more impressible to his surroundings in the early history of his
existence as a species, the young, either as an individual or a genus,
being more plastic than the old. Furthermore, in his then condition of
culture, or absence of culture, he had less to oppose to the assaults
of his environment.
_Classification of Races._--It is not possible in the present status of
the science of man to point out precisely how the various conditions of
the great continental areas reacted on the homogeneous primitive type
to develop the races as we know them. The same difficulty encounters us
with other animals and with plants. We know, however, that at the dawn
of history each of these areas was peopled by nations resembling each
other much more than they resembled nations of any of the other areas.
In addition to the great continents there were many lesser regions,
peninsulas and islands, usually on the borders of the main areas of
characterization, where intermingling of types was sure to arise, and
other types be formed, who in turn received some particular impress
from their environment.
These considerations prompt me to offer the following as the most
appropriate scheme in the present condition of science for the
subdivision of the species Man into its several races or varieties.
I. THE EURAFRICAN RACE.--_Traits._--Color white, hair wavy, nose
narrow, jaws straight, skull variable, languages inflectional,
religions ideal.
II. THE AUSTAFRICAN RACE.--_Traits._--Color black, hair woolly, nose
flat, jaws protruding, skull long, languages agglutinative, religions
material.
III. THE ASIAN RACE.--_Traits._--Color yellowish or brownish, hair
straight, nose flat or medium, jaws straight, skull broad and high,
languages isolating or agglutinative, religions material.
IV. THE AMERICAN RACE.--_Traits._--Color coppery, hair straight,
nose narrow, jaws straight, skull variable, languages incorporating,
religions ideal.
V. INSULAR OR LITORAL PEOPLES.--_Traits._--Color dark, hair lank or
wavy, languages agglutinative.
In this scheme the more prominent and permanent traits are named first.
While individuals of pure blood can easily be found in all the races
who do not correspond in all particulars to these descriptions, I do
not hesitate to assert that ninety-five per cent. of the whole of the
pure blood of any of the races here classified will correspond to the
standards given.
_Subdivisions of Races._--The further subdivisions of ethnography
follow to some extent the important doctrine of the “areas of
characterization,” that is, they are geographical; but as the
classification of men advances in minuteness, other considerations
become paramount, notably, language and government. These elements
allow us to subdivide a _race_ into its _branches_; a branch into its
_stocks_; a stock into its _groups_, and these again into _tribes_,
_peoples_, or _nations_.
Classified in this manner, the human species presents the subdivisions
shown on the adjacent scheme:
_General Ethnographic Scheme._
-----------+-------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
_Race._ | _Traits._ |_Branches._| _Stocks._ |_Groups or Peoples._
-----------+-------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
| | | {|1. Libyan.
| | I. |1. Hamitic. {|2. Egyptian.
|Color white. |South | {|3. East African.
| | Medit- | {|1. Arabian.
Eurafrican.|Hair wavy. | erranean. |2. Semitic. {|2. Abyssynian.
| | | {|3. Chaldean.
| | II. |1. Euskaric. |1. Euskarian.
|Nose Narrow. |North |2. Aryac. |Indo-Germanic or
| | Medit- | | Celtindic peoples.
| | erranean. |3. Caucasic. |Peoples of the
| | | | Caucasus.
-----------+-------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
| | |1. Central |Dwarfs of the Congo.
| | I. | African. |
|Color black | Negrillo. |2. South |Bushmen, Hottentots.
| or dark. | | African. |
| | |1. Nilotic. |Nubian.
| | II. |2. Soudanese. |
Austafri- |Hair frizzly.| Negro. |3. Senegambian.|
can. | | |4. Guinean. |
|Nose broad. | III. | |Caffres and Congo
| | Negroid. |1. Bantu. | tribes.
-----------+-------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
| | I. {|1. Chinese. |Chinese.
|Color yellow | Sinitic. {|2. Thibetan. |Natives of Thibet.
| or olive. | {|3. Indo- |Burmese, Siamese.
| | | Chinese. |
| | {|1. Tungusic. |Manchus, Tungus.
Asian. |Hair | {|2. Mongolic. |Mongols, Kalmucks.
| straight. | II. {|3. Tataric. |Turks, Cossacks.
|Nose medium. | Sibiric. {|4. Finnic. |Finns, Magyars.
| | {|5. Arctic. |Chukchis, Ainos.
| | {| 6. Japanic. |Japanese, Koreans.
