in Bengal, Behar, or the
North-Western Provinces, and arrange them in the order of the average
nasal index, so that the caste with the finest nose shall be at the top,
and that with the coarsest at the bottom of the list, it will be found
that this order substantially corresponds with the accepted order of
social precedence. The casteless tribes--Kols, Korwas, Mundas, and the
like--who have not yet entered the Brahmanical system occupy the lowest
place in both series. Then come the vermin-eating Musuhars, and the
leather-dressing Chamárs. The fisher castes of Bauri, Bind, and Kewat
are a trifle higher in the scale; the pastoral Goala, the cultivating
Kurmi, and a group of cognate castes--from whose hands a Brahman may
take water--follow in due order; and from them we pass to the trading
Khatris, the landholding Bábhans, and the upper crust of Hindu society.
Thus, it is scarcely a paradox to lay down as a law of the caste
organisation in Eastern India that a man’s social status varies in
inverse ratio to the width of his nose.” The results already obtained by
this method of observation have been so important and interesting that
it is greatly to be hoped that the inquiry may be extended throughout
the remainder of our Indian Empire.
But for want of time I might here refer to the valuable work done in
relation to the natives of the Andaman Islands, a race in many respects
of most exceptional interest, first by Mr. E. H. Man, and more recently
by Mr. M. V. Portman, and for the same reason can scarcely glance at the
great progress that is being made in anthropological research in other
countries than our own. The numerous workers on this subject in the
United States of America are, with great assistance from the Government,
very properly devoting themselves to exploring, collecting, and
publishing, in a systematic and exhaustive manner, every fact that can
still be discovered relating to the history, language, and characters of
the aboriginal population of their own land. They have in this a clear
duty set before them, and they are doing it in splendid style. I wish we
could say that the same has been done with all the native populations
in various parts of the world which have been, to use a current phrase,
“disestablished and disendowed” by our own countrymen. We are, however,
now, as I have shown, not altogether unmindful of what is our duty to
posterity in this respect,--a duty, perhaps, more urgent than that of
any other branch of scientific investigation, as it will not wait. It
must be done, if ever, before the rapid spread of civilised man all over
the world, one of the most remarkable characteristics of the age in
which we live, has obliterated what still remains of the original
customs, arts, and beliefs of primitive races; if, indeed, it has not
succeeded--as it too often does--in obliterating the races themselves.
XVIII
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES[44]
On the occasion of the Anniversary Meeting of the Institute last year I
endeavoured to sum up in a few words the principal aims and scope of the
science of Anthropology as now understood.
I then gave reasons for my belief that the discrimination and
description of the characteristics of the various races of men is one
of, if not the most practically important of the different branches into
which the whole of the great subject is divided. It was also stated that
although other characters, such as those derived from language, social
customs, traditions, religious beliefs, and from intellectual and moral
attributes, were by no means to be neglected, structural or anatomical
characters are those upon which in the end most reliance must be placed
in discriminating races.
I propose now to give a brief summary of the results attained up to the
present time by the study of the racial characters of the human species,
and to show what progress has been made towards arriving at a natural
classification of the varieties into which the species may be divided.
The most ordinary observation is sufficient to demonstrate the fact that
certain groups of men are strongly marked from others by definite
characters common to all members of the group, and transmitted regularly
to their descendants by the laws of inheritance. The Chinaman and the
Negro, the native of Patagonia and the Andaman Islander, are as
distinct from each other structurally as are many of the so-called
species of any natural group of animals. Indeed, it may be said with
truth that their differences are even greater than those which mark the
groups called genera by many naturalists of the present day.
Nevertheless, the difficulty of parcelling out all the individuals
composing the human species into certain definite groups, and of saying
of each man that he belongs to one or other of such groups, is
insuperable. No such classification has ever, or indeed can ever, be
obtained. There is not one of the most characteristic, most extreme
forms, like those I have just named, from which transitions cannot be
traced by almost imperceptible gradations to any of the other equally
characteristic, equally extreme, forms. Indeed, a large proportion of
mankind is made up, not of extreme or typical, but of more or less
generalised or intermediate, forms, the relative numbers of which are
continually increasing, as the long-existing isolation of nations and
races breaks down under the ever-extending intercommunication
characteristic of the period in which we live.
