Racial types.
Asia, including its outlying islands, has become the dwelling-place of
all the great families into which the races of men have been divided.
By far the largest area is occupied by the Mongolian group. These have
yellow-brown skins, black eyes and hair, flat noses and oblique eyes.
They are short in stature, with little hair on the body and face. In
general terms they extend, with modifications of character probably
due to admixture with other types and to varying conditions of life,
over the whole of northern Asia as far south as the plains bordering
the Caspian Sea, including Tibet and China, and also over the
Indo-Malayan peninsula and Archipelago, excepting Papua and some of
the more eastern islands.
Next in numerical importance to the Mongolians are the races which
have been called by Professor Huxley _Melanochroic_ and
_Xanthochroic_. The former includes the dark-haired people of southern
Europe, and extends over North Africa, Asia Minor, Syria to
south-western Asia, and through Arabia and Persia to India. The latter
race includes the fair-haired people of northern Europe, and extends
over nearly the same area as the Melanochroi, with which race it is
greatly intermixed. The Xanthochroi have fair skins, blue eyes and
light hair; and others have dark skins, eyes and hair, and are of a
slighter frame. Together they constitute what were once called the
Caucasian races. The Melanochroi are not considered by Huxley to be
one of the primitive modifications of mankind, but rather to be the
result of the admixture of the Xanthochroi with the Australoid type,
next to be mentioned.
The third group is that of the Australoid type. Their hair is dark,
generally soft, never woolly. The eyes and skin are dark, the beard
often well developed, the nose broad and flat, the lips coarse, and
jaws heavy. This race is believed to form the basis of the people of
the Indian peninsula, and of some of the hill tribes of central India,
to whom the name Dravidian has been given, and by its admixture with
the Melanochroic group to have given rise to the ordinary population
of the Indian provinces. It is also probable that the Australoid
family extends into south Arabia and Egypt.
The last group, the Negroid, is represented by the races to which has
been given the name of _Negrito_, from the small size of some of them.
They are closely akin to the negroes of South Africa, and possess the
characteristic dark skins, woolly but scanty beard and body hair,
broad flat noses, and projecting lips of the African; and are diffused
over the Andaman Islands, a part of the Malay peninsula, the
Philippines, Papua, and some of the neighbouring islands. The Negritos
appear to be derived from a mixture of the true Negro with the
Australoid type.
Mongolians.
The distribution of the Mongolian group in Asia offers no particular
difficulty. There is complete present, and probably previous
long-existing, geographical continuity in the area over which they are
found. There is also considerable similarity of climate and other
conditions throughout the northern half of Asia which they occupy. The
extension of modified forms of the Mongolian type over the whole
American continent may be mentioned as a remarkable circumstance
connected with this branch of the human race.
The Mongolians of the northern half of Asia are almost entirely
nomadic, hunters and shepherds or herdsmen. The least advanced of
these, but far the most peaceful, are those that occupy Siberia.
Farther south the best-known tribes are the Manchus, the Mongols
proper, the Moguls and the Turks, all known under the name of Tatars,
and to the ancients as Scythians, occupying from east to west the zone
of Asia comprised between the 40th and 50th circles of N. lat. The
Turks are Mahommedans; their tribes extend up the Oxus to the borders
of Afghanistan and Persia, and to the Caspian, and under the name of
Kirghiz into Russia, and their language is spoken over a large part of
western Asia. Their letters are those of Persia. The Manchus and
Mongols are chiefly Buddhist, with letters derived from the ancient
Syriac. The Manchus are now said to be gradually falling under the
influence of Chinese civilization, and to be losing their old nomadic
habits, and even their peculiar language. The predatory habits of the
Turkish, Mongolian and Manchu population of northern Asia, and their
irruptions into other parts of the continent and into Europe, have
produced very remarkable results in the history of the world.
The Chinese branch of the Mongolian family are a thoroughly settled
people of agriculturists and traders. They are partially Buddhist, and
have a peculiar monosyllabic, uninflected language, with writing
consisting of symbols, which represent words, not letters.
