round-headed people called Negritos, still found in a pure or unmixed
state in the Andaman Islands, and forming a substratum of the
population, though now greatly mixed with invading races, especially
Malays, in the Philippines, and many of the islands of the Indo-Malayan
Archipelago, and perhaps of some parts of the southern portion of the
mainland of Asia. They also contribute to the varied population of the
great island of Papua or New Guinea, where they appear to merge into the
taller, longer-headed and longer-nosed Melanesians proper. They show, in
a very marked manner, some of the most striking anatomical peculiarities
of the Negro race, the frizzly hair, the proportions of the limbs,
especially the humero-radial index, and the form of the pelvis; but they
differ in many cranial and facial characters, both from the African
Negroes on the one hand, and the typical Oceanic Negroes, or
Melanesians, on the other, and form a very distinct and
well-characterised group.
II.--The principal groups that can be arranged round the Mongolian type
are--
A. The Eskimo, apparently a branch of the typical North Asiatic Mongols,
who, in their wanderings northwards and eastwards across the American
continent, isolated almost as perfectly as an island population would
be, hemmed in on one side by the eternal Polar ice, and on the other by
hostile tribes of American Indians, with which they rarely, if ever,
mingled, have gradually developed characters most of which are
strongly-expressed modifications of those seen in their allies, who
still remain on the western side of Behring’s Straits. Every special
characteristic which distinguishes a Japanese from the average of
mankind is seen in the Eskimo in an exaggerated degree, so that there
can be no doubt about their being derived from the same stock. It has
also been shown that these special characteristics gradually increase
from west to east, and are seen in their greatest perfection in the
inhabitants of Greenland; at all events, in those where no crossing with
the Danes has taken place. Such scanty remains as have yet been
discovered of the early inhabitants of Europe present no structural
affinities to the Eskimo, although it is not unlikely that similar
external conditions may have led them to adopt similar modes of life. In
fact, the Eskimo are an intensely specialised race, perhaps the most
specialised of any in existence, and therefore probably of comparatively
late origin. In this case they were not as a race contemporaries with
the men whose rude flint tools found in our drifts excite so much
interest and speculation as to the makers, who have been sometimes,
though with little evidence to justify such an assumption, reputed to be
related to the present inhabitants of the northernmost parts of America.
B. The typical Mongolian races constitute the present population of
Northern and Central Asia. They are not very distinctly, but still
conveniently for descriptive purposes, divided into two groups, the
Northern and the Southern.
(_a_) The former, or Mongolo-Altaic group, are united by the affinities
of their language. These people, from the cradle of their race in the
great central plateau of Asia, have at various times poured out their
hordes upon the lands lying to the west, and have penetrated almost to
the heart of Europe. The Finns, the Magyars, and the Turks, are each the
descendants of one of these waves of incursion, but they have for so
many generations intermingled with the peoples through whom they have
passed in their migrations, or have found in the countries in which they
have ultimately settled, that their original physical characters have
been completely modified. Even the Lapps, that diminutive tribe of
nomads inhabiting the most northern parts of Europe, supposed to be of
Mongolian descent, show so little of the special attributes of that
branch that it is difficult to assign them a place in it in a
classification based upon physical characters. The Japanese are said by
their language to be allied rather to the Northern than to the following
branch of the Mongolian stock.
(_b_) The southern Mongolian group, divided from the former chiefly by
language and habits of life, includes the greater part of the population
of China, Thibet, Burmah, and Siam.
C. The next great division of Mongoloid people is the Malay sub-typical
it is true, but to which an easy transition can be traced from the most
characteristic members of the type.
D. The brown Polynesians, Malayo-Polynesians, Mahoris, Sawaioris, or
Kanakas, as they have been variously called, seen in their greatest
purity in the Samoan, Tongan, and Eastern Polynesian Islands, are still
more modified, and possess less of the characteristic Mongolian
features; but still it is difficult to place them anywhere else in the
system. The large infusion of the Melanesian element throughout the
Pacific must never be forgotten in accounting for the characters of the
people now inhabiting the islands, an element in many respects so
diametrically opposite to the Mongolian that it would materially alter
the characters, especially of the hair and beard, which has been with
many authors a stumbling-block to the affiliation of the Polynesian with
the Mongolian stock. The mixture is physically a fine one, and in some
proportions produces a combination, as seen, for instance, in the
Maories of New Zealand, which in all definable characters approaches
quite as near, or nearer, to the Caucasian type than to either of the
stocks from which it may be presumably derived. This resemblance has led
some writers to infer a real extension of the Caucasian element at some
very early period into the Pacific Islands, and to look upon their
inhabitants as the product of a mingling of all three great types of
men. Though this is a very plausible theory, it rests on little actual
proof, as the combination of Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian characters
in different degrees, together with the local variations certain to
arise in communities so isolated from each other and exposed to such
varied conditions as the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, would
probably account for all the modifications observed among them.
