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diff --git a/31296.txt b/31296.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c69ec43 --- /dev/null +++ b/31296.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7519 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ethnology of the British Colonies and +Dependencies, by Robert Gordon Latham + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies + +Author: Robert Gordon Latham + +Release Date: February 16, 2010 [EBook #31296] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ETHNOLOGY OF THE BRITISH COLONIES *** + + + + +Produced by Colin Bell, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + Archaic, dialect and variant spellings (including quoted proper + nouns) remain as printed, except where noted. Minor typographical + errors have been corrected without note; significant amendments have + been listed at the end of the text. + + Greek text has been transliterated and appears between {braces}. + + Non-standard characters have been transcribed as follows: + + [oe], oe ligature; + [=a], [=u], macron over _a_ or _u_; + [)a], breve over _a_; + ['s], acute accent over _s_. + + + + + THE + ETHNOLOGY + OF + THE BRITISH COLONIES + AND + DEPENDENCIES. + + BY + R. G. LATHAM, M.D., F.R.S., + CORRESPONDING MEMBER TO THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY, NEW YORK, + ETC. ETC. + + [Device] + + LONDON: + JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + M.DCCC.LI. + + + + + LONDON: + Printed by SAMUEL BENTLEY and CO., + Bangor House, Shoe Lane. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. + + DEPENDENCIES IN EUROPE. + PAGE + Heligoland and the Frisians.--Gibraltar and the Spanish Stock.-- + Malta.--The Ionian Islands.--The Channel Islands. 1 + + + CHAPTER II. + + DEPENDENCIES IN AFRICA. + + The Gambia Settlements.--Sierra Leone.--The Gold Coast.--The + Cape.--The Mauritius.--The Negroes of America. 34 + + + CHAPTER III. + + BRITISH COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES IN ASIA. + + Aden.--The Mongolian Variety.--The Monosyllabic Languages.--Hong + Kong.--The Tenasserim Provinces; Maulmein, Ye, Tavoy, Tenasserim, + the Mergui Archipelago.--The Mon, Siamese, Avans, Kariens, and + Silong.--Arakhan.--Mugs, Khyens.--Chittagong, Tippera, and + Sylhet.--Kuki.--Kasia.--Cachars.--Assam.--Nagas.--Singpho.--Jili. + --Khamti.--Mishimi.--Abors and Bor-Abors.--Dufla.--Aka.--Muttucks + and Miri, and other Tribes of the Valley of Assam.--The Garo.-- + Classification.--Mr. Brown's Tables.--The Bodo.--Dhimal.--Kocch. + --Lepchas of Sikkim.--Rawat of Kumaon.--Polyandria.--The Tamulian + Populations.--Rajmahali Mountaineers.--Kulis, Khonds, Goands, + Chenchwars.--Tudas, &c.--Bhils.--Waralis.--The Tamul, Telinga, + Kanara, and Malayalam Languages. 92 + + + CHAPTER IV. + + The Sanskrit Language.--Its Relations to certain Modern Languages + of India; to the Slavonic and Lithuanic of Europe.--Inferences.-- + Brahminism of the Puranas.--Of the Institutes of Menu.--Extract. + --Of the Vedas.--Extract.--Inferences.--The Hindus.--Sikhs.-- + Biluchi.--Afghans.--Wandering Tribes.--Miscellaneous Populations. + --Ceylon.--Buddhism.--Devil-worship.--Vaddahs. 150 + + + CHAPTER V. + + British Dependencies in the Malayan Peninsula.--The Oceanic Stock + and its Divisions.--The Malay, Semang, and Dyak Types.--The Orang + Binua.--Jakuns.--The Biduanda Kallang.--The Orang Sletar.--The + Sarawak Tribes.--The New Zealanders.--The Australians.--The + Tasmanians. 203 + + + CHAPTER VI. + + DEPENDENCIES IN AMERICA. + + The Athabaskans of the Hudson's Bay Country.--The Algonkin Stock. + --The Iroquois.--The Sioux.--Assineboins.--The Eskimo.--The + Koluch.--The Nehanni.--Digothi.--The Atsina.--Indians of British + Oregon, Quadra's and Vancouver's Island.--Haidah.--Chimsheyan.-- + Billichula.--Hailtsa.--Nutka.--Atna.--Kitunaha Indians.-- + Particular Algonkin Tribes.--The Nascopi.--The Bethuck.--Numerals + from Fitz-Hugh Sound.--The Moskito Indians.--South American + Indians of British Guiana.--Caribs.--Warows.--Wapisianas.-- + Tarumas.--Caribs of St. Vincent.--Trinidad. 224 + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The following pages represent a Course of Six Lectures delivered at the +Royal Institution, Manchester, in the months of February and March of +the present year; the matter being now laid before the public in a +somewhat fuller and more systematic form than was compatible with the +original delivery. + + + + + ETHNOLOGY + OF + THE BRITISH DEPENDENCIES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +DEPENDENCIES IN EUROPE. + + HELIGOLAND AND THE FRISIANS.--GIBRALTAR AND THE SPANISH + STOCK.--MALTA.--THE IONIAN ISLANDS.--THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. + + +_Heligoland._--We learn from a passage in the _Germania_ of Tacitus, +that certain tribes agreed with each other in the worship of a goddess +who was revered as _Earth the Mother_; that a sacred grove, in a sacred +island, was dedicated to her; and that, in that grove, there stood a +holy wagon, covered with a pall, and touched by the priest only. The +goddess herself was drawn by heifers; and as long as she vouchsafed her +presence among men, there was joy, and feasts, and hospitality; and +peace amongst otherwise fierce tribes instead of war and violence. After +a time, however, the goddess withdrew herself to her secret +temple--satiated with the converse of mankind; and then the wagon, the +pall, and the deity herself were bathed in the holy lake. The +administrant slaves were sucked up by its waters. There was terror and +there was ignorance; the reality being revealed to those alone who thus +suddenly passed from life to death. + +Now we know, by name at least, five of the tribes who are thus connected +by a common worship--mysterious and obscure as it is. They are the +Reudigni, the Aviones, the Eudoses, the Suardones, and the Nuithones. + +Two others we know by something more than name--the Varini and the +Langobardi. + +The eighth is our own parent stock--the _Angli_. + +Such is one of the earliest notices of the old creed of our German +forefathers; and, fragmentary and indefinite as it is, it is one of the +fullest which has reached us. I subjoin the original text, premising +that, instead of _Herthum_, certain MSS. read _Nerthum_. + +"----Langobardos paucitas nobilitat: plurimis ac valentissimis +nationibus cincti, non per obsequium sed pr[oe]liis et periclitando tuti +sunt. Reudigni deinde, et Aviones, et _Angli_, et Varini, et Eudoses, et +Suardones, et Nuithones, fluminibus aut silvis muniuntur: nec quidquam +notabile in singulis, nisi quod in commune Herthum, id est, Terram +matrem colunt, eamque intervenire rebus hominum, invehi populis, +arbitrantur. Est in insula Oceani Castum nemus, dicatumque in eo +vehiculum, veste contectum, attingere uni sacerdoti concessum. Is adesse +penetrali deam intelligit, vectamque bobus feminis multa cum veneratione +prosequitur. Laeti tunc dies, festa loca, quaecumque adventu hospitioque +dignatur. Non bella ineunt, non arma sumunt, clausum omne ferrum; pax et +quies tunc tantum nota, tunc tantum amata, donec idem sacerdos satiatam +conversatione mortalium deam templo reddat; mox vehiculum et vestes, et, +si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi ministrant, +quos statim idem lacus haurit. Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque +ignorantia, quid sit id, quod tantum perituri vident."--"De Moribus +Germanorum," 40. + +What connects the passage with the ethnology of Heligoland? Heligoland +is, probably, the _island of the Holy Grove_. Its present name indicates +this--_the holy land_. Its position in the main sea, or _Ocean_, does +the same. So does its vicinity to the country of Germans. + +At the same time it must not be concealed from the reader that the Isle +of Rugen, off the coast of Pomerania, has its claims. It is an +island--but not an island of the _Ocean_. It is full of religious +remains--but those remains are _Slavonic_ rather than _German_. + +I believe, for my own part, that the seat of the worship of _Earth the +Mother_, was the island which we are now considering. + +In respect to its inhabitants, it must serve as a slight text for a long +commentary. A population of about two thousand fishers; characterized, +like the ancient Venetians, by an utter absence of horses, mules, +ponies, asses, carts, wagons, or any of the ordinary applications of +animal power to the purposes of locomotion, confined to a small rock, +and but little interrupted with foreign elements, is, if considered in +respect to itself alone, no great subject for either the ethnologist or +the geographer. But what if its relations to the population of the +continent be remarkable? What if the source of its population be other +than that which, from the occupants of the nearest portion of the +continent, we are prepared to expect? In this case, the narrow area of +an isolated rock assumes an importance which its magnitude would never +have created. + +The nearest part of the opposite continent is German--Cuxhaven, Bremen, +and Hamburg, being all German towns. And what the towns are the country +is also--or nearly so. It is German--which Heligoland is _not_. + +The Heligolanders are no Germans, but _Frisians_. I have lying before me +the Heligoland version of _God save the Queen_. A Dutchman would +understand this, easier than a Low German, a Low German easier than an +Englishman, and (I _think_) an Englishman easier than a German of +Bavaria. The same applies to another sample of the Heligoland muse--_the +contented Heligolander's wife_ (_Dii tofreden Hjelgeluennerin_), a pretty +little song in Hettema's collection of Frisian poems; with which, +however, the native literature ends. There is plenty of Frisian verse in +general; but little enough of the particular Frisian of Heligoland. + +A difference like that between the Frisians of Heligoland and the +Germans of Hanover, is always suggestive of an ethnological alternative; +since it is a general rule, supported both by induction and common +sense, that, except under certain modifying circumstances, islands +derive their inhabitants from the nearest part of the nearest continent. +When, however, the populations differ, one of two views has to be taken. +Either some more distant point than the one which geographical proximity +suggests has supplied the original occupants, or a change has taken +place on the part of one or both of the populations since the period of +the original migration. + +Which has been the case here? The latter. The present Germans of the +coast between the Elbe and Weser are not the Germans who peopled +Heligoland, nor yet the descendants of them. Allied to them they are; +inasmuch as Germany is a wide country, and German a comprehensive term; +but they are not the same. The two peoples, though like, are different. + +Of what sort, then, were the men and women that the present Germans of +the Oldenburg and Hanoverian coast have displaced and superseded? Let us +investigate. Whoever rises from the perusal of those numerous notices of +the ancient Germans which we find in the classical writers, to the usual +tour of Rhenish Germany, will find a notable contrast between the +natives of that region as they _were_ and as they _are_. His mind may be +full of their _golden_ hair, expecting to find it _flaxen_ at least. +Blue and grey eyes, too, he will expect to preponderate over the black +and hazel. This is what he will have read about, and what he will _not_ +find--at least along the routine lines of travel. As little will there +be of massive muscularity in the limbs, and height in the stature. Has +the type changed, or have the old records been inaccurate? Has the wrong +part of Germany been described? or has the contrast between the Goth and +the Italian engendered an exaggeration of the differences? It is no part +of the present treatise to enter upon this question. It is enough to +indicate the difference between the actual German of the greater part of +Germany in respect to the colour of his hair, eyes, and skin, and the +epithets of the classical writers. + +But all is not bare from Dan to Beersheba. The German of the old +Germanic type is to be found if sought for. His locality, however, is +away from the more frequented parts of his country. Still it is the part +which Tacitus knew best, and which he more especially described. This is +the parts on the Lower rather than the Upper Rhine; and it is the parts +about the Ems and Weser rather than those of the Rhine at all--sacred as +is this latter stream to the patriotism of the Prussian and Suabian. It +is Lower rather than Upper Germany, Holland rather than Germany at all, +and Friesland rather than any of the other Dutch provinces. It is +Westphalia, and Oldenburg, as much, perhaps, as Friesland. The tract +thus identified extends far into the Cimbric Peninsula,--so that the +Jutlander, though a Dane in tongue, is a Low German in appearance. + +The preceding observations are by no means the present writer's, who has +no wish to be responsible for the apparent paradox that the _Germans in +Germany are not Germanic_. It is little more than a repetition of one of +Prichard's,[1] in which he is supported by both Niebuhr and the +Chevalier Bunsen. The former expressly states that the yellow or red +hair, blue eyes, and light complexion has now become uncommon, whilst +the latter has "often looked in vain for the auburn or golden locks and +the light cerulean eyes of the old Germans, and never verified the +picture given by the ancients of his countrymen, till he visited +Scandinavia; there he found himself surrounded by the Germans of +Tacitus." + +For _Scandinavia_, I would simply substitute the _fen districts of +Friesland, Oldenburg, Hanover, and Holstein_--all of them the old area +of the Frisian. + +Such is the physiognomy. What are the other peculiarities of the +Frisian? His language, his distribution, his history. + +The Frisian of Friesland, is not the Dutch of Holland; nor yet a mere +provincial dialect of it. Instead of the infinitive moods and plural +numbers ending in -_n_ as in Holland, the former end in -_a_, the latter +in -_ar_. And so they did when the language was first reduced to +writing,--which it has been for nearly a thousand years. So they did +when the laws of the Old Frisian republic were composed, and when the +so-called _Old_ Frisian was the language of the country. So they did in +the sixteenth century, when the popular poet, Gysbert Japicx, wrote in +the _Middle_ Frisian; and so they do now--when, under the auspices of +Postumus and Hettema, we have Frisian translations of Shakespeare's "As +You Like it," "Julius Caesar," and "Cymbeline." + +Now the oldest Frisian is older than the oldest Dutch; in other words, +of the two languages it was the former which was first reduced to +writing. Yet the doctrine that it is the mother-tongue of the Dutch, is +as inaccurate as the opposite notion of its being a mere provincial +dialect. I state this, because I doubt whether the Dutch forms in -_n_, +could well be evolved out of the Frisian in -_r_, or -_a_. The -_n_ +belongs to the older form,--which at one time was common to both +languages, but