The countries lying between India and the Mongolian are occupied by
populations chiefly of the Mongolian and Chinese type, having
languages fundamentally monosyllabic, but using letters derived from
India, and adopting their religion, which is almost everywhere
Buddhist, from the Indians. Of these may be named the Tibetans, the
Burmese and the Siamese. Cochin-China is more nearly Chinese in all
respects. It is known that to the Tibeto-Chinese modifications of the
pure Mongolian type all the eastern Burmese tribes--Chins, Kachins,
Shans, &c.--belong (as indeed do the Burmese themselves), and that a
cognate race occupies the Himalaya to the eastern limits of Kashmir.
Some light has been thrown on the connexion between the Tibetan race
and certain tribes of central India, the Bhils and Kols; and it seems
more probable that these tribes are the remnants of a Mongolian race
which first displaced a yet earlier Negroid population, and was then
itself shouldered out by a Caucasian irruption, than that they entered
India by any of the northern passages within historic times. Mongolian
settlements have lately been found very much farther extended into the
border countries of north-west India than has been hitherto
recognized. The Mingals, who, conjointly with the Brahuis, occupy the
hills south of Kalat to the limits of the Rajput province of Las Bela,
claim Mongolian descent, and traces of a Mongolian colony have been
found in Makran.
Malays.
The Malays, who occupy the peninsula and most of the islands of the
Archipelago called after them, are Mongols apparently modified by
their very different climate, and by the maritime life forced upon
them by the physical conditions of the region they inhabit. As they
are now known to us, they have undergone a process of partial
civilization, first at the hands of the Brahminical Indians, from whom
they borrowed a religion, and to some extent literature and an
alphabet, and subsequently from intercourse with the Arabs, which has
led to the adoption of Mahommedanism by most of them.
Aryans.
The name of Aryan has been given to the races speaking languages
derived from, or akin to, the ancient form of Sanskrit, who now occupy
the temperate zone extending from the Mediterranean, across the
highlands of Asia Minor, Persia and Afghanistan, to India. The races
speaking the languages akin to the ancient Assyrian, which are now
mainly represented by Arabic, have been called Semitic, and occupy the
countries south-west of Persia, including Syria and Arabia, besides
extending into North Africa. Though the languages of these races are
very different they cannot be regarded as physically distinct, and
they are both without doubt branches of the Melanochroi, modified by
admixture with the neighbouring races, the Mongols, the Australoids
and the Xanthochroi.
The Aryans of India are probably the most settled and civilized of all
Asiatic races. This type is found in its purest form in the north and
north-west, while the mixed races and the population referred to the
Australoid type predominate in the peninsula and southern India. The
spoken languages of northern India are very various, differing one
from another in the sort of degree that English differs from German,
though all are thoroughly Sanskritic in their vocables, but with an
absence of Sanskrit grammar that has given rise to considerable
discussion. The languages of the south are Dravidian, not Sanskritic.
The letters of both classes of languages, which also vary
considerably, are all modifications of the ancient Pali, and probably
derived from the Dravidians, not from the Aryans. They are written
from left to right, exception being made of Urdu or Hindostani, the
mixed language of the Mahommedan conquerors of northern India, the
character used for writing which is the Persian. From the river Sutlej
and the borders of the Sind desert, as far as Burma and to Ceylon, the
religion of the great bulk of the people of India is Hindu or
Brahminical, though the Mahommedans are often numerous, and in some
places even in a majority. West of the Sutlej the population of Asia
may be said to be wholly Mahommedan with the exception of certain
relatively small areas in Asia Minor and Syria, where Christians
predominate. The language of the Punjab does not differ very
materially from that of Upper India. West of the Indus the dialects
approach more to Persian, which language meets Arabic and Turki west
of the Tigris, and along the Turkoman desert and the Caspian. Through
the whole of this tract the letters are used which are common to
Persian, Arabic and Turkish, written from right to left.
Racial distribution.