-----------+-------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
| | {|1. Arctic. |Eskimos.
|Color | I. {|2. Atlantic. |Tinneh, Algonkins,
|coppery. |Northern. {| | Iroquois.
American. |Hair straight| {|3. Pacific. |Chinooks, Kolosh, etc.
| or wavy. | II. {|1. Mexican. |Nahuas, Tarascos.
| |Central. {|2. Isthmian. |Mayas, Chapanecs.
|Nose medium. | III. {|1. Atlantic. |Caribs, Arawaks,
| |Southern. {| | Tupis.
| | {|2. Pacific. |Chibehas, Qquichuas.
-----------+-------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
|Color dark. | I. {|1. Negrito. |Mincopies, Aetas.
Insular | |Negritic. {|2. Papuan. |New Guineans.
and |Hair wavy or | {|3. Melanesian. |Feejeeans, etc.
Litoral | frizzly. | II. {|1. Malayan. |Malays, Tagalas.
Peoples. | |Malayic. {|2. Polynesian. |Pacific Islanders.
|Nose medium | III. {|1. Australian. |Australians.
| or narrow. |Australie.{|2. Dravidian. |Dravidas, Mundas.
-----------+-------------+-----------+---------------+----------------------
That these distinctions may be plain I append definitions of the
ethnographic terms employed.
_Race._--A variety or sub-species of the species _Man_, presenting a
number of distinct and permanent (hereditary) traits of the character
above described.
_Branch._--A portion of a race separated geographically,
linguistically, or otherwise, from other portions of the race.
_Stock._--A portion of a branch united by some prominent trait,
especially language, offering presumptive evidence of demonstrable
relationship. The individual elements of a _stock_ are its _peoples_.
A _group_ consists of a number of these peoples who are connected
together by a closer tie, geographical, linguistic, or physical, than
that which unites the members of the stock.
A _tribe_ is a body of men collected under one government. They are
presumably of the same race and dialect.
A _nation_, on the other hand, is a body of men under one government,
frequently of different languages and races. Its members have no
presumed relationship further than that they belong to the same species.
There are some other terms the precise meaning of which should be
defined before we proceed, the more so as there is not that uniformity
in their use among ethnographers which were desirable.
This very word _ethnos_, with its adjective _ethnic_, is an example.
What is an _ethnos_? I know no better word for it in English than a
people, as I have already explained this word,--one of the elements
of a stock all whose members, there is reason to believe, have
a demonstrable relationship. Thus we should speak of the Aryan
_stock_, made up of the Latin, Greek, Celtic and other _peoples_.
The relationship among the members of a _people_ is closer than that
between the members of a _stock_. _People_ corresponds to the Old
English _folk_ (German _Volk_), but _folk_ in the modern English
scientific terms “folk-lore,” “folk-medicine,” has acquired a different
signification.
_Culture_ and _civilization_ are other terms not always correctly
employed. The former is the broader, the generic word. All forms
of human society show more or less culture; but civilization is a
certain stage of culture, and a rather high one, when men unite under
settled governments to form a state or commonwealth (_civitas_) with
acknowledged individual rights (_civis_). This presupposes a knowledge
of various arts and developed mental powers.
Much attention was paid by older writers to dividing the progress of
culture into a number of stages or stadia. One of these, an American
author, Lewis H. Morgan, suggested an elaborate scheme according
to which the periods of man’s development should correspond with
historical conditions of culture, and these he divided into lower,
middle and upper states of savagery, barbarism, and civilization, each
characterized by the introduction of some new art.
The problem is far too complicated to admit of any such mechanical
solution. The possession of a given art, as the bow and arrow, or
smelting iron, does not lift a people, nor is it an indication of their
culture. Peoples low in one point are high in others; they develop
along different lines, with scarcely a common measure, and their place
in a general scheme must be determined by an exhaustive investigation
of all their powers and conquests, and perhaps a comparison with some
other standards than those which we have been brought up to consider
the best.
LECTURE IV.
THE EURAFRICAN RACE; SOUTH MEDITERRANEAN BRANCH.