which in the Frisian became omitted as early as the tenth +century; whereas, in the Dutch, it remains up to the present day. + +If the Frisian differ from the Dutch, it differs still more from the +proper Low German dialects of Westphalia, Oldenburg, and Holstein; all +of which have the differential characteristics of the Dutch in a greater +degree than the Dutch itself. + +The closest likeness to the Frisian has ceased to exist as a language. +It has disappeared on the Continent. It has changed in the island which +adopted it. That island is Great Britain. + +No existing nation, as tested by its language, is so near the Angle of +England as the Frisian of Friesland. This, to the Englishman, is the +great element of its interest. + +The history of the Frisian Germans must begin with their present +distribution. They constitute the present agricultural population of the +province of Friesland; so that if Dutch be the language of the towns, it +is Frisian which we find in the villages and lone farm-houses. And this +is the case with that remarkable series of islands which runs like a row +of breakwaters from the Helder to the Weser, and serves as a front to +the continent behind them. Such are Ameland, Terschelling, Wangeroog, +and the others--each with its dialect or sub-dialect. + +But beyond this, the continuity of the range of language is broken. +Frisian is _not_ the present dialect of Groningen. Nor yet of Oldenburg +generally--though in one or two of the fenniest villages of that duchy a +remnant of it still continues to be spoken; and is known to philologists +and antiquarians as the _Saterland_ dialect. + +It was spoken in parts of East Friesland as late as the middle of the +last century--but only in parts; the Low German, or Platt-Deutsch, being +the current tongue of the districts around. + +It is spoken--as already stated--in Heligoland. + +And, lastly, it is spoken in an isolated locality as far north as the +Duchy of Sleswick, in the neighbourhood of Husum and Bredsted. + +It was these Frisians of Sleswick who alone, during the late struggle of +Denmark against Germany, looked upon the contest with the same +indifference as the frogs viewed the battles of the oxen. They were not +Germans to favour the aggressors from the South, nor Danes to feel the +patriotism of the Northmen. They were neither one nor the other--simply +Frisians, members of an isolated and disconnected brotherhood. + +The epithet _free_ originated with the Frisians of Friesland Proper, and +it has adhered to them. With their language they have preserved many of +their old laws and privileges, and from first to last, have always +contrived that the authority of the sovereigns of the Netherlands should +sit lightly on them. + +Nevertheless, they are a broken and disjointed population; inasmuch, as +the natural inference from their present distribution is the doctrine +that, at some earlier period, they were spread over the whole of the +sea-coast from Holland to Jutland, in other words, that they were the +oldest inhabitants of Friesland, Oldenburg, Lower Hanover, and Holstein. +If so, they must have been the _Frisii_ of Tacitus. No one doubts this. +They must also have been the _Chauci_ of that writer, the German form of +whose names, as we know from the oldest Anglo-Saxon poems, was _Hocing_. +This is not so universally admitted; nevertheless, it is difficult to +say who the Chauci were if they were not Frisians, or why we find +Frisians to the north of the Elbe, unless the population was at one time +continuous. + +When was this continuity disturbed? From the earliest times the +sea-coast of Germany seems to have been Frisian, and from the earliest +times the tribes of the interior seem to have moved from the inland +country towards the sea. Their faces were turned towards Britain; or, if +not towards Britain, towards France, or the Baltic. I believe, then, +that as early as 100 B.C. the displacement of some of the occupants of +the Frisian area had begun; this being an inference from the statement +of Caesar, that the Batavians of Holland were, in his own time, +considered to have been an immigrant population. From these Batavians +have come the present Dutch, and as the present Dutch differ from the +Frisians of A.D. 1851, so did their respective great ancestors in B.C. +100--there, or thereabouts. But the encroachment of the Dutch upon the +Frisian was but slow. The map tells us this. Just as in some parts of +Great Britain we have _Shiptons_ and _Charltons_, whereas in others the +form is _Skipton_ and _Carlton_; just as in Scotland they talk of the +_kirk_, and in England of the _church_;[2] and just as such differences +are explained by the difference of dialect on the part of the original +occupants, so do we see in Holland that certain places have the names in +a Dutch, and others in a Frisian form. The Dutch compounds of _man_ are +like the English, and end in -_n_. The Frisians never end so. They drop +the consonant, and end in -_a_; as _Hettema_, _Halberts-ma_, &c. +Again--all three languages--English, Dutch, and Frisian--have numerous +compounds of the word _ham_=_home_, as _Threekingham_, _Eastham_, +_Petersham_, &c. In English the form is what we have just seen. In +Holland the termination is -_hem_, as in _Arn-hem_, _Berg-hem_. In +Frisian the vowel is _u_, and the _h_ is omitted altogether, _e.g._, +_Dokk-um_, _Borst-um_, &c. + +Bearing this in mind, we may take up a map of the Netherlands. Nine +places out of ten in Friesland end in -_um_, and none in -_hem_. In +Groningen the proportion is less; and in Guelderland and Overijssel, it +is less still. Nevertheless, as far south as the Maas, and in parts of +the true Dutch Netherlands, where no approach to the Frisian language +can now be discovered, a certain per-centage of Frisian forms for +geographical localities occurs.[3] + +The remainder of the displacement of the Frisians was, most probably, +effected by the introduction of the Low Germans of the empire of +Charlemagne, into the present countries of Oldenburg and Hanover; and I +believe that the same series of conquests, which then broke up the +speakers of the Frisian, annihilated the Germanic representatives of the +Anglo-Saxons of England; since it is an undeniable fact that of the +numerous dialects of the country called Lower Saxony, all (with the +exception of the Frisian) are forms of the Platt-Deutsch, and none of +them descendants of the Anglo-Saxon. Hence, as far as the language +represents the descent, whatever we Anglo-Saxons may be in Great +Britain, America, Hindostan, Australia, New Zealand, or Africa, we are +the least of our kith and kin in Germany. And we can afford to be so. +Otherwise, if we were a petty people, and given to ethnological +sentimentality, we might talk about the Franks of Charlemagne, as the +Celts talk of us; for, without doubt, the same Franks either +exterminated or denationalized us in the land of our birth, and +displaced the language of Alfred and AElfric in the country upon which it +first reflected a literature. + +There are no absolute descendants of the ancestors of the English in +their ancestral country of Germany; the Germans that eliminated them +being but step-brothers at best. But there is something of the sort. The +conquest that destroyed the Angles, broke up the Frisians. Each shared +each other's ruin. This gives the common bond of misfortune. But there +is more than this. It is quite safe to say that the Saxons and +Frisians[4] were closely--_very_ closely--connected in respect to all +the great elements of ethnological affinity--language, traditions, +geographical position, history. Nor is this confined to mere +generalities. The opinion, first, I believe, indicated by Archbishop +Usher, and recommended to further consideration by Mr. Kemble, that the +Frisians took an important part in the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Great +Britain is gaining ground. True, indeed, it is that the current texts +from Beda and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle make no mention of them. They +speak only of Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. And true it is, that no +provincial dialect has been discovered in England which stands in the +same contrast to the languages of the parts about it, as the Frisian +does to the Dutch and Low German. Yet it is also true that, according to +some traditions, Hengist was a Frisian hero. And it is equally true +that, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we find more than one incidental +mention of Frisians in England--their presence being noticed as a matter +of course, and without any reference to their introduction. This is +shown in the following extract:--"That same year, the armies from among +the East-Anglians, and from among the North-Humbrians, harassed the land +of the West-Saxons chiefly, most of all by their _aescs_, which they had +built many years before. Then King Alfred commanded long ships to be +built to oppose the aescs; they were full-nigh twice as long as the +others; some had sixty oars, and some had more; they were both swifter +and steadier, and also higher than the others. They were shapen neither +like the Frisian nor the Danish, but so as it seemed to him that they +would be most efficient. Then some time in the same year, there came six +ships to Wight, and there did much harm, as well as in Devon, and +elsewhere along the sea-coast. Then the king commanded nine of the new +ships to go thither, and they obstructed their passage from the port +towards the outer sea. Then went they with three of their ships out +against them; and three lay in the upper part of the port in the dry; +the men were gone from them ashore. Then took they two of the three +ships at the outer part of the port, and killed the men, and the other +ship escaped; in that also the men were killed except five; they got +away because the other ships were aground. They also were aground very +disadvantageously, three lay aground on that side of the deep on which +the Danish ships were aground, and all the rest upon the other side, so +that no one of them could get to the others. But when the water had +ebbed many furlongs from the ships, the Danish men went from their three +ships to the other three which were left by the tide on their side, and +then they there fought against them. There was slain Lucumon the king's +reeve, and Wulfheard the Frisian, and AEbbe the Frisian, and AEthelhere +the Frisian, and AEthelferth the king's _geneat_, and of all the men, +Frisians and English, seventy-two; and of the Danish men one hundred and +twenty." + +Lastly, we have the evidence of Procopius that "three numerous nations +inhabit Britain,--the Angles, the Frisians, and the Britons."[5] + +Whatever interpretation we may put upon the preceding extracts, it is +certain that the Frisians are the nearest German representatives of our +Germanic ancestors; whilst it is not uninteresting to find that the +little island of Heligoland, is the only part of the British Empire +where the ethnological and political relations coincide. + +_Gibraltar._--This isolated possession serves as a text for the +ethnology of Spain; and there is no country wherein the investigation is +more difficult. + +It is difficult, if we look at the analysis of the present population, +and attempt to ascertain the proportion of its different ingredients. +There is Moorish blood, and there is Gothic, Roman, and Ph[oe]nician; +some little Greek, and, older than any, the primitive and original +Iberic. Perhaps, too, there is a Celtic element,--at least such is the +inference from the term _Celtiberian_. Yet it is doubtful whether it be +a true one; and, even if it be, there still stands over the question +whether the _Celtic_ or the _Iberic_ element be the older. + +When this is settled, the hardest problem of all remains behind; _viz._, +the ethnological position of the Iberians. What they were, in +themselves, we partially know from history; and what their descendants +are we know also from their language. But we only know them as an +isolated branch of the human species. Their _relation_ to the +neighbouring families is a mystery. Reasons may be given for connecting +them with the Celts of Gaul; reasons for connecting them with the +Africans of the other side of the Straits; and reasons for connecting +them with tribes and families so distant in place, and so different in +manners as the Finns of Finland, and the Laps of Lapland. Nay +more,--affinities have been found between their language and the Hebrew, +Arabic, and Syriac; between it and the Georgian; between it and half the +tongues of the Old World. Even in the forms of speech of America, +_analogies_ have been either found or fancied. + +Be this, however, as it may, the oldest inhabitants of the Spanish +peninsula were the different tribes of the Iberians proper, and the +Celtiberians; the first being the most easily disposed of. They it was, +whose country was partially colonized by Ph[oe]nician colonists; either +directly from Tyre and Sidon, or indirectly from Carthage. They it was +who, at a somewhat later period, came in contact with the Greeks of +Marseilles and their own town of _Emporia_. They it was who could not +fail to receive some intermixture of African blood; whether it were from +Africans crossing over on their own account, or from the Libyans, +Gaetulians, and Mauritanians of the Carthaginian levies. + +And now the great western peninsula becomes the battle-ground for Rome +and Carthage; the theatre of the Scipios on the one side, and the great +family of the Barcas on the other. On Iberian ground does Hannibal swear +his deadly and undying enmity to Rome. At this time, the numerous +primitive tribes of Spain may boast a civilization equal to that of the +most favoured spots of the earth,--Greece, and the parts between the +Nile, the Euphrates and the Mediterranean alone being excepted. As +tested by their agricultural mode of life, their commercial and mining +industry, their susceptibility of discipline as soldiers, and, above +all, by the size and number of their cities, the Iberian of Spain is on +the same level with the Celt of Gaul, and the Celt of Gaul on that of +the Italian of Italy,--_i.e._, _as far as the civilization of the latter +is his own, and not of Greek origin_. But this is a point of European +rather than Spanish ethnology. + +That the obstinate spirit of resistance to organized armies by means of +a _guerilla_ warfare, the savage patriotism which suggests such +expressions as _war even to the knife_, and the endurance behind stone +walls, which characterizes the modern Spaniards, is foreshadowed in the +times of their earliest history, has often been remarked, and that +truly. Numantia is an early Saragossa, Saragossa a modern Numantia. +Viriathus has had innumerable counterparts. Where the indomitable +Cantabrian held out against the power of Rome, the Biscayan of the year +1851 adheres to his privileges and his language; and what the Cantabrian +was to the Roman, the Asturian was to the Moor. Both trusted their +freedom to their impracticable mountains and stubborn spirits--and kept +it accordingly. It is an easy matter to refer the peculiarities of the +Spanish character to the infusion of Oriental blood; and with some of +them it may be the case. But with many of them, the reference is a false +one. Half the Spanish character was Iberic and Lusitanian before either +Jew or Saracen had seen the Rock of Gibraltar. + +Of the early Spanish religion, we know but little. A remarkable passage +in Strabo speaks to their literature. They had an _alphabet_. This is +known from coins and inscriptions. And it was of foreign origin--Greek +or Ph[oe]nician. This nothing but the most inconsiderate and uncritical +patriotism can deny. Denied, however, it has been; and the indigenous +and independent evolution of an alphabet has been claimed; the +particular tribe to which it has more especially been ascribed being the +_Turdetani_. These--and the passage I am about to quote is the passage +of Strabo just alluded to--are "put forward as the wisest of the Iberi, +and they have the use of letters; and they have records of ancient +history, and poems, and metrical laws for six thousand years--as they +say."