Considerable progress has been made in the classification of the
various races which occupy the continent to the west of the great
Mongolian region. The ancient Sacae, or Scyths, are recognized in the
Aryan population, who may be found in great numbers and in their
purest form in the more inaccessible mountains and glens of the
central highlands. These Tajiks (as they are usually called) form the
underlying population of Persia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan and
Badakshan, and their language (in the central districts of Asia) is
found to contain words of Aryan or Sanskrit derivation which are not
known in Persian. They have been for the most part dispossessed of
their country by Turkish immigration and conquests, but they still
retain their original intellectual superiority over the Turkish and
other mixed tribes by which they are surrounded. Uzbegs and Kirghiz
have but small affinity with the Mongol element of Asia. They are the
representatives of those countless Turkish irruptions which have taken
place through all history. Of the two divisions (Kara Kirghiz and
Kassak Kirghiz) into which the Kirghiz tribes are divided by Russian
authorities, the Kassak Kirghiz is the more closely allied to the
Mongol type; the Kara Kirghiz, who are found principally in the
valleys of the Tian-shan and Altai mountains, being unmistakably
Turkish. The Kipchaks are only a Kirghiz clan. The language of the
Kirghiz is Turki and their religion that of Mahomet. As a nomadic
people they have great contempt for the Sarts, who represent the town
dwellers of the tribe. The Kalmucks are a Buddhist and Mongolian
people who originated in a confederacy of tribes dwelling in
Dzungaria, migrated to Siberia, and settled on the Lower Volga. From
thence they returned late in the 18th century to the reoccupation of
their old ground in Kulja under the Chinese. The Turkoman is the
purest form of the Turk element, and his language is the purest form
of the Turkish tongue, which is represented at Constantinople by a
comparatively mongrel, or mixed, dialect. Ethnographers have traced a
connexion between the Turkoman of central Asia and the Teutonic races
of Europe, based on a similarity of national customs and immemorial
usage. Evidence of an original affinity between Turkoman and Rajput
has also been found in the mutual possession by these races of a ruddy
skin, so that as ethnographical inquiry advances the Turk appears to
recede from his Mongolian affinities and to approach the Caucasian.
Turks and Mongols alike were doubtless included under the term Scyth
by the ancients, and as Tatars by more modern writers, insomuch that
the Turkish dynasty at Delhi, founded by Baber, is usually termed the
Mogul dynasty, although there can be no distinction traced between the
terms Mogul and Mongol. The general results of recent inquiry into the
ethnography of Afghanistan is to support the general correctness of
Bellew's theories of the origin of the Afghan races. The claim of the
Durani Afghan to be a true Ben-i-Israel is certainly in no way
weakened by any recent investigation. The influence of Greek culture
in northern India is fully recognized, and the distribution of Greek
colonies previous to Alexander's time is attested by practical
knowledge of the districts they were said to occupy. The _habitat_ of
the Nysaeana, and the identity of certain tribes of Kafiristan with
the descendants of these pre-Alexandrian colonists from the west, are
also well established. To this day hymns are unwittingly sung to
Bacchus in the dales and glens of Kafiristan. The ethnographical
status of the mixed tribes of the mountains that lie between Chitral
and the Peshawar plains has been fairly well fixed by John Biddulph,
and much patient inquiry in the vast fields of Baluchistan by Major
Mockler, G.P. Tate and others has resulted in quite a new appreciation
of the tribal origin of the great conglomeration of Baluch peoples.
The result of trans-border surveys to the north and west of India has
been to establish the important geographical fact that it is by two
gateways only, one on the north-west and one on the west of India,
that the central Asiatic tides of immigration have flowed into the
peninsula. The Kabul valley indicates the north-western entrance, and
Makran indicates that on the west. By the Kabul valley route, which
includes at its head the group of passes across the Hindu Kush which
extend from the Khawak to the Kaoshan, all those central Asian hordes,
be they Sacae, Yue-chi, Jats, Goths or Huns, who were driven towards
the rich plains of the south, entered the Punjab. Some of them
migrated from districts which belong to eastern Asia, but none of them
penetrated into India by eastern passes. Such tides as set towards the
Himalaya broke against their farther buttresses, leaving an
interesting ethnographical flotsam in the northern valleys; but they
never overflowed the Himalayan barrier. Later most of the historic
invasions of India from central Asia followed the route which leads
directly from Kabul to Peshawar and Delhi.
By the western gates of Makran prehistoric irruptions from Mesopotamia
broke into the plains of Lower Sind, and either passed on towards the
central provinces of India or were absorbed in the highlands south of
Kalat. In later centuries the Arabs from the west reached the valley
of the Indus by their western route, and there established a dynasty
which lasted for 300 years. The identification of existing peoples
with the various Scythic, Persian and Arab races who have passed from
High Asia into the Indian borderland, has opened up a vast field of
ethnographical inquiry which has hardly yet found adequate workers for
its investigation. To such fields may be added the yet more
complicated problems of those reflex waves which flowed backwards from
India into the border highlands. (T. H. H.*)