CONTENTS.--The White Race. Synonyms. Properly an African Race;
relative areas; purest specimens. Types of the White Race;
Libyo-Teutonic type; Cymric type; Celtic type; Euscaric type.
Variability of traits. Primal home of the White Race not in
Asia, but in Eurafrica. Early migrations and subdivisions. North
Mediterranean and South Mediterranean Branches.
_A._--THE SOUTH MEDITERRANEAN BRANCH.
I. THE HAMITIC STOCK. Relation to Semitic. 1. The Libyan Group.
Location. Peoples included. Physical appearance. The Libyan
blondes: languages. Early history; European affiliations; relations
to Iberian tribes; the names _Iberi_ and _Berberi_. Government.
Migration. The Etruscans as Libyans. Later history; present
culture. Syrian Hamites and their influence. 2. The Egyptian Group.
Kinship to Libyans. Physical appearance. The stone age in Egypt.
Antiquity of Egyptian culture. Its influence. Physical traits. 3.
The East African Group. Relations to Egypt.
II. THE SEMITIC STOCK.--First entered Arabia from Africa. 1. The
Arabian Group. Early divisions and culture. The Arabs. Physical
types; mental temperament; religious idealism. 2. The Abyssinian
Group. Tribes included. Period of migration. Condition. 3. The
Chaldean Group. Tribes included. The modern Jew.
The leading race in all history has been the White Race. It is proper
therefore that it should have our chief attention in the study of
the distribution of the species. By some writers it is called the
Caucasian, by others the Japetic, and by others again the European
race--all inaccurate terms, for the race never originated in the
Caucasus, never descended from the mythical Japetus or Japheth, and
when first it appeared on the horizon of history, its most extensive
possessions and the seats of its highest culture were not in Europe,
nor yet in Asia, but in Africa.
_Scheme of the European Race: South Mediterranean Branch._
(Extinct peoples in _italics_.)
{ { _Numidians_, _Getulians_,
{ { _Libyans_, _Maurianians_,
{ { _Guanches_, Berbers, Rifians,
{ 1. Libyan Group. { Zouaves, Kabyles, Tuareks, Tibbus,
{ { Ghadumes, Mzabites, _Ghanatas_,
I. { { _Etruscans_, _Amorites_,
Hamitic { { _Assyrians_, _Hittites_. (?)
Stock. {
{ 2. Egyptian Group. { Copts, Fellaheen.
{
{ { Gallas, Somalis, Danakils,
{ 3. East African Group. { Bedjas, Bilins,
{ { Afars, Khamirs.
{ { _Himyarites_, _Sabeans_,
{ 1. Arabian Group. { _Nabotheans_, Arabs,
{ { Bedawin, Ehkilis.
II. {
Semitic { { Amharnis, Tigris,
Stock. { 2. Abyssinian Group. { Tigrinas, Gheez,
{ { Ethiopians, Harraras.
{
{ 3. Chaldean Group. { Israelites, Arameans, Samaritans.
This statement may astonish you, and I know no writer who has properly
emphasized the fact that the white race is geographically and
historically an _African_ race. I have calculated with some care the
area of its control of the three continents when their inhabitants
first became known. The results are these: The white race then
possessed:[49]
In Asia 2,500,000 square miles.
In Europe 3,000,000 “ “
In Africa 3,500,000 “ “
These figures vindicate for the race the title I have given
it--Eurafrican.
More than this: the purest and finest physical specimens of the white
race always have been and _still are_ found native to African soil;
and the leading nations of the race, those who have most contributed to
its glory, and to the advance of the civilization of the world, either
have resided in Africa or can be traced to it as their ancestral home.
_Types of the White Race._--Let us first define the characteristics,
physical and mental, of the white race.
In one of its pronounced types, the individuals are blondes, tall
in stature, the eyes blue or grey, the hair yellow or reddish and
wavy, the beard full, the nose narrow and prominent (leptorhin),
the chin well defined, the jaws straight (orthognathic), the skull
long (dolichocephalic) or medium, the eyes narrow (microsemes), the
supra-orbital ridges rather prominent, the face moderately oval.
This is the typical appearance of the ancient Goths, Teutons and
Scandinavians, and of the modern Swedes and Germans. It was also that
of the ancient Libyans, and is still preserved in the greatest purity
among their descendants in Morocco and Algiers; hence I shall call it
the Libyo-Teutonic type.