[6] + +Now, whatever may be the doubts implied by the last three words of this +extract, the evidence is to the effect that the old Iberians were a +lettered nation; the antiquity of their civilization being another +question. To modify our scepticism on the point, the text has been +tampered with, and it has been proposed to read _poems_ ({epon}) instead +of years ({eton}). The change, to be sure, is slight enough--that of a +single letter--from _p_ ({p}) to _t_ ({t}); nevertheless, as it is more +than cautious criticism will allow, the reading must stand as it is, and +the claim of the Turdetanians must be for a literature nearly as old as +the supposed age of the world in the current century,--a long date, and +a date which would be improbable, even if we divided it by twelve, and +rendered {etos} by _month_ instead of _year_. It denotes either some +shorter period (perhaps a day) or nothing at all. + +So much for the Iberians; of which the Lusitanians of Portugal were a +branch; and of which there were several divisions and subdivisions +involving considerable varieties both of manners and language. In +respect to the latter there is the special evidence of Strabo that their +tongues and alphabets differed. And so did their mythologies. The +Callaici had the reputation of being _atheists_; whilst the Celtiberi +worshipped an anonymous God,[7] at the full of the moon, with feasts and +dances. + +But who were the Celtiberi? I have already said that there were +difficulties upon this point. The name makes them a mixed people; half +Celt and half Iberic. If so, the French influence in the Spanish +Peninsula was as great in the time of Hannibal, as it was wished to be +in the time of Louis XIV. + +With the exception of Niebuhr, the chief authorities have considered the +Iberi as the aborigines, and the Celts as emigrants from Gaul. To this, +however, Niebuhr took exceptions. He considered the warlike character of +the Iberians; and this made him unwilling to think that any invader from +the north had displaced them. And he considered the geographical +_distribution_ of the Celtiberi. This was not in the fertile plains nor +along the banks of fertilizing rivers, nor yet in the districts of the +golden corn and the precious wool of Hispania, but in the rougher +mountain tracts, in the quarters whereto an aboriginal inhabitant would +be more likely to retire, than an invading conqueror to covet, I admit +the difficulty implied in his objection; but I admit it only as a +_presumption_--against which there is a decided preponderance of +material facts. + +In the first place, there are the oldest names of the geographical +localities throughout Spain. These, as shown by the well-known monograph +of Humboldt, are _not_ Celtic, and are _Iberic_. + +In the next place, the Celtic frontier was by no means so near the +geographical boundary of the Peninsula as it is often supposed to have +been. Instead of the Celtic of Gaul reaching the Pyrenees, the Iberic of +Spain reached the Loire--so that the province of Aquitania, although +Gallic in politics, was Iberic in ethnology. This, again, is shown by +Humboldt. + +For my own part, instead of discussing the relation of the Celts of +Celtiberia to the other inhabitants of Spain, I would open a new +question, and investigate the grounds upon which we believe in an +intermixture at all. Whatever respect we may pay to the statements of +the classical writers, the _name_ itself is not conclusive; since it +would be just as likely to be given from an approach on the part of an +Iberic population to the Celtic manners, or from the adoption of any +_supposed_ Celtic characteristic, as from absolute ethnological +intermixture. Like modern observers, the ancient writers were too fond +of gratuitously assuming an intermixture of blood for the explanation +of the results of common physical or social conditions. Hence--without +pressing my opinion on the reader--I confine myself to an expression of +doubt as to the existence of Celts amongst the Celtiberi _at all_. + +But this only simplifies the question as to the ethnological position of +the Iberic variety of the human species. It does not even suggest an +answer. They were the aborigines of Spain. They are the ancestors of the +present Biscayans. Their tongue survives in the north-west provinces of +Spain, and in the north-east corner of France. It _has no recognized +affinity with any known tongue; and it has undeniable points of contrast +with all the languages of the countries around._ + +Yet it is only by means of the Basque language that the problem can be +attempted. The physical conformation of the still extant Iberians, has +nothing definitely characteristic about it. The ancient mythology has +died away. The tribes most immediately allied have ceased to be other +than unmixed. So the language alone remains--and that has yet to find +its interpreter. + +An Iberic basis--Greek, Ph[oe]nician, and Mauritanian +intermixtures--possibly a Celtic element--Roman sufficient to change the +language through four-fifths of the Peninsula--Gothic blood introduced +by the followers of Euric--Arabian influences, second in importance to +those of Rome only--such is the analysis of ethnological elements of the +Spanish stock. The proportions, of course, differ in different parts of +the Peninsula, and, although they are nowhere ascertained, it is +reasonable to suppose that the Arab blood increases as we go southwards, +and the Gothic and Iberic as we approach the Pyrenees. This makes +Gibraltar the most Moorish part of Europe; and such I believe it to be. + +_Malta._--When we have subtracted the English, Italians, Greeks, and +other nations of the Levant from the population of Malta, there still +remain the primitive islanders, with their peculiar language. + +Now this language is a form of the Arabic; and, with the exception of +some of the dialects of Syria, it is the only instance of that language +in the mouth of a Christian population. So thoroughly are the language +and the religion of the Koran co-extensive. + +At what period this tongue found its way to Malta is undetermined. As +compared with any of the present languages of the island it is +_ancient_. But it is not certain that, though old, it is the earliest. +Carthaginians may have preceded the Arabs; Greeks the Carthaginians; +and, possibly, Sicanians, or the earliest occupants of Sicily, the +Greeks. I am unable, however, to carry my reader beyond the simple fact +of the _language being Arabic_. + +The only other Arabic dependency of Great Britain is Aden.[8] + +_The Ionian Islands._--The reader may have remarked the peculiar +character of European ethnology. It consists chiefly in the _analysis_ +of the component parts of particular populations; and this it +investigates so exclusively as to leave no room for the description of +manners, customs, physiognomy, and the like--paramount in importance as +these matters are when we come to the other quarters of the world. There +are two reasons for this difference. First--the peculiarities of the +European nations are by no means of the same extent and character with +those of the ruder families of mankind. A similar civilization, and a +similar religion, have effected a remarkable amount of uniformity; and, +hence, the differences are those that the historian deals with more +appropriately than the ethnologist. Secondly--such external and palpable +differences as exist are generally known and appreciated. The +_analysis_ of blood, or stock, which, partially, accounts for them, is +less completely understood. + +Hence, in treating of the Maltese, there was no description of the +Arabic stock at all. All that was stated was a reason for believing that +the Maltese belonged to it. Such also, to a great degree, was the case +with the Gibraltar population, and the Heligolanders. And such will be +the case with the Ionian Islanders. It will not be thought necessary to +enlarge upon the Greeks; it will only be requisite to ask how far the +group in question is Grecian. + +The very oldest population of the Ionian Islands I believe to have been +_barbarous_--a term which, in the present classical localities, is +convenient. + +In the smaller islands, such as Ithaca and Zacynthus, the population had +become Hellenized at the time of the composition of the Homeric poems. +In Corcyra, on the other hand, the original barbarism lasted longer. +Such, at least, is the way in which I interpret the passages in the +Odyssey concerning the Phaeacians (who were certainly not Greek), and the +later language of Thucydides respecting the relations of the Corinthian +colonies of Epidamnus, and Corcyra. The whole context leads to the +belief that, originally, the {apoikoi} were Greeks in contact with a +population which was _not_ Greek. + +In respect to the stock to which these early and ante-Hellenic +islanders belonged, the presumption is in favour of its having been the +Illyrian; a stock known only in its probable remains--the Skipitar +(Albanians, or Arnaouts) of Albania. + +Time, however, made them all equally Hellenic, a result which was, +probably, completed before the decline of Greek independence; since +which epoch there have been the following elements of intermixture:-- + +1. Albanian blood, from the opposite coast. + +2. Slavonic, from Dalmatia. + +3. Italian, from Italy. + +4. Turk--I have no pretence to the minute ethnological knowledge which +would enable me even to guess at the proportions. + +Upon the whole, however, I believe the Ionian islanders to be what their +language represents them--Greek. At the same time they are Greeks of an +exceedingly mixed blood.[9] + +Again--of the foreign elements I imagine the Italian to be the chief. +This, however, is an impression rather than a matured opinion. + +The Slavonic element, too, is likely to be considerable. The Byzantine +historians speak of numerous and permanent settlements, during the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries, both in Thessaly, and in the Morea; +statements which the frequency of Slavonic names for Greek geographical +localities confirms.[10] Neither, however, outweighs the undoubted +Hellenic character of the language, which is still the representative of +the great medium of the fathers of literature and philosophy. + +_The Channel Islands._--As Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark, are no +parts of Great Britain, and are, nevertheless, European, I make a brief +mention of them; although they are neither colonies nor dependencies: +indeed, in strict history, Great Britain is a dependency of theirs. + +They are _Norman_ rather than _French_, and the illustration of this +distinction, which will re-appear when we come to the Canadas--concludes +the chapter. + +The _earliest_ population of France was twofold--Celtic for the north, +Iberic for the south. + +Its _second_ population was Roman. + +Its language is Roman--all that remains of the old tongues of the tribes +which Caesar conquered being (1) certain words in the present French, +(2) the Breton of Brittany, which is closely akin to the Welsh Celtic, +and (3) the Basque dialects of Gascony, which is Iberic. + +Now whether the old Gallic blood be as fully displaced by that of the +Roman conquerors, as the old Gallic language has been displaced by the +Latin is uncertain. It is only certain that the old and indigenous +elements of the French nation, however indeterminate in amount--were not +of a uniform character, _i.e._, neither wholly Celtic, nor wholly +Iberic; but Celtic for one part of the country, and Iberic for another. + +The ancient tribes of Normandy were _Celtic_. Hence, when the third +element of the present Norman population was introduced, all that was +not Italian was Welsh--just as it was in Picardy and Orleans, and just +as it was _not_ in Gascony and Poitou. _There_ the old element was +Iberic. + +The _third element_--just alluded to--was Germanic; Germanic of +different kinds, but chiefly Frank or Burgundian. + +The _fourth_ great element was the Norse or Scandinavian; introduced by +the so-called _Sea-kings_ of Denmark and Norway in the ninth and tenth +centuries. These, as the empire of Charlemagne declined, insulted and +dismembered it. They converted Neustria in _Normandy_=_the country of +the Northmen_. The exact amount of their influence has not been +ascertained; nor is the investigation easy. The process, however, by +which we measured the original extent of the Frisian area is applicable +to that of the Northmen. There are Norse names for French localities. Of +these the most important are the compounds of -_tot_, -_fleur_, and +-_bec_; like Yve-_tot_, Har-_fleur_, and Caude-_bec_. + + FRENCH. NORSE. ENGLISH. + + -tot toft _village_. + -fleur floet _stream_. + -bec beck _brook_.[11] + +Names of places thus ending are almost exclusively limited to Normandy; +occurring, even there, most numerously within a few miles of either the +sea or the Seine. + +Furthermore, there is a fresh element suggested by a term of the +"Notitia Utriusque Imperii," a document of the latter end of the fourth +century. This is _Litus Saxonicum per Britannias_, a tract extending +from the Wash to Portsmouth. Now the opposite shore of the continent was +a _litus Saxonicum_ also; within which lay Normandy. I believe that +these Saxons were part of the same branch of Germans which invaded +England; in other words, that portions of France, like portions of +England, were _Anglicized_; the two processes differing in respect to +their extent and duration. What was general and permanent on the +island, was partial and temporary on the continent. That there were +Saxons at Bayeux in the tenth century is asserted by express evidence. + +Taking in the account the preceding invasions, and remembering that, +both from Germany and Italy, Normandy is one of the most distant of the +French provinces, we arrive at the following analysis. + +The Channel Islanders are what the Normans are. + +The Normans are Romanized Celts; the Roman element being somewhat less +than it is elsewhere. + +The Frank and Burgundian elements are also less. + +But a Saxon element is greater. + +And a Norse element is pre-eminently Norman. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "Natural History of Man," p. 197. + +[2] The form in _c_ and _sk_ (_Skipton_ and _Carlton_) being of Danish, +whilst those in _ch_ and _sh_ are of Anglo-Saxon origin.--_See_ +"Quarterly Review," No. CLXIV. + +[3] The details of this investigation are given in full in the present +writer's "Taciti Germania with Ethnological notes," now in course of +publication. + +[4] I include in this term the so-called old Saxons of Westphalia. + +[5] The original passage is as follows:--"{Brittian de ten neson ethne +tria polyanthropotata echousi, basileus te heis auton hekasto +ephesteken, onomata de keitai tois ethnesi toutois Angiloi te kai +Phrissones kai hoi te neso homonymoi Brittones. Tosaute de he tonde ton +ethnon polyanthropia phainetai ousa hoste ana pan etos kata pollous +enthende metanistamenoi xyn gynaixi kai paisin es Phrangous +chorousin.}"--Procop. B. G. iv. 20. + +Reasons which have induced me to go farther than any previous writer in +respect to the importance of the Frisian element in the Anglo-Saxon +invasion, and to believe that instead of _Saxon_ being a native German +name for any portion of the Germanic population, it was only a Celtic +and Roman term for the Germans of the sea-coast, and (amongst these) for +the Frisians most especially, are given, at large, in my ethnological +edition of the "Germania of Tacitus." + +[6] {Sophotatoi d' exetazontai ton Iberon houtoi, kai grammatike +chrontai; kai tes palaias mnemes echousi ta syngrammata, kai poiemata +kai nomous emmetrous hexakischilion eton, hos phasi.} + +[7] This was probably the case with the Callaici. + +[8] The famous Knighthood of Malta--_without fear_, but (though, +perhaps, the best of its class) not _without reproach_, has no place +here. Its ethnology belongs to the different countries which it +dignified by its valour, or dishonoured by its profligacy. + +[9] This I believe to have been the case with the ancient Greeks also; +though the proof would require an elaborate monograph. + +[10] The two together have led to a doctrine which has been best +developed by Fallmerayer. It is this--_that the modern Greeks are +Sclavonians_. The Russian school are the chief believers of this. In the +few countries where ethnology is scientific rather than political, the +more moderate opinion of the modern Greeks being a mixed stock prevails. + +[11] Or _beck_. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +DEPENDENCIES IN AFRICA. + + THE GAMBIA SETTLEMENTS.--SIERRA LEONE.--THE GOLD COAST.--THE + CAPE.--THE MAURITIUS.--THE NEGROES OF AMERICA. + + +_The Gambia._--All our settlements on the Gambia are in the Mandingo +country. + +Of all the true and unequivocal Negroes, the Mandingos are the most +civilized; the basis of their civilization being Arab, and their +religion that of the Koran. Hence, they have priests, or Marabouts, the +use of the Arabic alphabet, and a monotheistic creed. + +Of all the Negroes, too, the Mandingos are the most commercial, not as +mere slave-dealers, but as truly industrial merchants. + +Of all the families of the African stock, with the exception of the +Kaffres, the Mandingo is the most widely spread. It also falls into +numerous divisions and subdivisions. Hence the term has a twofold power. +Sometimes it is a generic name for a large group; sometimes the +designation of a particular section of that group. The Mandingos of the +Lower Gambia are Mandingos in the restricted meaning of the word. + +For the Mandingo tribes, when we use the term in a general sense, the +most convenient classification is into the _Mahometan_ and the _Pagan_. +That this division should exist is natural; since, with the exception of +the Wolofs, the Mandingos are the most northern of all the western +Negroes, and, consequently, those who are most in contact with the +Mahometan Arabs, and the equally Mahometan Kabyles of Barbary and the +Great Desert,--a fact sufficient to account for the monotheistic creeds +of the northern tribes. + +As for the Paganism of the others, we must remember how far southwards +and inland the same great stock extends--indefinitely towards the +interior, and as far as the back of the Ashanti country, in the +direction of the equator. + +This prepares us for finding Mandingos at our next settlement. + +_Sierra Leone._--The native populations which encircle this settlement +are two--the _Timmani_ towards the north, and _Bullom_ towards the +south. + +Both are Negroes of the most typical kind, in respect to their physical +conformation. + +Both are Pagans. + +Both speak what seem to be mutually unintelligible languages, but which +have an undoubted relationship to each other, and to the numerous +Mandingo dialects as well. It is this which induces me to place them in +the same section with the more civilized Africans of the Gambia. + +It is safe to say that they are amongst the rudest members of the stock; +indeed it is only in the eyes of the etymologist that they are Mandingo +at all. Practically, they, and several tribes like them, are Mandingo, +in the way that a wolf is a dog, or a goat a sheep. + +The Bullom and Timmani are the frontagers to Sierra Leone; and it was +with Bullom and Timmani potentates that the land of the settlement was +bargained for. The settlers themselves are of different origin. Mixed +beyond all other populations of Africa, the occupants of Free Town are +in the same category with the Negroes of Jamaica and St. Domingo; +concerning whom we can only predicate that they have dark skins, and +that they come from Africa. The analysis of their several origins, and +their distribution amongst the separate branches of the African family, +would be one of the most difficult feats in minute ethnology; and this +would be but a fraction of the investigation. When the several countries +which supplied the several victims of the slave-trade had been +ascertained, the complicated question of _intermixture_ would stand +over; and there we should find lineages of every degree of +hybridism--children, whose ancestors originated on different sides of +Africa, themselves the parents of a lighter-coloured offspring, the +effect of European intercourse. + +At present it is sufficient to state that the nucleus of the Free Town +population consists of what is called the _Maroon_ Negroes. These were +slaves of Jamaica, who, having recovered their freedom during the +Spanish dominion in the island, were removed, by the English, in the +first instance to Nova Scotia, and afterwards to their present locality. + +Round this has collected an equally miscellaneous population of rescued +slaves; and, besides these, there are immigrants, labourers, and +barterers from all the neighbouring parts of the Continent--Krumen more +especially. + +A writer who, when we come to the Negroes of the Gold Coast, will be +freely quoted, calls the Krumen the _Scotchmen_ of Africa, since, with +unusual industry, enterprise, and perseverance, they leave, without +reluctance, their own country to push their fortunes wherever they can +find a wider field. They are ready for any employment which may enable +them to increase their means, and ensure a return to their own country +in a state of improved prosperity. There the Kruman's ambition is to +purchase one or two head of cattle, and one or two head of wives, to +enjoy the luxuries of rum and tobacco, and pass the remainder of his +days as + + "A gentleman of Africa who sits at home at ease." + +Half the Africans that we see in Liverpool are Krumen, who have left +their own country when young, and taken employment on board a ship, +where they exhibit a natural aptitude for the sea. Without being nice as +to the destination of the vessel in which they engage, they return home +as soon as they can; and rarely or never contract matrimony before their +return. In Cape Coast Town, as well as in Sierra Leone, they form a +bachelor community--quiet and orderly; and in that respect stand in +strong contrast to the other tribes around them. Besides which, with all +their blackness, and all their typical Negro character, they are +distinguishable from most other western Africans; having the advantage +of them in make, features, and industry. + +A Kruman is pre-eminently the _free labourer_ of Africa. In the slave +trade he has engaged less than any of his neighbours, attaches himself +readily to the whites, and, in his native country, as well as in Sierra +Leone, Coast Town, and other places of his temporary denizenship, is +quick of perception and amenable to instruction. His language is the +_Grebo_ tongue, and it has been reduced to writing by the American +missionaries of Cape Palmas. It has decided affinities with those of +the Mandingo tongues to the north, the Fanti dialects of the Gold Coast, +and, in all probability, still closer ones with those of the Ivory +coast. These last, however, are but imperfectly known; indeed, a single +vocabulary of the _Avekvom_ language, in the "American Oriental +Journal," furnishes nine-tenths of our philological data for the parts +between Cape Palmas and Cape Apollonia. + +The best measure of the heterogeneousness of the Sierra Leone population +is to be found in Mrs. Kilham's vocabularies. That lady collected, at +Free Town, specimens of thirty-one African tongues, from Negroes then +and there resident. Of these-- + +A. Eight belonged to the Mandingo group, _viz._, Mandingo Proper, Susu, +Bambara, Kossa, Pessa, Kissi, Bullom, and Timmani. + +B. Two were dialects of the Grebo (Kru): the Kru, and the Bassa. + +C. Two were Fanti: the Fanti and the Ashanti, closely allied dialects. + +D. Two were Dahoman: the Fot, and the Popo. + +E. Two Benin: the Benin Proper, and the Moko, languages of a tract but +little known. + +F. One Wolof, from the Senegal. + +G. Eight from the parts between the rivers Formosa and Loango, _viz._, +the Bongo, the Ako, the Ibu, the Rungo, the Akuonga, the Karaba, the +Uobo, the Kouri. + +H. One from the river Kongo, _i.e._, the Kongo properly so-called. + +I. Two from the Lower Niger, but, still separated from the coast--the +Tapua (Nufi) and Appa. + +K. Three from the widely-spread nations of the interior--the Fulah, the +Haussa, and the Bornu. + +I do not say that all Mrs. Kilham's specimens represent mutually +unintelligible tongues; probably they do not. At the same time, as +several decidedly different languages are omitted, the list understates, +rather than exaggerates, the number of the divisions and subdivisions of +the western African populations, as inferred from the divisions and +subdivisions of the language. + +Thus, no samples are given of the-- + +1. _Sereres._--Pastoral tribes about Cape Verde. + +2. _Serawolli._--On the Middle Senegal, different, in many respects, +from the Sereres, the Wolofs, and the Fulahs; nations with which they +are in geographical contact. + +3. _The Feloops._--Between the Gambia and Cacheo, along the coast. + +4. _The Papels._--South of the Cacheo; and also coastmen. + +5. _The Balantes._--Coast-men to the south of the Papels. + +6. _The Bagnon._--Conterminous with the Feloops of the river Cacheo. + +7. _The Bissago._--Fierce occupants of the islands so-called. + +8. _The Naloos._--On the Nun and river Grande. + +9. _The Sapi._--Conterminous with the Naloo, and like all the preceding +tribes, from the Feloops downwards, pre-eminently rude, fierce, +intractable, and imperfectly known. + +Southward, the unrepresented languages are equally numerous--especially +for the Ivory Coast, and for the Delta of the Niger. Of these I shall +only notice one--the Vey. + +The settlement with which the tribes speaking the Vey language is in +contact is one of which the tongue is English, but not the political +relations. It is the American free Negro settlement of Liberia. + +In the Vey language, it had been known for some time to the American +missionaries, that there were _written books_, a fact not likely to be +undervalued by those who felt warmly on the social and civilizational +prospects of the coloured divisions of our species. One of these books +was discovered by Lieutenant Forbes, of H.M.S. the Bonetta; local +inquiry was further made by the Rev. W. S. Koelle; and the MS. was +critically analyzed by Mr. Norris, of the Asiatic Society.[12] + +The phenomenon, if properly measured, is by no means a very significant +one; since, although the Vey alphabet, the invention of a man now +living, so far differs from the Mandingo, as to be spelt by the +_syllable_ rather than the _letter_, it is anything but an independent +creation of the Negro brain. Doala Bukara, its composer, an imperfect +Mahometan, had seen Mahometan books, and, although he was no Christian, +had seen an English Bible also. He knew, then, what spelling or writing +was. He knew, too, the phonetic analysis of the Mandingo, a tongue +closely allied to his own. And this is nine parts out of ten in the +so-called invention of alphabets. + +The true claims of Doala, in this way, are those of the phonetic +reformers in England, as compared with those of Toth or Cadmus--real but +moderate. His own account of the matter, as he gave it to Mr. Koelle, +was, that the fact of sounds being _written_, haunted him in a dream, +wherein he was shown a series of signs adapted to his native tongue. +These he forgot in the morning; but remembered the impression. So he +consulted his friends; and they and he, laying their heads together, +coined new ones. The king of the country made its introduction a matter +of state, and built a large house in Dshondu, as a day-school. But a +war with the Guru people disturbed both the learners and teachers, so +that the latter removed to Bandakoro, where all grown-up people, of both +sexes, can now read and write. + +This alphabet is a _syllabarium_. + +The books written in it are essentially Mahometan; the Koran appearing +in them much in the same way as the Bible appears in the more degenerate +legends of the middle ages. + +How far the Vey alphabet will be an instrument of civilization, is a +difficult question. For my own part, I half regret its evolution; since +the Arabic that served for the Mandingo, would have served for the Vey +as well--or if not the Arabic, the English. + +As a measure of African capacity it is of some value; and in this +respect, it speaks for the Negro just as the Cherokee alphabet speaks +for the American Indian. This latter was invented by a native named +Sequoyah. Like Doala, he knew what reading was. Like Doala, too, he had +a language adapted to a _syllabarium_. Hence, both the Vey and the +Cherokee, the two latest coinages in the way of alphabets, are both +syllabic. + +We now move southwards to the-- + +_Gold Coast Settlements._--The climate of Western Africa requires +notice. It suits the native, but destroys the European. Of the two +settlements, already mentioned, the Gambia is the most deadly; though +Sierra Leone has the worst name. _Both_ are on the coast; both, +consequently, on the lower courses of the rivers, and both on low +levels. The import of these remarks applies to the Negroes of America. +At present, it ushers in a brief notice of the climate of the Gold +Coast; this district being chosen for the purpose of description because +it makes the nearest approach to the equator of any English settlement +in Africa. Consequently, it may serve as a typical sample of the +malarious parts of the coast in question. + +From April till August is the rainy season, which gradually passes into +the dry; heavy fogs forming during the transition. These last till the +end of September. Occasional showers, too, continue till November. Then +the weather becomes really clear and dry, until, towards the end of +January, the dry parching wind, called the Harmattan, sets in, with its +over-stimulant action upon the human system, and clouds of penetrating +impalpable sand. If this is not blowing, the atmosphere is loaded with +moisture; and this it is, combined with the heat of an intertropical +sun, and the effluvia engendered by the decay of an over-luxuriant +vegetation, which makes Western Africa the white man's grave. Not that +the soil, even on the coast, is always swampy and alluvial. About Cape +Coast it is rocky and undulating. Still, it is inordinately wooded, as +well as full of spots where water accumulates and exhalations multiply. +Yet the thermometer ranges between 78 deg. and 86 deg. Fahrenheit--a low +_maximum_ for the neighbourhood of the equator; a high one, however, to +feel cold in. Nevertheless, such is the case. "From this peculiarity of +the atmosphere, the sensations of an individual almost invariably +indicate a degree of _cold_, especially when sitting in a room, or not +taking bodily exercise; so that, to ensure a feeling of comfortable +warmth, it becomes necessary to dress in a thicker material than what is +usually considered best adapted for tropical wear, and to have a fire +lighted in one's bedroom for some time before one retires to rest."