E. The native populations (before the changes wrought by the European
conquest) of the great continent of America, excluding the Eskimo,
present, considering the vast extent of the country they inhabit and the
great differences of climate, and other surrounding conditions, a
remarkable similarity of essential characters, with much diversity of
detail.
The construction of the numerous American languages, of which as many as
twelve hundred have been distinguished, is said to point to unity of
origin, as, though widely different in many respects, they are all, or
nearly all, constructed on the same general grammatical principle--that
called _polysynthesis_--which differs from that of the languages of any
of the Old World nations. The mental characteristics of all the American
tribes have much that is in common; and the very different stages of
culture to which they had attained at the time of the conquest, as that
of the Incas and Aztecs, and the hunting or fishing tribes of the north
and south, which have been quoted as evidence of diversities of race,
were not greater than those between different nations of Europe, as
Gauls and Germans on the one hand, and Greeks and Romans on the other,
in the time of Julius Cæsar. Yet all these were Aryans, and in treating
the Americans as one race it is not intended that they are more closely
allied than the different Aryan people of Europe and Asia. The best
argument that can be used for the unity of the American race--using the
word in a broad sense--is the great difficulty of forming any natural
divisions founded upon physical characters. The important character of
the hair does not differ throughout the whole continent. It is always
straight and lank, long and abundant on the scalp, but sparse elsewhere.
The colour of the skin is practically uniform, notwithstanding the
enormous differences of climate under which many members of the group
exist. In the features and cranium certain special modifications prevail
in different districts, but the same forms appear at widely-separated
parts of the continent. I have examined skulls from Vancouver’s Island,
from Peru, from Patagonia, and from Jamaica, which were almost
undistinguishable from one another.
Naturalists who have admitted but three primary types of the human
species have always found a difficulty with the Americans, hesitating
between placing them with the Mongolian or so-called “yellow” races, or
elevating them to the rank of a primary group. Cuvier does not seem to
have been able to settle this point to his own satisfaction, and leaves
it an open question. Although the large majority of Americans have in
the special form of the nasal bones, leading to the characteristic high
bridge of the nose of the living face, in the well-developed
superciliary ridge and retreating forehead, characters which distinguish
them from the typical Asiatic Mongol, in many other respects they
resemble them so much that, although admitting the difficulties of the
case, I am inclined to include them as aberrant members of the Mongolian
type. It is, however, quite open to any one adopting the Negro,
Mongolian, and Caucasian as primary divisions to place the Americans
apart as a fourth.
Now that the high antiquity of man in America, perhaps as high as that
which he has in Europe, has been discovered, the puzzling problem, from
which part of the Old World the people of America have sprung has lost
its significance. It is quite as likely that the people of Asia may have
been derived from America as the reverse. However this may be, the
population of America had been, before the time of Columbus, practically
isolated from the rest of the world, except at the extreme north. Such
visits as those of the early Norsemen to the coasts of Greenland,
Labrador, and Nova Scotia, or the possible accidental stranding of a
canoe containing survivors of a voyage across the Pacific or the
Atlantic, can have had no appreciable effect upon the characteristics of
the people. It is difficult, therefore, to look upon the anomalous and
special characters of the American people as the effects of crossing, as
was suggested in the case of the Australians, a consideration which
gives more weight to the view of treating them as a distinct primary
division.
III. The Caucasian, or white division, according to my view, includes
the two groups called by Professor Huxley Xanthochroi and Melanochroi,
which, though differing in colour of eyes and hair, agree so closely in
all other anatomical characters, as far, at all events, as has at
present been demonstrated, that it seems preferable to consider them as
modifications of one great type than as primary divisions of the
species. Whatever their origin, they are now intimately blended, though
in different proportions, throughout the whole of the region of the
earth they inhabit; and it is to the rapid extension of both branches of
this race that the great changes now taking place in the ethnology of
the world are mainly due.
A. The Xanthochroi, or blonde type, with fair hair, eyes, and
complexion, chiefly inhabit Northern Europe--Scandinavia, Scotland, and
North Germany--but, much mixed with the next group, they extend as far
as Northern Africa and Afghanistan. Their mixture with Mongoloid people
has given rise to the Lapps, Finns, and some of the tribes of Northern
Siberia.