The difficulties of framing a natural classification of man, or one
which really represents the relationship of the various minor groups to
each other, are well exemplified by a study of the numerous attempts
which have been made from the time of Linnæus and Blumenbach downwards.
Even in the first step of establishing certain primary groups of
equivalent rank there has been no accord. The number of such groups has
been most variously estimated by different writers from two up to sixty
or more, although it is important to note that there has always been a
tendency to revert to the four primitive types sketched out by
Linnæus--the European, Asiatic, African, and American--expanded into
five by Blumenbach by the addition of the Malay,[45] and reduced by
Cuvier to three by the suppression of the last two. After a perfectly
independent study of the subject, extending over many years, I cannot
resist the conclusion, so often arrived at by various anthropologists,
and so often abandoned for some more complex system, that the primitive
man, whatever he may have been, has in the course of ages divaricated
into three extreme types, represented by the Caucasian of Europe, the
Mongolian of Asia, and the Ethiopian of Africa, and that all existing
individuals of the species can be ranged around these types, or
somewhere or other between them. Large numbers are doubtless the
descendants of direct crosses in varying proportions between
well-established extreme forms; for, notwithstanding opposite views
formerly held by some authors on this subject, there is now abundant
evidence of the wholesale production of new races in this way. Others
may be the descendants of the primitive stock, before the strongly
marked existing distinctions had taken place, and therefore present,
though from a different cause from the last, equally generalised
characters. In these cases it can only be by most carefully examining
and balancing all characters, however minute, and finding out in what
direction the preponderance lies, that a place can be assigned to them.
It cannot be too often insisted on that the various groups of mankind,
owing to their probable unity of origin, the great variability of
individuals, and the possibility of all degrees of intermixture of races
at remote or recent periods of the history of the species, have so much
in common that it is extremely difficult to find distinctive characters
capable of strict definition, by which they may be differentiated. It is
more by the preponderance of certain characters in a large number of
members of a group, than by the exclusive or even constant possession of
these characters, in each of its members, that the group as a whole must
be characterised.
Bearing these principles in mind, we may endeavour to formulate, as far
as they have as yet been worked out, the distinctive features of the
typical members of the three great divisions, and then show into what
subordinate groups each of them seems to be divided.
To begin with the Ethiopian, Negroid or Melanian, or “black” type. It is
characterised by a dark, often nearly black, complexion; black hair, of
a kind called “frizzly” or, incorrectly, “woolly,” _i.e._, each hair is
closely rolled up upon itself, a condition always associated with a more
or less flattened or elliptical transverse section; a moderate or
scanty development of beard; an almost invariably dolichocephalic
skull; small and moderately retreating malar bones (mesopic face); a
very broad and flat nose, platyrhine in the skeleton; moderate or low
orbits; prominent eyes; thick, everted lips; prognathous jaws; large
teeth (macrodont); a narrow pelvis (index in the male 90 to 100); a long
forearm (humero-radial index 80), and certain other proportions of the
body and limbs which are being gradually worked out and reduced to
numerical expression as material for so doing accumulates.
The most characteristic examples of the second great type, the Mongolian
or Xanthous, or “yellow,” have a yellow or brownish complexion; black,
coarse, straight hair, without any tendency to curl, and nearly round in
section, on all other parts of the surface except the scalp, scanty and
late in appearing; a skull of variable form, mostly mesocephalic (though
extremes both of dolichocephaly and brachycephaly are found in certain
groups of this type); a broad and flat face, with prominent,
anteriorly-projecting malar bones (platyopic face); nose small,
mesorhine or leptorhine; orbits high and round, with very little
development of glabella or supraciliary ridges; eyes sunken, and with
the aperture between the lids narrow; in the most typical members of the
group with a vertical fold of skin over the inner canthus, and with the
outer angle slightly elevated; jaws mesognathous; teeth of moderate size
(mesodont). The proportions of the limbs and form of the pelvis have yet
to be worked out, the results at present obtained showing great
diversity among different individuals of what appear to be well-marked
races of the group, but this is perhaps due to the insufficient number
of individuals as yet examined with accuracy.