[13] + +The chief Africans of these parts--and we now approach the great +_officina servorum_--alone tolerant of the heats, and droughts, and +rains, and exhalations are-- + +1. The Fantis. + +2. The Ghans. + +3. The Avekvom (?) + +A. _The Fantis._--Of the true natives of the country these are the +chief. + +The term _Fanti_, like the term _Mandingo_, has a double sense--a +general and a specific signification. + +The particular population of the parts about Cape Coast is Fanti in the +limited sense of the term. + +The great section of the Negro family, which comprises, besides the +Fantis Proper, the Ashanti, Boroom, and several other populations, is +_Fanti_ in the wide sense of the term. + +The Fanti, Ashanti, and Boroom forms of speech are merely dialects of +one and the same language. + +A great proportion of the vocabularies of "Bowdich's Ashanti" are the +same. + +So are the Fetu, Affotoo, and other vocabularies of the "Mithridates." + +The inhabitants of the Native Town of Cape Coast, a mixed population of +Krumen, Fantis, and Mulattoes, amounting to as many as 10,000, are no +true specimens of the African of the Gold Coast. European influences +have too long been at work on them. Before the town was English it was +Dutch; and it was English as early as 1661. + +More than this. It is not certain that their fathers' fathers were the +_exact_ aborigines; in other words, a tribe akin to, but slightly +different from them, seems to have been the earlier possessors. These +were the Fetu--the remains of which can doubtless be met with among the +populations of the neighbourhood; since we find in the "Mithridates" a +_Fetu_ vocabulary and an _Affotoo_ one as well. + +Now the Fantis that thus displaced the Fetu, were themselves fugitives +from the conquering Ashantis; all, however, being the members of one +stock, and the pressure being from the highlands of the interior towards +the lowlands of the coast. + +All three are truly Negro in conformation, and miserably Pagan in creed, +the best measure of their political capacity being the organized kingdom +of the Ashantis; and the lowest form of it, the system of clanships, +chieftainships, or captainships of the proper Fantis of the coast. The +details of these are of importance. + +I cannot ascertain upon what principle those different divisions which +are sometimes called _tribes_, sometimes _clans_, are formed; since it +is by no means safe to assume that they necessarily consist of +descendants from one common ancestor. The investigations concerning the +_tribes_ of ancient Rome show this. + +It is easier to enumerate their external characteristics, and material +elements of their union. In the Native Town there are four quarters, +each occupied by a separate section of the population. This section has +its own proper head, its own proper standards, and its own proper band +of music. + +What follows seems to apply to the rude state of society in the country +around. Each division has its badge or device; so that we have the +tribe, or clan, of the leopard, the cat, the dog, the hawk, the parrot, +&c. On certain days there are certain festivals and processions, when +the chief is carried in a long basket on the heads of two men, with +umbrellas above him, and attendants around proportionate to his rank. +When in distress, the Fanti has a claim upon the good offices of his +tribe. + +When a Fanti government becomes extensive enough to require +organization, we find absolute monarchs with satraps (caboceers) under +them; under these the heads of the different villages or towns, and +under these captains of hundreds, fifties, and tens--an organization +which is, perhaps, of military rather than social origin. The Ashanti +kingdom gives us the best measure of extent to which a branch of the +Fanti stock has developed itself into a political influence. As for the +_Constitution_, it is a simple and unmitigated despotism; of which the +most remarkable point is the law of succession. This follows the female +lines, so that the heir-apparent is the eldest son of the reigning +king's eldest sister. The same applies to the caboceers; except that, in +cases of mental or physical incapacity, the rightful heir is set aside, +and a path opened to the ambition of private adventurers. + +Slavery is what we expect; and on the coast of Guinea it meets us at +every turn, though not in the worst forms of the _Trade_. This +flourishes in Dahomey, and along the whole of the Bight of Benin. In the +Fanti countries, however, the milder form of _domestic_ servitude +preponderates; and along with it a chronic state of warfare. These two +evils are connected with one another, as cause and effect. The conquest +supplies the slaves; the slaves provoke the conquest. + +Besides this there is a sort of temporary servitude, which reminds us of +the _Nexi_ of the Romans. This occurs when "a person, in order to raise +a particular sum of money, voluntarily sells himself for a certain +period, or until such time as he is enabled to pay the amount so +borrowed, together with whatever interest may have been agreed upon. +This is called the system of pawning, and the people so sold, pawns. +Thus a native, in order to make a great display on any particular +occasion, as on his marriage, or to have a grand 'custom' for a deceased +relative, will forfeit his labour for a definite time, or give one of +his slaves for a period agreed upon. Neither these pawns, however, nor +the domestic slaves, entertain any feeling of disgrace, but on the +contrary are happy and contented."[14] + +Everything connected with the administration of justice is rude and +savage; the severity of the punishment upon detection being the chief +preventive. The awards, of course, depend much upon the individual +character of the chiefs; and there are but few who have not exhibited +horrible proofs of cruelty. These, however, are no measures of the +temper of the people at large. The legitimate, normal, established, and +familiar forms of torture give us this. It may just be a shade or two +better than that of the autocrats--though bad at best. I still draw upon +the writer already quoted. "The most common mode of torture is what is +termed tying Guinea-fashion. In this the arms are closely drawn together +behind the back, by means of a cord tied tightly round them, about +midway between the elbows and shoulders. A piece of wood to act as a +rack, having been previously introduced, is then used so as to tighten +the cord, and so intense is the agony that one application is generally +sufficient to occasion the wretch so tortured to confess to anything +that is required of him. There are various other modes of torture in +common use among the natives of Guinea. One is tying the head, feet, and +hands, in such a way that by turning the body backwards, they may be +drawn together by the cords employed. Another is securing a wrist or +ankle to a block of wood by an iron staple. By means of a hammer any +degree of pressure may thus be applied, while the suffering so produced +is continuous, only being relieved by the wood being split, and the +staples removed, but this may not be done until a crime has been +confessed by a person who never committed it, and even then his limb has +generally been destroyed. It would not be interesting to here enumerate +the various tortures employed by a barbarous people, but when we +recollect the refinement of the art of torture in our own country in the +days of the maiden, the boot, and thumb-screws, we will cease to wonder +that substitutes for these should be used in a country where +civilization has not yet begun to elevate a people who are generally +allowed to be the lowest of the human race. + +"There are some superstitious rites employed by Fetish-men for the +detection of crime; and whether it is that these people really possess +such powerful influence over their wretched dupes, as to frighten into +confession of his guilt the perpetrator of crime, or whether it is that +they manage by their numerous spies to obtain a clue sufficient in most +cases to lead to the detection of the person, is more than I can venture +to assert; but, be the means employed what they may, a Fetish-man will +assuredly very often bring a crime home to the right person, even after +the most patient investigation in the ordinary way has failed to elicit +the slightest clue. + +"There is also what is called Trial by Dhoom. This consists in whoever +are suspected of having committed a crime being made to swallow a +decoction of _dhoom_ wood of the country, and it is believed that +whoever is innocent will immediately eject the deleterious draught, but +the guilty person will die. This, however, is not much to be depended +upon; for while it causes death in one instance, it may do so in all who +partake of it; or on the other hand, from some accident in its +preparation, it may be productive of no effect either upon the guilty or +the innocent. + +"The Rice test, although practised in this part of Africa, is, I +believe, not peculiar to it, being also employed in the West Indies, and +South America. Although no doubt originally introduced by a people in a +low state of civilization, it is interesting in so far that it +exemplifies the powerful influence which the mind possesses over the +corporeal functions, and as it appears to have been in use among the +blacks for centuries, we may give them the credit of having been +practically aware that 'conscience doth make cowards of us all,' long +before the Bard of Avon chronicled the fact. In the employment of this +test in Guinea, those who are suspected of having committed a crime are +assembled, and to each a small portion of rice is given, which they are +required to masticate, and afterwards produce on the hand; and it is +invariably the case that while all but the real culprit will produce +their rice in a soft pulpy mass, his will be as dry as if ground in a +mill, the salivary glands having, under the influence exerted upon the +nervous system by fear, refused to perform their ordinary functions." + +Something like this is common in many savage countries. In the shape of +the _dhoom_ test, it re-appears in Old Calabar, and, probably, +elsewhere. There, the "king and chief inhabitants ordinarily constitute +a court of justice, in which all country disputes are adjusted, and to +which every prisoner suspected of capital offences is brought, to +undergo examination and judgment. If found guilty, they are usually +forced to swallow a deadly potion made from the poisonous seeds of an +aquatic leguminous plant, which rapidly destroys life. This poison is +obtained by pounding the seeds, and macerating them in water, which +acquires a white milky colour. The condemned person, after swallowing a +certain portion of the liquid, is ordered to walk about, until its +effects become palpable. If, however, after the lapse of a definite +period, the accused should be so fortunate as to throw the poison from +off his stomach, he is considered as innocent, and allowed to depart +unmolested. In native _parlance_ this ordeal is designated as 'chopping +nut.'"