Mongolians branched off on the one hand, and the Negroes on the other,
since they are in some measure intermediate between the two. Latham says
of the Rajmalis mountaineers, "Some say their physiognomy is Mongolian,
others that it is African." Quatrefages is strongly of the opinion that
the negro is of Indian origin, and reached Africa through migration. He
bases his opinion on the negroid characters of existing tribes in India,
Persia, and elsewhere in Asia, and on the similar characters of the
aboriginal Polynesians. As regards the Pygmies, they probably spread
over the whole of this section of the earth at a period of remote
antiquity, and very long ago developed the racial differences which
appear to exist between separate tribes. Distinctions of this kind can
be seen in the East, and a marked one is pointed out by Stanley between
the Wambutti and the Akka, as already stated.
Wherever found the Pygmies are hunters, usually making the deep forest
their home, and are masters through their agility, cunning, and deadly
weapons of the whole world of lower animals. Physically they are
probably not far removed from the man-ape, their remote ancestor, for
they retain various ape-like characters, as in aspect of face, shape of
body, occasional hairiness, diminutive size, shortness of legs,
imperfect development of the calf, occasional waddling gait in walking,
and the other particulars above pointed out. There are certainly
abundant reasons for believing them to be, as we have suggested, the
final result of the first great conflict in the evolution of man, that
with the lower animals.
This assured mastery once gained, the occasion for further development
of this people ceased while they remained in the forest habitat which
they had inherited from their ape ancestors. Here the problem of food
getting was fully solved and there was nothing to instigate any new step
in evolution. The period of conflict ended, a period of rest supervened,
and, so far as the Pygmies are concerned, this period still continues.
Though later races, their probable descendants, have left the forest
and set up new stages of development through new conflicts with adverse
conditions, the Pygmies remain in their resting state, and, if left to
themselves, might continue in this state for ages in the future as they
have done for ages in the past. As the case now stands, however,
annihilation threatens some of them, while educative and other
influences from without may bring to an end the physical and mental
isolation of the others.
In considering the Pygmies as they exist to-day, in fact, it is
impossible to say how far their habits and possessions are original with
themselves and how far they have been derived from others. There can be
no question that they have been influenced by the customs of surrounding
peoples of higher culture, and that they have received implements and
methods from without. To get down to the pure Pygmy, as an outcome of
evolution within himself, we would need to strip off all these
adventitious aids, if we could distinguish them from the conditions
native to the race, and thus behold him as he was before he fell under
the influence of men of higher grade. Were it possible to isolate him in
this way, and present his original self, we should have before us an
ethnological specimen of the highest interest and importance, as the
ultimate resultant of the first great stage in the evolution of man from
his ape ancestor.
X
THE CONFLICT WITH NATURE
It has been a frequently debated question whether man comprises a single
species or two or more species of animal descent. If a line be drawn
from the Gold Coast in tropical Africa to the steppes of Tartary in
central Asia, it will present two markedly distinct races of men at its
two extremities. At its southwestern end we find the most long-headed,
prognathous, frizzly-haired, dark-skinned race of mankind. At its
northeastern end is the most round-headed, orthognathous,
straight-haired, and yellow-skinned race. Midway between these appear
intermediate peoples, with heads round, oval, or oblong, hair straight
or curly, skin fair or dark, faces upright or protruding, men possibly,
to judge from their physical character, a result of the amalgamation of
these two distinct races.
These differences may be the result of original difference in species or
may be due to climatic and other influences of nature. Some writers
accept the one view, some the other, and neither is sustained by any
great weight of facts. The Pygmy race presents somewhat similar
differences. Usually round-headed, these small men are in some
instances long-headed, while such marked distinctions appear at times
that Stanley classed two neighboring tribes as separate races. Here they
present features of the Mongolian, there they are similar to the Negro.
This goes to indicate that the distinction between the Negro and the
Mongolian began far back in time, but it does not prove that it is the
result of original difference in species, or that two distinct forms of
ape separately developed into man. While this is quite possible, the
theory of a single species has been most widely accepted. The chief
writers on the subject think that the differences arose during that
undeveloped stage of mankind when resistance to the transforming
influences of nature was still weak, and when the structure of the human
frame may have yielded readily to agencies which would have little or no
effect upon it now.
Of one thing we can be sure, which is that there was a wide migration of
the apes in remote times. Leaving the tropics, many species spread to
the north, extending into Europe, which at that time seems to have been
connected by land bridges with Africa, and spreading far through Asia.
There was probably nothing at that time in atmospheric conditions to
check such a migration. The Tertiary climate of Europe is believed to
have been quite mild. And the ape family is by no means necessarily
confined to warm regions. Monkeys are found to-day at high elevations
on the mountains of India, enduring the chill of ten thousand feet of
altitude.