B. Melanochroi, with black hair and eyes, and skin of almost all shades
from white to black. They comprise the great majority of the inhabitants
of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and South-west Asia, and consist
mainly of the Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic families. The Dravidians of
India, the Veddahs of Ceylon, and probably the Ainos of Japan, and the
Maoutze of China, also belong to this race, which may have contributed
something to the mixed character of some tribes of Indo-China and the
Polynesian Islands, and, as before said, given at least the characters
of the hair to the otherwise Negroid inhabitants of Australia. In
Southern India they are probably mixed with a Negrito element, and in
Africa, where their habitat becomes conterminous with that of the
Negroes, numerous cross races have sprung up between them all along the
frontier line. The ancient Egyptians were nearly pure Melanochroi,
though often showing in their features traces of their frequent
intermarriages with their Ethiopian neighbours to the south. The Copts
and fellahs of modern Egypt are their little-changed descendants.
In offering this scheme of classification of the human species I have
not thought it necessary to compare it in detail with the numerous
systems suggested by previous anthropologists. These will all be found
in the general treatises on the subject. As I have remarked before, in
its broad outlines it scarcely differs from that proposed by Cuvier
nearly sixty years ago, and that the enormous increase of our knowledge
since that time should have caused such little change is the best
testimony to its being a truthful representation of the facts. Still,
however, it can only be looked upon as an approximation. Whatever care
be bestowed upon the arrangement of already acquired details, whatever
judgment be shown in their due subordination one to another, the
acquisition of new knowledge may at any time call for a complete or
partial rearrangement of our system.
Happily such knowledge is being abundantly brought in by workers in many
lands, and, among others, by members of our own Institute, whose
contributions, published in our _Journal_, form no mean addition to the
general advancement of the science.
This leads me to speak of some of our own more immediate affairs. During
the past year two members of our Council have been removed by death. Dr.
Allen Thomson was for many years an eminent and successful teacher of
human anatomy in the University of Glasgow. His researches into the
history of the early stages of development of the embryo gained him a
world-wide reputation, and he was beloved by all who knew him personally
for the singular modesty and gentleness of his nature. He had been a
Vice-President of the Institute, and a contributor to its proceedings.
Mr. Alfred Tylor, the brother of our distinguished former President, Dr.
E. B. Tylor, though greatly interested in many branches of Anthropology,
and a frequent attendant at our meetings, was better known as a
geologist. He died at his residence at Carshalton, on the last day of
1884, in the sixty-first year of his age.
At the conclusion of my address last year I announced that a critical
time was coming for the Institute, as circumstances had rendered a
change of domicile a necessity. The rooms in St. Martin’s Place, in
which the Institute had met since its foundation, were required for
Government purposes, and we were obliged to move elsewhere. I think it
will be generally admitted that the accommodation we have succeeded in
obtaining is in every way superior to that which we left behind, and the
annual cost will be but very trifling in excess of that we were paying
before. The expenses of moving and of new fittings have, however, made a
heavy inroad in our slender income, and notwithstanding the special
assistance of some of our members to meet it, it was necessary to sell
out a portion of our capital stock. We ought to replace this, if
possible; and, what is still more important, we ought to have the means
of spending more money upon our publications, especially in
illustrations, and more upon our library, for the increase of which we
are chiefly dependent upon donations. Binding our serial publications
is an item for which provision should especially be made. We should also
look forward to the time when the inevitable extension of our collection
of books will require additional accommodation. For all these
necessities, we need, as I have often said before, additional members.
At the present time, as you will have gathered from the Report of the
Council, we are stationary in this respect; but our change of abode
ought to be a starting point for acquiring a wider circle of interest in
our work.
Under the guidance of our able and painstaking Director, Mr. Rudler, and
presided over by the gentleman who, I trust, you will elect in my place,
the Institute cannot but flourish. Mr. Francis Galton is a man of most
versatile genius. He is well known as an explorer of regions where man
may be studied under conditions most opposite to those which obtain in
our island. In one of his early adventurous expeditions he visited
Khartoum, a place then as unknown to English ears as it is now unhappily
familiar. His subsequent journey in the opposite extremity of the
African continent led to the publication of very useful observations,
and also to the work called _The Art of Travel_. His ingenious
researches on the subject of characteristics transmitted by inheritance,
and his methods of testing physical capabilities, have frequently been
brought before the notice of the Institute. His anthropometric
laboratory, organised last year at the International Health Exhibition,
brought before thousands the interest and importance of the subject. I
have much satisfaction in resigning into his hands the office with which
you have honoured me for two consecutive years.
XIX
THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN[47]
It is well known that the nations of antiquity entertained a widespread
belief in the existence of a race or races of human beings of
exceedingly diminutive stature, who dwelt in some of the remote and
unexplored regions of the earth. These were called _Pygmies_, a word
said to be derived from πυγμή, which means a fist, and also a measure of
length, the distance from the elbow to the knuckles of an ordinary-sized
man, or rather more than 13 inches.