The last type, which, for want of a better name, I still call by that
which has the priority, Caucasian or “white,” has usually a
light-complexioned skin (although in some, in so far aberrant cases, it
is as dark as in the Negroes); hair fair or black, soft, straight, or
wavy, in section intermediate between the flattened and cylindrical
form; beard fully developed; form of cranium various, mostly
mesocephalic; malar bones retreating; face narrow and projecting in the
middle line (pro-opic); orbits moderate; nose narrow and prominent
(leptorhine); jaws orthognathous; teeth small (microdont); pelvis broad
(pelvic index of male 80); forearm short relatively to humerus
(humero-radial index 74).
In endeavouring further to divide up into minor groups the numerous and
variously modified individuals which cluster around one or other of
these great types--a process quite necessary for many practical or
descriptive purposes--the distinctions afforded by the study of physical
characters are often so slight that it becomes necessary to take other
considerations into account, among which geographical distribution and
language hold an important place.
I. The Ethiopian or Negroid races maybe primarily divided as follows:--
A. African or typical Negroes--inhabitants of all the central portion of
the African continent, from the Atlantic on the west to the Indian Ocean
on the east, greatly mixed all along their northern frontier with
Hamitic and Semitic Melanochroi, a mixture which, taking place in
various proportions and under varied conditions, has given rise to many
of the numerous races and tribes inhabiting the Soudan.
A branch of the African Negroes are the Bantu--distinguished chiefly, if
not entirely, by the structure of their language. Physically
indistinguishable from the other negroes where they come in contact in
the equatorial regions of Africa, the Southern Bantu, or Kaffirs, as
they are generally called, show a marked modification of type, being
lighter in colour, having a larger cranial capacity, less marked
prognathism, and smaller teeth. Some of these changes may possibly be
due to crossing with the next race.
B. The Hottentots and Bushmen form a very distinct modification of the
Negro race. They formerly inhabited a much larger district than at
present; but, encroached upon by the Bantu from the north and the Dutch
and English from the south, they are now greatly diminished, and indeed
threatened with extinction. The Hottentots especially are much mixed
with other races, and under the influence of a civilisation which has
done little to improve their moral condition they have lost most of
their distinctive peculiarities. When pure-bred they are of moderate
stature, have a yellowish-brown complexion, with very frizzly hair,
which, being less abundant than that of the ordinary negro, has the
appearance of growing in separate tufts. The forehead and chin are
narrow, and the cheekbones wide, giving a lozenge shape to the whole
face. The nose is very flat, and the lips prominent. In their anatomical
peculiarities, and in almost everything except size, the Bushmen agree
with the Hottentots; they have, however, some special characters, for,
while they are the most platyrhine of races, the prognathism so
characteristic of the Negro type is nearly absent. This, however, may be
the retention of an infantile character so often found in races of
diminutive stature, as it is in all the smaller species of a natural
group of animals. The cranium of a Bushman, taken altogether, is one of
the best marked of any race, and could not be mistaken for that of any
other. Their relation to the Hottentots, however, appears to be that of
a stunted and outcast branch, living the lives of the most degraded of
savages among the rocky caves and mountains of the land of which the
comparatively civilised and pastoral Hottentots inhabited the plains.
Perhaps the Negrillos of Hamy, certain diminutive round-headed people of
Central and Western Equatorial Africa, may represent a distinct section
of the Negro race, but their numbers are few, and they are very much
mixed with the true Negroes in the districts in which they are found.
They form the only exceptions to the general dolichocephaly of the
African branch of the Negroid race.[46]
C. _Oceanic Negroes_ or _Melanesians_.--These include the Papuans of New
Guinea and the majority of the inhabitants of the islands of the Western
Pacific, and form also a substratum of the population, greatly mixed
with other races, of regions extending far beyond the present centre of
their area of distribution.