Of the migration to Europe abundant evidence exists, fossil remains of
monkeys having been found in many localities of that continent. Among
these residents of early Europe was at least one representative of the
anthropoid apes, the fossil species known as Dryopithecus, from the
middle Miocene deposits of St. Gaudens, France. This species, apparently
most nearly allied to the chimpanzee, was taller than any existing ape.
Two or three other fossil remains, possibly of anthropoid apes of
smaller size, have been found, and Europe seems to have been well
supplied with apes of a considerable degree of development at a remote
geological period. Among those may have been the form we have designated
the man-ape, the ancestor of the human race, though no fossil relic
attributable to such a species has been recognized.
Coming down to a much lower period, we begin to find traces of man,
first in his rudely chipped and later in his polished stone weapons and
tools. And the bones of man himself appear, extending through what is
known as the Quaternary or Pleistocene period. Nearly all these remains
have been preserved by the art of burial, a fact indicating some degree
of mental progress, though their residence in caves and the rudeness of
their implements are evidence that the race was still low in culture.
An interesting fact in connection with these ancient human remains is
that most of them indicate a small race, with narrow skulls and
prognathous jaws, recalling the Pygmies in general structure. This rude
and small race continued until a late period of prehistoric time. It
extended down from the cave bear and mammoth period through the later
reindeer period, as is proved by discoveries made in the caves of the
Belgian province of Namur. And there is good reason to believe that it
continued into the age of bronze, for the small size of the handles of
bronze weapons show they must have been intended for men with small
hands.
These diminutive people seem to have been not over four feet eight
inches high. They were not alone, however. Men of normal height were in
Europe with them. The northward migration of the Pygmies seems to have
been accompanied or followed by that of a full grown people. Yet the
Pygmies have held their own in Europe as in Africa, with certain
modifications. In Sicily and Sardinia, which form part of a supposed
former land bridge between Africa and Europe, a small people about five
feet high still exist, whom Dr. Kollman looks upon as representing a
distinct race, the predecessors of the tall Europeans. In the Lapps of
northern Europe we possess another small race, possibly the lineal
descendents of the Quaternary Pygmies. Everywhere the small man has
been forced to retire into forests, deserts, and icy barrens before the
taller and stronger man. The folk-lore of Europe is full of traditions
of a race of dwarfs, and its conflict with men of larger mould, and
there are various indications that this race was once widespread.
What has been said here of the migration of man into Europe and his
development in that country is preliminary to a consideration of the
second great stage of human development, that due to the conflict with
nature. The conflict with the animal world appears to have ended in the
production of a dwarfish, forest-dwelling variety of man, in the lowest
human stage of mental evolution. The conflict with nature ended in the
development of a full-sized variety of man, dwelling largely in the open
country and much superior in intellect, as indicated by his higher
powers of thought and advanced degree of organization.
The conflict with nature took several forms, in accordance with the
conditions of the several regions inhabited by man. Its result was to
subdue nature to the use and benefit of mankind, and the methods, in the
tropical localities of original man, consisted in the reduction of
animals to the domestic state and a similar domestication of food
plants. In other words, one of its early stages was the development of
the herding habit, while a far more important one was that of the
appearance of the agricultural industries. In Europe a third and still
more vigorous influence supervened, that of the conflict with cold and
man's gradual adaptation to the conditions of a frigid climate.
If the nomad dwarfs were the aboriginal men, all later races must have
developed from them. While remaining in the forest and retaining their
primitive habits, the Pygmies presented an instance of arrested
evolution. For a new development to begin it was necessary to abandon
the old locality and with it the old habits, and this they probably
began to do at a remote period. When, indeed, the earth was their
dominion, there was no reason for their remaining restricted to a forest
residence, as they have been since the larger races took possession of
the open country. We do not need to go back far in time in the East to
find the Pygmy race in full control of the Philippine and other islands,
and probably of Malacca and parts of Hindostan. Their present
restriction and partial extermination have been due to the incursions of
the warlike Malays. The Andaman Mincopies remained undisturbed until a
recent date, and added fishing to their hunting pursuits. And the canoes
which these islanders now possess were probably the invention of their
race, and furnished the means by which the aborigines spread from island
to island of those thickly studded seas.
In Africa the only existing indication of a migration of the forest folk
into the open country is found in the Bushmen and Hottentots of the far
south. The former, confined to the desert, remain nomad hunters and
present no step of advance beyond the Akka and other equatorial tribes.
The Hottentots, on the contrary, have made an important step of
progress. While still nomads and addicted to hunting, they have
domesticated cattle and sheep and become essentially a herding people,
though mentally the lowest race of herders on the face of the earth.