[15] + +The hardest workers amongst the Fantis are the fishers, who use a canoe +of wood of the bombax, from ten to twelve feet in length, and +strengthened by cross timbers. The net--a casting net--is made from the +fibres of the aloe or the pine-apple, and is about twenty feet in +diameter (?). + +Next to these come the farmers, whose rough agriculture consists in the +cultivation of maize, bananas, yams, and pumpkins; and lastly, the +gold-seekers. Of this there is abundance; and where the European coin of +the coast ceases, the native currency of gold-dust begins. Sums of so +small a value as three half-pence are thus paid; smaller ones being +represented by cowries. + +The highest of their arts is that of manufacturing gold ornaments, and +this is the hereditary craft of certain families. These transmit the +secret of their skill from father to son, and keep the corporation to +which they belong up to a due degree of closeness, by avoiding +intermarriage with any of the more unskilled labourers. A little +weaving, and a little potting, constitute the remaining arts of the +Fanti--as far, at least, as they are either _fine_ or _useful_. + +The craft of the _Fetish-man_ comes under none of the preceding +categories. He is the priest, sorcerer, or medicine man; the +representative of "Paganism, in its lowest and most hideous form, the +objects of their worship being the most repulsive reptiles, and their +ceremonies the most degrading. They certainly have some idea of the +existence of a First Cause, and believe themselves to be in the power of +the _Great Fetish_, their protection or destruction being dependent upon +the will of this power, of whose attributes they know nothing further. +They also believe in the existence of a spirit of evil, and on some +parts of the coast consider his power over them so great, that they +address their supplications, and erect, for his especial service, small +mud huts, usually of a conical shape, built under the shade of some +stately palm or wild fig-tree, in one of the most inviting spots to be +found. These huts bear the unattractive name among Europeans of 'devil's +temples.' It will be seen thus, that this belief in the existence of the +Great Fetish professed by the Fantees, is a faint glimmering of that +natural religion which all nations possess. Of the creation of our +species, they do not appear to entertain very correct ideas, unless it +be that they owe their being to this Fetish, who, they say, in the +beginning made two people, one of whom was black, the other white, and +that both originally occupied the Fantee country. It would seem, +however, from their account, that, after these two men were brought into +existence, the Fetish was at a loss to know how to dispose of them, and +in order to prevent any jealousy arising between them, had recourse to a +sort of lottery, where there were all prizes and no blanks. Two packets +were accordingly placed before them, and the black man drew first; nor +was he disappointed with his prize, for it consisted of such a quantity +of gold-dust, that it has not been taken out of the country yet. The +remaining packet was of course the lawful property of the white man, and +in the long run he had no cause to complain--for, on being opened, it +was found to contain a book which taught him everything; and so do the +poor wretches account for the superior intellect of whites, and the +inexhaustible treasures of their own country. + +"In the neighbourhood of Cape Coast, the natives seem to believe that +this Fetish occupies more especially particular localities, and exists +in the form of a particular animal, so that an isolated portion of rock +is frequently called a Fetish-stone, and snakes even of the most +poisonous description, in a certain locality, are preserved and allowed +to propagate, undisturbed, their venomous species. In some places on +the coast, temples dedicated to snake-worship are built, and the Fetish +men, or priests, connected with them are frequently esteemed +particularly holy, no doubt from the familiar terms upon which they, in +course of time, become with the horrid reptiles, upon which the people +look as the personification of their Fetish. The offerings made at these +temples are often very valuable, the cupidity of the deities within not +being easily satisfied. Gold-dust and clothes are the most acceptable +offerings; but when these are not to be obtained, it is perfectly +wonderful how large a quantity of rum and tobacco the _snakes_ will +consume before they vouchsafe their good offices for the removal of a +disease from a cow, a wife, a child, or the detection of a thief, who, +not unlikely, has been employed by themselves. + +"These Fetish men and women, too, for there are Fetish women, and, +consequently Fetish children, have spies in different directions, +forming as many links of communication between the priesthood in various +parts of the country, so that very few occurrences take place of which +they have not the means of making themselves acquainted."[16] + +The same writer continues, "Religious observances, properly so called, +the Fantees have none, but each particular class has a certain day of +the week upon which they cease from following their ordinary +avocations--thus, a fisherman will not go to sea on a Tuesday; nor will +a bushman enter the forest on a Friday--these days being dedicated to +the Fetish, and thus, in some degree, representing the Sabbath of +Christian nations. There are, in addition, several days throughout the +year--apparently occurring at the desire of the Fetish men--in which the +Fantees abstain from work, and during a period of war, it often happens +that the movements of the opposing armies are much interfered with by +the numerous occasions upon which it becomes necessary to propitiate the +Fetish. One of these especial Fetish days may be here noticed, it being, +apparently, the most important of those that occur during the whole +year, and its object no less important than driving the devil out of the +village. The period when this desirable object is effected, occurs +during the month of December, the night-time being chosen as the most +fitting for the ceremony. As soon as darkness has closed in, the +inhabitants of a village collect at an appointed rendezvous, with sticks +and staves, and under the directions of a leader, sally out, entering +every house in their way, through the various apartments of which they +knock about, and yell and howl with such violence that they would +actually scare any devil but a most impertinent one. Having, as they +think, completely rid the town of him, they pursue the retreating enemy +for some distance into the bush, after which they return and spend the +remainder of the night in carousals. + +"There is another festival, which, as it partakes somewhat of a +religious nature, may also be noticed here, _viz._, the yam-custom, +which is held in September, to celebrate the goodness of the Fetish, in +having granted an abundant harvest. On this occasion, the king of the +village and the staff of Fetish men connected with it, take part. All +the people who can by any possibility attend, assemble, a procession is +formed, and then the most extraordinary mixture of costumes, the noises +produced by numerous tom-toms, horns made from elephants' tusks, and the +still ruder, if possible, rattle of two pieces of wood, or common metal, +which the women beat together to a tune similar to what in Ireland is +known as the Kentish fire. The constant firing of musketry, and the +obscene dances performed by the two sexes form one of the most debasing +and savage exhibitions it is possible to see. In this way does the +procession parade the principal streets, the king seated in his basket +carried by his slaves, and protected by the umbrellas, according to his +rank--the Fetish-men dressed in white robes, also in their baskets. On +arriving at the king's house sacrifices are usually offered--some fowls +or eggs being now substituted in the vicinity of our settlements for a +human being, but we have still too good reasons to believe, that even as +near as the capital of Ashantee many human lives are sacrificed on this +particular occasion, as well as in other festivals of various +descriptions. The offerings being made, the Fetish-man partakes of the +yam; the king then eats of the valued root; and after these two have +pronounced them ripe and fit for food, the people consider themselves at +liberty to commence digging. + +"A being named _Tahbil_ resides in the substance of the rock, upon which +Cape Coast is built, and watches the town. Every morning, offerings of +food or flowers are left for him on the rock. Most villages have a +corresponding deity; and in earlier times, there is good reason for +believing that human beings were sacrificed to him." + +Likely enough--as may be seen from the practices at Fanti funerals, and +as may be inferred from the analogy of the other parts of Western +Africa. + +If the survivors of a deceased Fanti be poor, the corpse is quietly +interred in one of the denser spots of the jungles; and if rich, the +funeral is at once costly and bloody; since gold and jewels are buried +along with the dead body, and human victims as well. The ceremonial is +as follows. The coffin is carried to the grave by slaves, when the +retainers and friends press forwards, fix the number required (in +general four), stun the selected individuals by a sudden blow on the +head, throw the still breathing bodies into the grave of their master, +and, whilst life yet remains, cover in the earth. + +This horrible custom is truly West-African. How near we must approach +the Mandingo frontier, before we get rid of it on the north, or how far +south it extends, I am not exactly able to say. In Dahomey, where it +attains its _maximum_ development, it is worse than amongst the +Ashantis, and amongst the Ashantis worse than in the proper Fanti +districts. It certainly reaches as far southwards as Old Calabar, where, +upon the death of Ephraim, a well-known Caboceer, "some hundreds of men, +women, and children were immolated to his manes,--decapitation, burning +alive, and the administration of the poison-nut, being the methods +resorted to for terminating their existence. When King Eyeo, father of +the present Chief of Creek Town, died, an eye-witness, who had only +arrived just after the completion of the funeral rites, informed me that +a large pit had been dug, in which several of the deceased's wives were +bound and thrown in, until a certain number had been procured; the earth +was then thrown over them, and so great was the agony of these victims, +that the ground for several minutes was agitated with their convulsive +throes. So fearful, in former times, was the observance of this +barbarous custom, that many towns narrowly escaped depopulation. The +graves of the kings are invariably concealed, so as, it is stated, to +prevent an enemy from obtaining their skulls as trophies, which is not +the case with those of the common people."[17] + +I have said that it is in Dahomey, where the immolation of human beings +is the bloodiest; and I now add that it is in Dahomey where those who +look for the more characteristic peculiarities of the Negro stock, must +search. But it is the bad side which will preponderate; it is the +darkest practices which will develop themselves most typically. What we +find in germs and remnants elsewhere, grow, in Dahomey, to inordinate +and incredible proportions. + +The sacro-sanctitude of the snake is doubled in Dahomey. + +Slavery, bad along the whole Bight of Benin, is worse, still, in +Dahomey. + +In Akkim we find a _female_ colonel. In Dahomey there is an army of +Amazons, as indicated by Mr. Duncan, and as described in detail by +Captain Forbes. + +_The Gha._--Accra, and the forts lately purchased from the +Danes--Christiansborg and others,--are the localities of the _Gha_ +nation. I say _Gha_ (or _Ghan_) because the author of a paper soon about +to be noticed states, that this is the indigenous name of the people +which we call _Acra_, _Akra_, _Accrah_, or _Inkra_--and it is always +best to give the native name if we can. + +Adelung, on the authority of Romer and Isert, gives the following +account of the Negroes speaking the Gha language. He calls it Akra. + +They began with conquering and reducing to a state of servitude the +_Adampi_, or _Tambi_, Negroes of the hill country; these being a portion +of their own stock, and speaking a mutually intelligible language. + +But, in time, they were themselves conquered by the _Akvambu_, and broke +up into two parts. One of these remained _in situ_, and is represented +by the present Gha of Christiansborg. The other fled to the Little Popo, +an island off the coast of Dahomey, and there settled. + +What remained then on the Gold Coast were the Gha and Akvambu; and these +were afterwards conquered by the Akkim Fantis, themselves eventually +reduced by the Ashantis. + +In no more than nine or ten villages, lying within nine or ten miles of +Fort St. James and Christiansborg, was the Akra language spoken in the +time of Protten (A.D. 1794), and of the Ghas thus speaking it each +understood the Fanti. + +This makes the Gha a decreasing, and, for practical purposes, an +unimportant population. At the same time I should be glad to direct the +attention of some investigator to their ethnology. Their exact relations +to the Akvambu are uncertain. The only work known to me where specimens +of the latter language are to be found is out of reach.[18] + +Then as to the _Adampi_. Bowdich states that it radically differs from +the Gha; the numerals, which agree, being borrowed from the one tongue +into the other. But his collation rests on only seven words. + +Again,--_Adampi_, _Tembi_, and _Tambu_ are words so much alike as to +pass for the same. Yet a _Tembu_ vocabulary in the "Mithridates" differs +from a _Tambu_ one in the same work-- + + ENGLISH. TEMBU. TAMBU. + + _Sky_ so giom. + _Sun_ wis pum. + _Moon_ igodi horamb. + _Man_ naa nyummu. + ... ibalu numero. + _Woman_ alo in. + _Head_ knynoo ii. + _Foot_ navorree nandi. + _One_ kuddum kaki. + _Two_ noalee ennu. + _Three_ nodoso ettee. + +Again--the _Tembu_ is related to the vocabulary of a language called +_Kouri_, which the _Tambu_ is _not_. + + ENGLISH. TEMBU. KOURI. + + _Sun_ wis nosi. + _Man_ ibalu abalu. + _Woman_ alo alu. + _One_ kuddum kotum. + _Two_ noalee nalee. + _Three_ nodoso natisu. + +Thirdly, the _Tjemba_ of Balbi's "Atlas Ethnologique" is called +_Kassenti_. + +Lastly, the _Gha_, as far as very short comparison goes, is neither +_Tambu_ nor _Tembu_: nor yet _Kouri_--though it has a few resemblances +to all. + +The author of the paper alluded to above is the Rev. Mr. Hanson--himself +a Gha by birth. It was laid before the British Association in 1849. Two +points characterize the theory that it exhibits; but as the publication +of the paper _in extenso_, is contemplated, I merely state what they +are. + +1. A remarkable number of customs common to the _Jews_ and the _Gha_. + +2. The probable origin of the latter population in some part of the +interior of Africa, north of their present locality, and, perhaps, in +the parts about Timbuktu. + +_The Quaquas._--I am not sure that this name is the best that can be +given to the class in question. Hence, it is merely provisional. The +language that is spoken by them is called the _Avekvom_. They constitute +the chief population of the _Ivory_--just as the Krumen do that of the +_Grain_ and the Fantis that of the _Gold_--Coast. _Apollonia_ is the +English dependency where we find members of the _Quaqua_ stock. + +The Avekvom dialects of the Quaqua tribes seem to belong to a different +tongue from that of the Krumen and Fantis; and I imagine that the three +are mutually unintelligible. Still, it is difficult to predicate this +from the mere inspection of vocabularies; the more so, as no language of +the western coast of Africa is less known than the Avekvom--the only +specimen of any length being one in the last number of the "Journal of +the American Oriental Society." With numerous miscellaneous affinities, +it is more Fanti and Grebo than aught else; and, perhaps, is +transitional in character to those two languages. + +At any rate it is no isolated tongue, as may be seen from the following +table, where _Yebu_ means the language of the Yarriba country, at the +back of Dahomey, and _Efik_ that of Old Calabar:-- + + ENGLISH. AVEKVOM. OTHER IBO-ASHANTI LANGUAGES. + + _Arm_ ebo ubok, _Efik_. + _Blood_ evie eyip, _Efik_; eye, _Yebu_. + _Bone_ ewi beu, _Fanti_. + _Box_ ebru branh, _Grebo_. + _Canoe_ edie tonh, _Grebo_. + _Chair_ fata bada, _Grebo_. + _Dark_ eshim esum, _Fanti_; ekim, _Efik_. + _Dog_ etye aja, ayga, _Yebu_. + _Door_ eshinavi usuny, _Efik_. + _Ear_ eshibe esoa, _Fanti_. + _Fire_ eya ija, _Fanti_. + _Fish_ etsi eja, eya, _Fanti_. + _Fowl_ esu suseo, _Mandingo_; edia, _Yebu_. + _Ground-nut_ ngeti nkatye, _Fanti_. + _Hair_ emu ihwi, _Fanti_. + _Honey_ ajo ewo, _Fanti_; oyi, _Yebu_. + _House_ eva ifi, _Fanti_; ufog, _Efik_. + _Moon_ efe habo, _Grebo_; ofiong, _Efik_. + _Mosquito_ efo obong, _Fanti_. + _Oil_ inyu ingo, _Fanti_. + _Rain_ efuzumo-sohn sanjio, _Mandingo_. + _Rainy season_ eshi ojo, _rain_, _Yebu_. + _Salt_ etsa ta, _Grebo_. + _Sand_ esian-na utan, _Efik_. + _Sea_ etyu idu, _Grebo_. + _Stone_ desi sia, shia, _Grebo_. + _Thread_ jesi gise, _Grebo_. + _Tooth_ enena