They are represented, in what may be called a hypertypical form, by the
extremely dolichocephalic Kai Colos, or mountaineers of the interior of
the Fiji Islands, although the coast population of the same group has
lost their distinctive characters by crossing. In many parts of New
Guinea and the great chain of islands extending eastwards and
southwards, ending with New Caledonia, they are found in a more or less
pure condition, especially in the interior and more inaccessible
portions of the islands, almost each of which shows special
modifications of the type recognisable in details of structure. Taken
altogether, their chief physical distinction from the African Negroes
lies in the fact that the glabella and supra-orbital ridges are
generally well developed in the males, whereas in Africans this region
is usually smooth and flat. The nose, also, especially in the northern
part of their geographical range, New Guinea, and the neighbouring
islands, is narrower (often mesorhine) and prominent. The cranium is
generally higher and narrower. It is, however, possible to find African
and Melanesian skulls quite alike in essential characters.
The now extinct inhabitants of Tasmania were probably pure, but
aberrant, members of the Melanesian group, which have undergone a
modification from the original type, not by mixture with other races,
but in consequence of long isolation, during which special characters
have gradually developed. Lying completely out of the track of all
civilisation and commerce, even of the most primitive kind, they were
little liable to be subject to the influence of any other race, and
there is, in fact, nothing among their characters which could be
accounted for in this way, as they were intensely, even exaggeratedly,
Negroid in the form of nose, projection of mouth, and size of teeth,
typically so in character of hair, and aberrant chiefly in width of
skull in the parietal region. A cross with any of the Polynesian or
Malay races sufficiently strong to produce this would, in all
probability, have also left some traces on other parts of their
organisation.
On the other hand, in many parts of the Melanesian region there are
distinct evidences of large admixture with Negrito, Malay, and
Polynesian elements in varying proportions, producing numerous physical
modifications. In many of the inhabitants of the great island of New
Guinea itself and of those lying around it this mixture can be traced.
In the people of Micronesia in the north, and New Zealand in the south,
though the Melanesian element is present, it is completely overlaid by
the Polynesian, but there are probably few, if any, of the islands of
the Pacific in which it does not form some factor in the composite
character of the natives.
The inhabitants of the continent of Australia have long been a puzzle to
ethnologists. Of Negroid complexion, features, and skeletal characters,
yet without the characteristic frizzly hair, their position has been one
of great difficulty to determine. They have, in fact, been a
stumbling-block in the way of every system proposed. The solution,
supported by many considerations too lengthy to enter into here, appears
to lie in the supposition that they are not a distinct race at all--that
is, not a homogeneous group formed by the gradual modification of one of
the primitive stocks, but rather a cross between two already formed
branches of these stocks. According to this view, Australia was
originally peopled with frizzly-haired Melanesians, such as those who
still do, or did before the European invasion, dwell in the smaller
islands which surround the north, east, and southern portions of the
continent, but that a strong infusion of some other race, probably a low
form of Caucasian Melanochroi, such as that which still inhabits the
interior of the southern parts of India, has spread throughout the land
from the north-west, and produced a modification of the physical
characters, especially of the hair. This influence did not extend across
Bass’s Straits into Tasmania, where, as just said, the Melanesian
element remained in its purity. It is more strongly marked in the
northern and central parts of Australia than on many portions of the
southern and western coasts, where the lowness of type and more curly
hair, sometimes closely approaching to frizzly, show a stronger
retention of the Melanesian element. If the evidence should prove
sufficiently strong to establish this view of the origin of the
Australian natives, it will no longer be correct to speak of a primitive
Australian, or even Australoid, race or type, or look for traces of the
former existence of such a race anywhere out of their own land. Absolute
proof of the origin of any race is, however, very difficult, if not
impossible to obtain, and I know nothing to exclude the possibility of
the Australians being mainly the direct descendants of a very primitive
human type, from which the frizzly-haired Negroes may be an offset.
This character of hair must be a specialisation, for it seems very
unlikely that it was the attribute of the common ancestors of the whole
human race.