With this change in habits, the Hottentots have significantly increased
in stature. While still of medium height, they are considerably larger
than their Bushmen kindred, to whom they present a close resemblance in
other respects. This increase in size is a common result of a change in
habits which insures a fuller supply of food with less strain upon the
muscular organization in obtaining it; a fact of which the lower animal
world is full of illustrations. The life of the forest and desert
hunters is one of incessant activity, and their food supply is
precarious. The Hottentots, on the contrary, take life easily and are
inclined to indolence, their herds supplying them with food in abundance
with little exertion. They retain enough of the primeval strain to be
fond of hunting, and while thus engaged display the activity of their
ancestral race, but ordinarily they pursue an idle, wandering life, and
their increase in size may well be a result of their change in habits.
The Hottentots, while still low in the human scale, are mentally a
stage in advance of the Bushmen, they having a more developed social
organization and superior powers of thought. The latter is indicated by
their myths and legends, of which they have a considerable store, though
they are in great measure destitute of religious conceptions, such
religion as they possess taking in great part the primitive form of
ancestor worship. Under the influence of Europeans they are gradually
abandoning their old habits and adopting those of civilized life, but
while improving in social and industrial conditions there is little
evidence of intellectual advance.
The development in method of food-getting displayed by the Hottentots
was really but the completion of the old battle for dominion with the
animal host. It consisted in subjecting some of the docile herbivora
more fully to human mastership. The hunter has to do with hostile
beasts, victims but not servants of man. The herder has reduced some of
these animals to servitude, and no longer has to overcome them through
the arduous labors of the chase. He is able to obtain, as we have said,
more food with less exertion, a larger population can live in a limited
district, and the beneficial effects upon the mind of a closer social
intercourse are shown.
But the most important event in this stage of evolution was the
subjection of the plant world to man. For ages of interminable length
this was not thought of. Fruits and other vegetable products formed
part of man's food; but these were the growth of wild nature, and the
plant world was left to its own will, with no effort to bring it under
human control. There is nothing to show that the idea of agriculture
ever entered the mind of a Pygmy. Of the plants surrounding him, far the
greater number were useless for food, only the few were available; but
the conception of favoring the few at the expense of the many apparently
never occurred to him. There is, indeed, some crude and simple
agriculture pursued by a few of the Negritos of Luzon, but evidently as
an imitation of the Malay agriculture or as a result of direct teaching,
certainly not as an original conception. The conflict of the Pygmies
with nature has been confined to the animal world, and reached its
highest level in the herding industries of the Hottentots.
Where and when the subjugation of the plant world began it is impossible
to say. It very probably had its origin in the fertile open lands of the
tropics. But that it originated in the central region of Africa, or that
the agriculturists of that region were of native origin, are both
subjects open to question. The forest folk may have spread into the open
country, there developed a crude agriculture, favored the growth of food
plants at the expense of useless shrubs and trees, and gradually
advanced in this new form of industry. This would be in accordance with
the opinion of Virchow, who looks upon the negro as the descendant of
the Pygmy. No great change was necessary to convert the one into the
other. The Pygmy is negro-like in cast of countenance and bodily
formation. He differs in size, in complexion, and in shape of head. But
new conditions may have given rise to these differences. The fierce suns
of the African lowlands may well have caused an increased deposit of
pigment, changing the yellowish hue of the Pygmy to the deep black of
the negro. An increase in size is a natural result when exertion
diminishes and food increases. And a tendency for the head to change
from the short to the long shape is shown in the Bushmen.
On the other hand, certain anthropologists, of whom we may name
Quatrefages, take an opposite view, and believe that the negroes
migrated from Asia or the Eastern islands to Africa, being, like the
negro-like Papuans, descendants of the sable or dark brown Negritos of
the East. In this case agriculture may have originated in Asia and have
been brought by migrants to Africa. All we know historically concerning
it is that the earliest traceable seats of agriculture appear to have
been the fertile valleys of India, Babylonia, and Egypt. But the known
culture of the earth in these regions goes back only a few thousands of
years, while for the first crude stages of agriculture we must probably
measure years by tens of thousands.
The degree of subjection of nature to man's needs, as displayed in
tropical agriculture, was comparatively small, and its effect on the
development of the human intellect, while important, was limited. It had
the highly useful result of a great increase in population, the growth
of village and town life, an advance in social relations, and the
beginning of political relations. New implements were needed, better
houses were erected, the settled condition of the people gave rise to
direct efforts at education, and added the important element of
commerce, in its earliest form, to the industries of mankind. The result
must have been a fresh start in the development of the intellect, though
one that probably soon reached its culminating point in the central
tropics.