In the opening of the third book of the _Iliad_ the Trojan hosts are
described as coming on with noise and shouting, “like the cranes which
flee from the coming of winter and sudden rain, and fly with clamour
towards the streams of ocean, bearing slaughter and fate to the Pygmy
men, and in early morn offer cruel battle,” or, as Pope has it,
“So when inclement winters vex the plain,
With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain,
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise and order through the midway sky,
To Pygmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing.”
The combats between the pygmies and the cranes are often alluded to by
later classical writers, and are not unfrequently depicted upon Greek
vases. In one of these in the Hope Collection at Deepdene, in which the
figures are represented with great spirit, the pygmies are
dwarfish-looking men with large heads, negro features, and close woolly
or frizzly hair. They are armed with lances. Notices of a less poetical
and apparently more scientific character of the occurrence of races of
very small human beings are met with in Aristotle, Herodotus, Ctesias,
Pliny, Pomponius Mela, and others. Aristotle places his pygmies in
Africa, near the sources of the Nile, while Ctesias describes a race of
dwarfs in the interior of India. The account in Herodotus is so
circumstantial, and has such an air of truthfulness about it, especially
in connection with recent discoveries, that it is worth quoting in
full.[48]
“I did hear, indeed, what I will now relate, from certain natives of
Cyrêné. Once upon a time, they said, they were on a visit to the
oracular shrine of Ammon, when it chanced that, in the course of
conversation with Etearchus, the Ammonian king, the talk fell upon the
Nile, how that its sources were unknown to all men. Etearchus upon this
mentioned that some Nasamonians had once come to his court, and when
asked if they could give any information concerning the uninhabited
parts of Libya, had told the following tale. (The Nasamonians are a
Libyan race who occupy the Syrtes, and a tract of no great size towards
the east.) They said there had grown up among them some wild young men,
the sons of certain chiefs, who, when they came to man’s estate,
indulged in all manner of extravagances, and among other things drew
lots for five of their number to go and explore the desert parts of
Libya, and try if they could not penetrate further than any had done
previously. The young men, therefore, dispatched on this errand by their
comrades with a plentiful supply of water and provisions, travelled at
first through the inhabited region, passing which they came to the wild
beast tract, whence they finally entered upon the desert, which they
proceeded to cross in a direction from east to west. After journeying
for many days over a wide extent of sand, they came at last to a plain
where they observed trees growing; approaching them, and seeing fruit on
them, they proceeded to gather it. While they were thus engaged, there
came upon them some dwarfish men, under the middle height, who seized
them and carried them off. The Nasamonians could not understand a word
of their language, nor had they any acquaintance with the language of
the Nasamonians. They were led across extensive marshes, and finally
came to a town, where all the men were of the height of their
conductors, and black-complexioned. A great river flowed by the town,
running from west to east, and containing crocodiles.”
It is satisfactory to know that the narrative concludes by saying that
these pioneers of African exploration,--forerunners of Bruce and Park,
of Barth, Livingstone, Speke, Grant, Schweinfurth, Stanley, and the
rest,--“got safe back to their country.”
Extension of knowledge of the natural products of the earth, and a more
critical spirit on the part of authors, led to attempts to account for
this belief, and the discovery of races of monkeys--of the doings of
which, it must be said, more or less fabulous stories were often
reported by travellers--generally sufficed the commentators and
naturalists of the last century to explain the origin of the stories of
the pygmies. To this view the great authority of Buffon was extended.
Still more recently-acquired information as to the actual condition of
the human population of the globe has, however, led to a revision of the
ideas upon the subject, and to more careful and critical researches into
the ancient documents. M. de Quatrefages, the eminent and veteran
Professor of Anthropology at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle of Paris,
especially, has carefully examined and collated all the evidence bearing
upon the question, and devoted much ingenuity of argument to prove that
the two localities in which the ancient authors appear to place their
pygmies, the interior of Africa near the sources of the Nile, and the
southernmost parts of Asia, and the characters they assign to them,
indicate an actual knowledge of the existence of the two groups of small
people which still inhabit these regions, the history of which will form
the subject of this lecture. The evidence which has convinced M. de
Quatrefages, and which, I have no doubt, will suffice for those who take
pleasure in discovering an underlying truth in all such legends and
myths, or in the more grateful task of rehabilitating the veracity of
the fathers of literature and history, will be found collected in a
very readable form in a little book published last year in the
“Bibliothèque scientifique contemporaine,” called _Les Pygmées_, to
which I refer my hearers for fuller information upon the subject of this
discourse, and especially for numerous references to the literature of
the subject, which, as the book is accessible to all who wish to pursue
it further, I need not give here.