A second type is also tall in stature, but red-haired, freckled
complexion, the face and forehead broad, the cheek bones
prominent, the eyes nearly circular (megasemes), the jaws
and mouth projecting (prognathic), the skulls broad and high
(brachycephalic-hypsistenocephalic), the chin square and firm.
This is the type we see preserved in some of the Highland Scotch clans,
and in the “Tuatha de Danann” of Ireland, recalling the large-limbed
and red-haired “Caledonians” of Tacitus, and those ancient Britons
who, under Queen Boadicea, withstood so valiantly the Roman legions.
The Gauls or Cimbri of Belgium and northern France were of this type,
and hence it has been called the “Cymric” type.
But there is a second Celtic type, also of vast antiquity, claimed by
some to be the only pure form. In it the skull is also broad--broader
than the former variety; but the stature is undersized, the hair and
eyes dark-brown, the complexion brunette, the orbits rounded, the
forehead full. Modern representatives of this type are the dark clans
of the Highlanders, the Irish west of the river Shannon, the Manx, the
Welsh, the Bretons of France, the Auvergnats, the Walloons of Belgium
and the Ladins of eastern Switzerland.
The most ancient known seats of these dark Celts were in extreme
western Europe and the isles adjacent. This location points them
out as one of the oldest peoples in Europe, whether their presence
is explained by immigration or autochthonous descent. Part of their
possessions in early historic times was in the Iberian peninsula,
along the Cantabrian mountains in northern Spain. Here they were in
immediate contact with members of the white race of a different type,
the Euscarians or Basques.
In them the stature is medium, the form symmetrical, hair and eyes are
dark but rarely black, the complexion dark and sallow, the face oval,
and the skull long, the length being in the posterior (occipital)
region. Although the last mentioned is an important distinction
between the Celtic and the Euskaric skull, there is unquestionably a
closer resemblance physically between the Celts and Basques, who speak
totally diverse tongues, than between the Celts and Cymri, whose tongue
was the same.
In these four typical groups from the extreme west of Europe we find
sharp contrasts within limited areas, among peoples some of whom are
unquestionably consanguine. Two of the groups, the Teutonic and Cymric,
belong in color and hair and stature to the blonde type, but differ
profoundly in shape of skull and facial bones; the two others belong to
the brunette type, but differ equally in osseous character. In general
physical traits the Celtic differs less from the Euskaric than from the
Cymric type, as was recognized by the historian Tacitus.
These facts bring out an ethnic principle of importance--the
variability of traits within the racial limits--and this becomes more
marked as the race is higher in the scale of organic development. No
race remains closer to its type than the Austafrican, none departs
from it so constantly as the Eurafrican. Wherever we find the unmixed
white race we find its blonde and brunette varieties, its prognathic
and orthognathic jaws, its long-skulled and broad-skulled heads.[50] To
establish genealogic schemes exclusively upon these differences, as
has been the work of so many living anthropologists, is to build houses
of cards.
These contrasts are presented to us daily. The researches of Virchow,
De Candolle, Kollmann, and many others, prove that in the same city,
in the same family, the children to-day are born brunettes or blondes,
dark or light eyed, to some degree broad or narrow skulled, with but
partial reference to their parents’ peculiarities. The aberrant types
are usually about twenty per cent. of the whole. It seems generally to
have been so in the unmixed white race wherever located.
All such variations, however, remain strictly within the racial lines,
and are not approximations to other races. Each race retains to-day the
characteristics of its earliest representatives, so far as we know them.
_Primal Home of the White Race._--Where should we look for these
earliest representatives, for the primal home of the Eurafrican race?
The usual answer has been “in Asia,” but now that answer is rejected by
all the younger and most earnest ethnologists.
A steady stream of information has of late been contributed by the
sciences of linguistics, palæontology, pre-historic archæology and
racial anatomy, sufficient to convince even the skeptical that not
Asia, but the western water-shed of the Eastern Continent, was the area
of characterization which developed this race with its marked physical
traits and singular mental endowments. In the previous lecture I have
shown you that man himself probably came into being as such within the
limits of that region which I have described as Eurafrica; and as its
conditions were such as to foster his transformation from some inferior
primate, so they continued, though profoundly altered, to favor his
growth, as they still do continue to-day. It is by no mere accident or
result of political manœuvres that western Europe has for two thousand
years produced the mightiest nations and greatest minds of the earth.