The highest results of the development of agriculture in tropical
countries, unaided by secondary influences, seem to have been those
existing in the highly fertile regions of Egypt and Babylonia at the
opening of the historical period. The density of population in those
countries, due to their prolific production of food stuffs, gave rise to
considerably developed political and social institutions, and laid the
foundations for a great subsequent advance under the influence of
warfare, invasion, and the other more potent causes of human progress.
Only for such ulterior influences the agriculturists of these countries
would perhaps to-day remain dormant in the stage of mental progress they
had attained ten thousand years ago.
In considering the existing conditions of the forest nomads and the
African agriculturists, it is not safe to credit them with the
origination of all the arts and implements they possess. The negroes,
for instance, have been for ages in more or less close association with
the Pygmies, and may have taught them many things which they would not
have attained through their own limited powers of thought. The bow and
poisoned arrow are very likely original with them. They possess this
weapon throughout the wide range from the African Hottentots to the
Philippine Negritos, while it is not a weapon of the surrounding
peoples. The spear is probably also original. The same cannot safely be
said of their traps and snares for game. These seem beyond their power
of invention, and may well have been taught them by the negro tribes.
Their habitations, aside from the mere leaf shelters, had probably a
similar origin. In Africa the huts doubtless had their model in those of
the negroes. In the Philippines they are pile-supported bamboo huts of
the pattern of those of the Malays. If, then, we take from the forest
folk the arts taught them or imitated by them, we reduce them to a very
low level of intellect and a remarkable paucity of products from their
own powers of thought.
Similar reasoning may be applied to the settled natives of Africa. For
thousands of years past they have been in contact on their northern
borders with civilized peoples, numerous immigrants have made their way
into the country, and a considerable degree of amalgamation has very
likely taken place. We cannot, therefore, safely credit them with all
the arts and implements they possess nor with all their political and
social progress. No doubt much came to them from without, much was
taught them from within, and a mixture of blood with superior races may
have aided considerably in improving their stock. We are justified,
then, in their case as in that of the Pygmies, in believing that their
stage of mental and social development is only in part original with
them, and is largely due to the influences of education and
amalgamation.
The pure negro is not a very numerous element of the population of
Africa. He stands in a measure intermediate between the nomad Pygmies of
the forest and the desert, and the mixed races who may be called negroid
but cannot strictly be called negro. With their foreign blood, most of
these have obtained foreign arts and elements of culture, and stand at a
distinctly higher physical and mental level than the unamalgamated
negro.
For the pure or nearly pure negro we must seek the lowlands of the
Guinea coast, the seat of the most pronounced existing negro type. Other
localities are in the region of the Gaboon, along the lower Zambesi, and
in the Benue and Shari basins. Here we find the true native African, a
race strikingly uniform in aspect, and, next to the Pygmies, the lowest
in physical characteristics of mankind. The features of structure in
which the negro appears to occupy a position intermediate between the
white man and the man-ape--lower than the former and approaching the
latter--are the following: First, his abnormal length of arm, which
averages about two inches longer than that of the Caucasian, and, when
in the erect position, sometimes reaches the knee-pan, being little
shorter proportionately than that of the chimpanzee. Second, his
prognathism, or projection of the jaws--his index of facial angle being
about 70, as compared with the Caucasian 82. Third, his weight of
brain--average European 45 ounces, negro 35, highest gorilla 20. Fourth,
his short, flat, snub nose, deeply depressed at the base, wide and with
dilated nostrils at the extremity. Fifth, his thick protruding lips.
Sixth, his high and prominent cheek bones. Seventh, his great thickness
of cranium, which resists blows that would break the skull of an average
European. Eighth, the weakness of his lower limbs, the broad, flat foot
and low instep, the projecting heel and somewhat prehensile great toe.
These characteristics the negroes possess in common with the Pygmies and
the Negritos. Others of less significance could be named. One important
character is that of the cranial sutures, which close much earlier in
the negro than in higher races, thus checking the development of the
brain while the body is still growing. To this many ascribe the mental
inferiority of the negro race. A close observer records, as a result of
long observation on the plantations of the southern United States, that
"the negro children were sharp, intelligent, and full of vivacity, but
on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect
seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort of lethargy,
briskness yielding to indolence." This is very probably the case with
the Pygmies, who similarly reach a mental limit beyond which they cannot
advance; but this limit is set in the adult period. In other words, the
adult Pygmy is on the mental level of the negro child. If the African
Pygmy is as short lived as his Eastern congener, he does not survive, as
a rule, many years beyond the age of adolescence, and continues in a
stage of childhood, mentally considered, until death.