nyeng, _Mandingo_; gne, _Grebo_. + _Water_ esonh nsu, _Fanti_. + _Wife_ emise muso, _Mandingo_; mbesia, _Fanti_. + _Cry_ yaru isu, _Fanti_. + _Give_ nae nye, _Grebo_; no, _Efik_. + _Go_ le olo, _Yebu_. + _Kill_ bai fa, _Mandingo_; pa, _Yebu_. + +There has been war and displacement here as well as in the Gha country. +In the seventeenth century the parts about Cape Apollonia were contended +for by two tribes called the Issini (or Oshin) and the Ghiomo. The +former gave way to the latter, and having retreated to the country of +the Veteres, were joined by that tribe against the Esiep. + +A Quaqua prayer is given in the "Mithridates." It is uttered every +morning by the tribes on the Issini, after a previous ablution in that +river--_Anghiume mame maro, mame orie, mame shikke e okkori, mame akaka, +mame frembi, mame anguan e awnsan_--_O Anghiume! give rice, give yams, +give gold, give aigris, give slaves, give riches, give (to be) strong +and swift._ + +What is here written about the ethnology of Apollonia is written +doubtfully; since here, as at Acra, the simple ethnology of the pure and +proper Fantis becomes complicated. + +_The Cape of Good Hope._--The aboriginal population of the Cape is +divided between two great families:-- + +1. The Hottentot. + +2. The Kaffre. + +1. _The Hottentots._--Of the two families this is the most western; it +is the one which the colonists came first in contact with, and it is the +one which has been most displaced by Europeans. The names of fourteen +extinct tribes of Hottentots are known; of which it is only necessary to +mention the Gunyeman and Sussaqua the nearest the Cape, and the Heykom, +so far eastwards and northwards as Port Natal. The displacement of these +last has not been effected by Europeans. African subdued African; and it +was the Kaffres who did the work of conquest here. + +Of the extant Hottentots, within the limits of the colony of the Cape, +the most remote are the _Gonaqua_, on the head-waters of the Great Fish +River; or rather on the water-shed between it and the Orange River. They +are fast becoming either extinct, or amalgamated with the Kaffres; +inasmuch as they are the Hottentots of the Amakosa frontier, and suffer, +at least, as much from the Kaffres as from their white neighbours. + +The _Namaquas_ occupy the _lower_ part of the Orange River, the Great +and Little Namaqualand. + +_The Koranas._--This branch of the Hottentots has its locality on the +middle part of the Gariep, with the Griquas to the north, the Bechuana +Kaffres to the east, and the Saabs in the middle of them. Their number +is, perhaps, 10,000. Their exact relation to the other Hottentots is +uncertain. They are a better formed people than the Gonaqua and Namaqua, +but whether they be the best samples of the Hottentot stock altogether +is uncertain. Probably a tribe far up in the north-western parts of +South Africa, and beyond Namaqualand, may dispute the honour with them. +These are the Dammaras--themselves disputed Hottentots. Their country +lies beyond the British colony, but it must be noticed for the sake of +taking in all the branches of the stock in question. It is the tract +between Benguela and Namaqualand, marked in the maps as _sterile +country_; in the northern parts of which we sometimes find notices of a +fierce nation called _Jagas_. Walvisch Bay lies in the middle of it. Now +some writers make the Dammaras of this country Hottentot; others Kaffre; +and that both rightly and wrongly. They are both--partly one, partly the +other; since Dammara is a geographical term, and some of the tribes to +which it applies are Kaffre, some Hottentot. The Dammaras of the plains, +or the Cattle Dammaras are the former; the Dammaras[19] of the hills, +the latter. Between the Dammara and the Korana a much nearer approach +to Kaffre type is made than is usually supposed. + +A branch of the Koranas--those of the valley of the Hartebeest +River--deserves particular attention. They caution us against +overvaluing differences; and Dr. Prichard has quoted the evidence of Mr. +Thompson with this especial object. They are Koranas who have suffered +in war, lost their cattle, and been partially expatriated by the more +powerful sections of their stock. Hence, want and poverty have acted +upon them; and the effect has been that they have become hunters instead +of shepherds, have been reduced to a precarious subsistence, and as the +consequence of altered circumstances, have receded from the level of the +other Koranas, and approached that of the-- + +_Saabs or Bushmen._--These belong to the parts between the Roggeveld and +Orange River; parts which rival the _sterile country_ of the map in +barrenness. As is the country so are the inhabitants; starved, miserable +hunters--hunters rather than shepherds or herdsmen. + +The Lap is not more strongly contrasted with the Finlander, than the +Korana with the Saab; and the deadly enmity between these two +populations is as marked as the differences in their physical +appearances. I think, however, that undue inferences have been drawn +from the difference; in other words, that the distance between the +Korana and the Saab has been exaggerated. The languages are +unequivocally allied. + +I think, too, that a similarly undue inference has been drawn from the +extent to which the Kaffre and the Korana are _alike_; inasmuch as an +infusion of Kaffre has been assumed for the sake of accounting for it. +Of this, however, no proof exists. + +The Saabs are described as having constitutions "so much enfeebled by +the dissolute life they lead, and the constant smoking of _dacha_, that +nearly all, including the young people, look old and wrinkled; +nevertheless, they are remarkable for vanity, and decorate their ears, +legs, and arms with beads, and iron, copper, or brass rings. The women +likewise stain their faces red, or paint them, either wholly or in part. +Their clothing consists of a few sheepskins, which hang about their +bodies, and thus form the mantle or covering, commonly called a +_kaross_. This is their only clothing by day or night. The men wear old +hats, which they obtain from the farmers, or else caps of their own +manufacture. The women wear caps of skins, which they stiffen and finish +with a high peak, and adorn with beads and metal rings. The dwelling of +the Bushman is either a low wretched hut, or a circular cavity, on the +open plain, into which, at night, he creeps with his wife and children, +and which, though it shelters him from the wind, leaves him exposed to +the rain. In this neighbourhood, in which rocks abound, they had +formerly their habitations in them, as is proved by the many rude +figures of oxen, horses, serpents, &c. still existing. It is not a +little interesting to see these poor degraded people, who formerly were +considered and treated as little better than wild beasts in their rocky +retreats. Many of those who have forsaken us live in such cavities not +far from our settlement, and we have thus an opportunity of observing +them in their natural condition. Several who, when they came to us from +the farmers, were decently clothed and possessed a flock of sheep, which +they had earned, in a short time returned to their fastnesses in a state +of nakedness and indigence, rejoicing that they had got free from the +farmers, and could live as they pleased in the indulgence of their +sensual appetites. Such fugitives from civilised life, I have never seen +otherwise occupied than with their bows and arrows. The bows are small, +but made of good elastic wood; the arrows are formed of small reeds, the +points furnished with a well-wrought piece of bone, and a double barb, +which is steeped in a potent poison of a resiny appearance. This poison +is distilled from the leaves of an indigenous tree. Many prefer these +arrows to fire-arms, under the idea that they can kill more game by +means of a weapon that makes no report. On their return from the chase, +they feast till they are tired and drowsy, and hunger alone rouses them +to renewed exertion. In seasons of scarcity they devour all kinds of +wild roots, ants, ants' eggs, locusts, snakes, and even roasted skins. +Three women of this singular tribe were not long since met with, several +days' journey from this place, who had forsaken their husbands, and +lived very contentedly on wild honey and locusts. As enemies, the +Bushmen are not to be despised. They are adepts in stealing cattle and +sheep; and the wounds they inflict when pursued, are ordinarily fatal if +the wounded part is not immediately cut out. The animals they are unable +to carry off, they kill or mutilate. + +"To our great comfort, even some of these poor outcasts have shown +eagerness to become acquainted with the way of salvation. The children +of such as are inhabitants of the settlement, attend the school +diligently, and of them we have the best hopes. + +"The language of the Bushman has not one pleasing feature; it seems to +consist of a collection of snapping, hissing, grunting, sounds; all more +or less nasal. Of their religious creed it is difficult to obtain any +information; as far as I have been able to learn, they have a name for +the Supreme Being; and the Kaffre word _tixo_ is derived from the +_tixme_ of the Bushmen. Sorcerers exist among them. One of the Bushmen +residing here being sick, a sorceress was sent for before we were aware +of it, who pretended, by the virtue of mystic dance, to extract an +antelope horn from the head of the patient."[20] + +_The Griquas._--The Griquas, called also Baastaards, are a pastoral +population, upwards of 15,000 in number, on the north side of the great +bend of the Orange River. They are the descendants of Dutch fathers and +Hottentot mothers. + +A mixture of Griquas and Hottentots occurs also on the Kat River, a +feeder of the Great Fish River, in the district of Somerset, and on the +Kaffre frontier. Here they are distributed in a series of district +locations, amid the dales and fastnesses of the eastern frontier. A +great proportion of them are discharged soldiers--so that in reality, +like the borderers of old, they form a sort of military colony. + +2. _The Kaffres._--The British districts in contact with the Kaffre +populations are the eastern, and of these Albany and Somerset most +especially. The Kaffre nation in most immediate contact with Albany and +Somerset is-- + +_The Amakosa._--This is the population which constituted the authority +of Hintza, and to which Pato, Gaika, and the other chiefs of the last +war belonged. To this, too, belong the troublesome chiefs of the +present. Next to the Amakosa, and in alliance with them, come-- + +_The Amatembu_, or _Tambuki_ (_Tambookies_), occupants of the upper part +of the river Kei, as the Amakosa are of the lower Keiskamma. + +Between the Amatembu and Port Natal lie _the Amaponda_, or _Mambuki_ +(_Mambookies_), the northern extremity of which reaches the country of-- + +_The Amazulu_, or _Zulu_ (_Zooloos_), the chief frontagers (conjointly +with the _Mambuki_) of Port Natal. + +The last division of the Kaffres of the coast is that of-- + +_The Fingos._--In 1835, a numerous population, called Fingos, was found +by Sir B. D'Urban in the Kaffre chief Hintza's country, and in a state +of abject servitude to the Amakosas. They were from different tribes; +darker and shorter than the Amakosas--but still true Kaffres. They were +offered land between the lower Keiskamma and the Great Fish River, and +were emancipated and brought safe into the colony to the amount of +17,000.[21] Since then, they have served as a sort of military police on +the Kaffre frontier; and as shepherds in Australia--whither they have +been advantageously introduced. + +But, besides the Kaffres of the coast there are those of the interior. +These speak a modified form of the Kosa (or Amakosa), called +Si-_chuana_, the name of the people being Bi-_chuana_. They lie due +north of the Koranas; beyond the boundaries of the colony; but not +beyond the influence of its missionaries, or the range of its explorers. +Litaku, Kurrichani, and other similar _towns_ are _Sichuana_; the Kaffre +civilization being said to attain its _maximum_ hereabouts. + +There are plenty of points of contrast between the Kaffre and the +typical Negro; so many indeed as to have suggested the doctrine that the +former class belongs to some division of the human species other than +the African. And these points of contrast are widely distributed, +_i.e._, they appear and re-appear, whatever may be the view taken of the +Kaffre stock. They appear in the descriptions of their skin and +skeletons; they appear in the notice of their language; and they appear +in the history of the Kaffre wars of the Cape frontier--wars more +obstinate and troublesome than any which have been conducted by the true +Negro; and which approach the character of the Kabyle struggle for +independence in Algeria. In investigating these differences we must +guard against the exaggeration of their import. + +Physically, the Kaffre has the advantage of the Negro in the +conformation of the face and skull. His forehead betokens greater +capacity; being more prominent, more vaulted, and with a greater facial +angle. His teeth, too, are more vertically inserted, and the nasal bones +less depressed. I have not heard of aquiline noses in Kaffraria; but +should not be surprised if I did. + +The cheek-bones of the Kaffre project outwards; and where the +cheek-bones so project beyond a certain limit, the chin appears to taper +downwards, and the vertex upwards. When this becomes exaggerated we hear +of _lozenge-shaped_ crania; the Malay skulls being currently quoted as +instances thereof. Be this as it may, the breadth in the malar portion +of the face is a remarkable feature in the Kaffre physiognomy. This he +has in common with the Hottentot. His hair is also tufted like the +Hottentot's: while his lips are thick like the Negro's. Tall in stature, +wiry and elastic in his muscles, the Kaffre varies in colour, through +all the shades of black and brown; being, in some portions of his area +nearly as dark as the Negro, in others simply brown like the Arab. The +eye is sometimes oblique; the opening generally narrow. + +An opinion often gives a better picture than a description. Kaffres, +that have receded in the greatest degree from the Negro type, have been +so likened to the more southern Arabs as to have engendered the +hypothesis of an infusion of Arab blood. + +The manners of the Kaffres of the Cape are those of pastoral tribes +under chieftains; tribes which, from their habits and social relations, +are naturally active, locomotive, warlike, and jealous of encroachment. +Next to marauding on the hunting-grounds of an American Indian, +interference with the pasture of a shepherd population is the surest way +to warfare. + +It would be strange indeed if the Kaffre life and Kaffre physiognomy had +no peculiarities. However little in the way of physical influence we may +attribute to the geography of a country, no man ignores them altogether. +Now Kaffreland has very nearly a latitude of its own; inhabited lands +similarly related to the southern tropic being found in South America +and Australia only. And