The discussion of the precise locality where in Europe the primitive
man developed into the white race has occupied many learned pens in
the last score of years. But by nearly all of them the discussion has
been limited to the birthplace of merely the Aryan linguistic stock--an
unfortunate narrowness of view, which has prevented a comprehensive
grasp of the question at issue.[51]
The Aryan peoples present by no means the only, nor yet the purest
types of the white race. I have seen quite as noble blondes among the
Kabyles of the Djurjura as in Denmark, quite as handsome brunettes
among the Basques of the Pyrenees as among the Celts of France or the
Italians. A broad construction of the question must include all these,
and in this spirit I approach it.
We must search for the first abode, the primitive “area of
characterization” of the white race:
1. Where its most ancient residence and greatest numbers were in
earliest historic times.
2. Where the prehistoric remains prolong that residence most remotely
back.
3. Where the earliest forms of linguistic structure continue to exist
in large communities.
4. Where its purest types are retained in considerable numbers.
5. Where the climatic conditions are favorable to the physical traits
of the race.
If we can select a locality in which all of these arguments unite, the
cumulative evidence is so powerful that we may consider the question
settled.
I have already shown that at the dawn of history the white race
possessed either in Europe or Africa a far larger area than in Asia,
and possessed it practically exclusively. The most recent researches in
the pile dwellings of the Swiss lakes and the plain of the Po show that
the same race inhabited them from the classic period of Greece to far
back in the stone age.
The most ancient shell-heaps or kitchen-middens on the shores of
Portugal contain skulls of the peculiar type of the Basques of to-day.
The hiatus or gap which was once supposed to exist between palæolithic
and neolithic culture in France has been bridged over by numerous
observations, showing that the same race continued to live and grow
there.[52] As for language, every linguist recognizes the agglutinative
type of the Basque, and the semi-agglutinative character of the
Berber as more antique forms than the inflectional caste of Aryan or
Semitic tongues. Nowhere else do white tribes speak an agglutinative
tongue, except a few in the Caucasus, where we know they settled at a
comparatively recent period.
The purest types of the whites in any large number have always been
found in Western Europe and Northwestern Africa. There the blondes
were represented by the Suevi, the Goths, the Vandals, the Cymri, the
Berbers; the brunettes by the Euskarians, the Celts, and the native
Italic tribes. In the Orient, the Parsees, the high-caste Brahmins,
the Siagosch of the Hindu Kusch, and some Caucasian tribes, have by
close intermarriage retained in a measure the traits of the race; but
confessedly not in the same distinctness as the nations of Western
Europe; nor do the Semitic peoples of Asia present the purity of the
type with anything like the distinctness of the descendants of the
Libyans in the valleys of the Atlas. Finally, we do not anywhere
in Asia find the physical conditions favorable to the development of
the white race--the moist, cool, cloudy climate, the extensive shady
forests covering broad areas of low elevation, with absence of malaria
and diminished demand on the chylopoietic organs.
[Illustration: ETHNIC CHART OF THE EURAFRICAN RACE.]
_Early Migrations and Subdivisions._--It is not necessary to suppose
that the different peoples of the race developed themselves from one
central point. The contrary is more probable.
Beginning at the extreme West of Europe, and its appendix North Africa,
the race pursued an easterly course, divided by the great intervening
sea of the Mediterranean into two sections, which for convenience I
designate as the “North Mediterranean” and the “South Mediterranean”
branches, though it will be seen that these geographical limits are not
to be taken absolutely.
The North Mediterranean branch embraces as its most important member
the Indo-Germanic peoples. When first heard of in history, this stock
extended along the shores and islands of Europe from Cape Finisterre
to the Gulf of Finland, occupying all of Central Europe and much of
Asia Minor, the regions of Modern Persia, and at a later date the
southern vales of the Himalayas. Its northern limits have always been
in contiguity with the Asian or Yellow race. Stretch a line on the map
from Singapore to St. Petersburg, continue it to the Atlantic, and you
have roughly the ethnic boundary which has ever separated the races,
and does so to-day.
In western Europe, south of the Aryac was the Euskaric stock, occupying
central Spain, central and southern France, portions of Italy, and
various islands in the Mediterranean.