it has a soil still more exclusively +South-African. We connect the idea of the _desert_ with that of sand; +whilst _steppe_ is a term which is limited to the vast tracts of central +Asia. Now the Kaffre, and still more the Hottentot, area, dry like the +desert, and elevated like the steppe, is partially a _karro_. Its soil +is often a hard, cracked, and parched clay rather than a waste of sand, +and it constitutes an argillaceous table-land. Its vegetation has +strongly marked characters. Its Fauna has the same. + +The language is peculiar. If English were spoken on Kosa or Sichuana +principles we should say + + _b_un beam instead of _s_un beam. + _l_oon light ... _m_oon light. + _s_rand-son ... _g_rand-son, &c., + +since, in the Kaffre languages throughout, subordinate words in certain +syntactic combinations, accommodate their initial letter to that of the +leading word of the term. + +Their polity and manners, too, are peculiar. The head man of the village +settles disputes; his tribunal being in the open air. From him an appeal +lies to a chief of higher power; and from him to some superior, higher +still. In this way there is a long chain of feudal or semi-feudal +dependency. + +But the power of the chief is checked by that of the priest. A supposed +skill in medicine, imaginary arts of divination, and an accredited power +over the elements are the prerogatives of certain witches and wizards. +Thus, when a murrain among the cattle, or the death of an important +individual has taken place, the blame is laid upon some unfortunate +victim whom the witch or wizard points out. And the ordeal to which he +must submit, is equal in cruelty to those of the Gold Coast. He is +beaten with sticks, and then pegged down to the ground. Whilst thus +helpless, a nest of venomous bush-ants is broken over his racked and +quivering body. If this fail to extort a confession, he is singed to +death with red-hot stones. + +This tells us what is meant by Kaffre chiefs and Kaffre wizards. + +The wife is the slave to the husband; and he _buys_ her in order that +she should be so. The purchase implies a seller. This is always a member +of another tribe. Hence the wish of a Kaffre is to see his wife the +mother of many children, girls being more valuable than boys. + +Why a man should not sell his offspring to the members of his own tribe +is uncertain. It is clear, however, that the practice of doing so makes +marriage between even distant relations next to impossible. To guard +against the chances of this, a rigid and suspicious system of restraint +has been developed in cases of consanguinity; and relations must do all +they can to avoid meeting. To sit in the same room, to meet on the same +road, is undesirable. To converse is but just allowable, and then all +who choose must hear what is said. So thorough, however, has been the +isolation in many cases, that persons of different sexes have lived as +near neighbours for many years without having conversed with each other; +and such communication as there has been, has taken place through the +medium of a third person. No gift will induce a Kaffre female to violate +this law. + +Is the immolation of human beings at the death of chieftains a Kaffre +custom, as it was one of western Africa? The following extract gives an +answer in the affirmative, the only difference being the _pretext_ of +the murders. On the "death of the mother of Chaka, the great Zulu chief, +a public mourning was held, which lasted for the space of two days, the +people being assembled at the kraal of the chief to the number of sixty +or eighty thousand souls. Mr. Fynn, who was present, describes the scene +as the most terrific which it is possible for the human mind to +conceive. The immense multitude were all engaged in rending the air with +the most doleful shrieks, and discordant cries and lamentations; whilst, +in the event of their ceasing to utter them, they were instantly +butchered as guilty of a crime against the reigning tyrant. It is said +that no less than six or seven thousand persons were destroyed on this +occasion, charged with no other offence than exhausted nature in the +performance of this horrid rite, their brains being mercilessly dashed +out amidst the surrounding throng. As a suitable _finale_ to this +dreadful tragedy, it is said that ten females were actually buried alive +with the royal corpse; whilst all who witnessed the funeral were +obliged to remain on the spot for a whole year." + +Details of Kaffre manners may be multiplied almost _ad infinitum_; and +as their history and habits are likely to fill a Blue Book, a short +treatise can only notice their more prominent peculiarities. + +However, lest an undue inference be drawn from their contrast to the +Hottentot, we must remember that the former has encroached upon the +latter, and that such transitional populations as existed have been +swept away. + +Now comes a coloured population--not indigenous, but the descendants of +the _slaves_ of the colony. This consists of-- + +1. Negroes. + +2. Malays from the Indian Archipelago. + +3. Malagasi from Madagascar. + +To which we must add, as of mixed blood, the offspring of-- + +1. Negroes and Dutch, English, &c. + +2. Malays and Dutch, English, &c. + +3. Malagasi and Dutch, English, &c. + +This seems to be the limit of the intermixture; since, between the +Malays and Negroes, &c., there is but little intermarriage. The +_possible_ elements, however, of hybridity are numerous, _e.g._, Griquas +and Negroes, Griquas and Malays, Malays and Kaffres, &c. + +_The so-called yellow men._--On the 4th of August, 1782, the +"Grosvenor" Indiaman was wrecked on the coast of Natal. Of the crew who +escaped, some reached the Cape and others remained amongst the natives. +In 1790, an expedition was undertaken in search of them. + +In this expedition, Mr. Van Reenens, considered that he had discovered a +village where the people were descended from the whites, and in which +there were three old women who had been wrecked when very young. They +could not tell to what country they belonged; were treated as superior +beings; and, when offered a safe convoy to the Cape, were at first +pleased with the prospect, but eventually refused to leave their +children and grandchildren. Now, whatever these old women were, they +were not of the crew of the "Grosvenor," and I doubt whether they were +Europeans at all. + +Again--Mr. Thomson, when at Litaku, heard of yellow _cannibals_, with +long hair, whose invasions were the dread of the country; a statement +which merely means that some tribes of South Africa, are lighter +coloured, and more savage in their appetite than others. + +Lastly, Lieutenant Farewell saw one of these yellow men at Natal, who +was described as a cannibal, and _who shrunk abashed from the +lieutenant_. + +Be it so. The evidence that "there are descendants of Europeans and +Africans now widely diffusing their offspring throughout the country; +whose services might be turned to good account in civilizing the native +tribes," is still incomplete. + +_Mauritius._--The coloured population, which is far greater than that of +the white, consists in the Mauritius of-- + +1. True Africans--chiefly from the east coast, and, consequently, of the +Kaffre stock; the word being used in its most general sense. Darker than +the Kaffres of the Cape, they, nevertheless, recede from the Negro type +in the shape of the jaw, lips, and forehead. The hair also is less +woolly. They are strong and powerful individuals. + +2. Malagasi, or natives of Madagascar.--These are _not_ Africans to the +same extent as the Kaffres of the coast. As far back as the time of +Reland it was known that the affinities of the Malagasi language were +with the Malay and Polynesian tongues of Asia; but it was also known +that the similarity in physiognomy was less than that of language. Hence +came a conflict of difficulties. The speech indicated one origin, the +colour another--whilst the fact of an island so near to Africa, and so +far from Malacca, as Madagascar, being other than what its geographical +position indicated, is, and has been, a mystery. Some writers have +assumed an intermixture of blood; others have limited the Malay element +to the dominant population. Lastly, Mr. Crawfurd has denied the +inferences from the similarity of language _in toto_; considering that +there is "nothing in common between the two races, and nothing in common +between the character of their languages." The comparative philologist +is slow to admit this--indeed, he denies it. + +The blacks form the great majority of the coloured population. Besides +these, however, there are-- + +3. Arabs. + +4. Chinese. + +5. Hindus, from the continent of India; convicts being transported to +the Mauritius for life, and worked on the roads of the colony. + +6. Cingalese from Ceylon--the Kandian chiefs whose presence in their +native country was thought likely to endanger the tranquillity of the +island, were sent hither. + +The whites of the Mauritius are chiefly French; though not wholly of +pure blood. The first settlers took their wives from Madagascar. The +English form the smallest part of the population. + +_Rodrigues_--occupied by a few French colonists from the Mauritius. + +_The Seychelles_--The same; the coloured population outnumbering the +white in the proportion of ten to one. Here there is a Portuguese +admixture. From Maha, the chief town of the Seychelles, to Madagascar, +is five hundred and seventy-six miles--a fact to be borne in mind when +we speculate upon the origin of the population of that island. + + * * * * * + +_The Africans of British America.--Honduras, Belize, the West India +Islands, and Demerara._--The usual distribution of the population of +these parts is-- + +WHITE. + + 1. European whites, born in Europe. + 2. Creoles, or whites born in the island. + +COLOURED. + + _a. Pure Blood._ + + 1. Mandingos, from the river-systems of the Senegal and Gambia. + 2. Coromantines--from the Ivory and Gold Coast. + 3. Whydahs--from Dahomey. + 4. Ibos--from the Lower Niger. + 5. Congos--from Portuguese Africa. + + _b. Mixed Blood._ + + 1. Sambos, intermixture of the Negro and Mulatto. + 2. Mulattoes--Negro and white. + 3. Quadroons--Mulatto and white. + 4. Mestis--Quadroon and white. + +Such is what I find in Mr. Martin's valuable work on the Colonies, and +it is, undoubtedly, a convenient and practical classification. Yet for +the purposes of ethnology, it is deficient in detail. Without even +guessing at the proportion of American slaves which the different parts +of the western coast of Africa may have supplied, I subjoin a brief +notice of tract between the Senegal and Benguela. + +1. First come the _Wolof_, between the Senegal and Cape Verde. To the +back of these lie-- + +2. The _Serawolli_--and around Cape Verde-- + +3. The _Sereres_--none of these are truly Mandingo; nor is it certain +that many slaves have come from them; such as do, however, are probably +Mandingos in the current classification. + +4. The Fulahs of Fouta-Torro and Fouta-Jallo possess the higher part of +the Senegambian system. Imperfect Mahometans, they are lighter-coloured +than either the Wolof or the Mandingo. Notwithstanding the great Fulah +conquests--for under a leader named Danfodio this has been one of the +encroaching and subjugating families of Africa--there are still American +slaves of Fulah blood--though, perhaps, but few. Mr. Hodgson procured +his vocabulary from a Fulah slave of Virginia; and what we find in the +United States, we may find in the British possessions also. + +5. The Mandingos Proper are the Negroes of the Gambia; but the following +Africans, all within the range of the old slave trade, belong to the +same class. + +_a._ The Susu; whose language is spoken from the River Pongos to Sierra +Leone. + +_b._ The Timmani. + +_c._ The Bullom--each in contact with that settlement. + +_d._ The Vey--the written language already noticed. + +_e._ The Mendi--conterminous with the Vey. + +_f._ The Kissi--like the last two, spoken in the country behind Cape +Mount, and on the boundaries of Liberia. + +South of the Gambia and north of the Pongos, the Mandingo tongues, +though spoken in the interior, do not reach the coast. On the contrary, +they encircle the populations on the mouths of the Cacheo, Rio Grande, +and Nun--and truly barbarous populations these are. Of these the most +northern are-- + +6. _The Felup_ (Feloops)--between the Gambia and Cacheo. + +7. _The Papel_--south of the Cacheo. + +8. _The Balantes_--south of the Papel. + +9. _The Bagnon_--on the Lower Cacheo. + +10. _The Bissago_--islanders off the Cacheo. + +11. _Nalu_ (_Naloos_)--on the Lower Nun. + +12. _Sapi_--_ibid_. + +After these come the Susu, &c.; down to the tribes about Cape Mount and +Cape Mesurado. + +Between Cape Mesurado and Cape Palmas come-- + +13. _The Krumen._ Next to them-- + +14. _The Quaquas_, of the Ivory Coast; speaking different Avekvom +dialects. + +Somewhere hereabouts come the-- + +15, 16, 17. Kanga, Mangree, and Gien; three undetermined vocabularies of +the "Mithridates." Then-- + +18, 19, 20. The Fanti, Gha, and Adampi (?) of the Gold Coast. We now +approach the great marts-- + +21, 22. Benin and Dahomey; and--almost equal in infamous notoriety--the +countries of the Delta, of the Niger, or of the-- + +23, 24, 25. Ibu, Bonny, and Efik (Old Calabar) Africans; at the back of +which lie-- + +26, 27. Yarriba, and the Nufi country. In Fernando Po the population +is-- + +28. Ediya. About the Bimbia river and mountain-- + +29. Isubu. + +30, 31, 32. The _Banaka_ (or _Batanga_), the _Panwi_, and the _Mpoongwe_ +take us from the Gaboon to Loango; forming a transition from the true +Negroes to the Kaffres. + +33, 34, 35, 36. _Loango_, _Congo_, _Angola_, and _Benguela_--the Kaffre +type, both in form and language, is now more closely approached. Below +Benguela there has been little or no exportation. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[12] "Journal of the Geographical Society," 1850. + +[13] "United Service Magazine," Dec., 1850. + +[14] "United Service Journal," Nov., 1850. + +[15] Daniell in "Transactions of the Ethnological Society." + +[16] "United Service Journal," Nov., 1850. + +[17] Dr. Daniell on the Natives of Old Calabar, "Transactions of the +Ethnological Society." + +[18] Rask.--_Vejledning tel Acra-sproget, paa Kysten Ginea, med et +Tillaeg om Akvambuisk._--Copenhagen, 1828. _Introduction to the Acra +Language, on the Coast of Guinea, with an Appendix on the Akvambu._ + +[19] "Journal of the American Oriental Society," vol. i. no. 4. + +[20] "British Colonies." By M. Martin. + +[21] "Journal of the Geographical Society," vol. v. p. 319. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +BRITISH COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES IN ASIA. + + ADEN.--THE MONGOLIAN VARIETY.--THE MONOSYLLABIC LANGUAGES.--HONG + KONG.--THE TENASSERIM PROVINCES; MAULMEIN, YE, TAVOY, TENASSERIM, + THE MERGUI ARCHIPELAGO.--THE MON, SIAMESE, AVANS, KARIENS, AND + SILONG.--ARAKHAN.--MUGS, KHYENS.--CHITTAGONG, TIPPERA, AND + SYLHET.--KUKI.--KASIA.--CACHARS.--ASSAM.--NAGAS.--SINGPHO.--JILI.-- + KHAMTI.--MISHIMI.--ABORS AND BOR-ABORS.--DUFLA.--AKA.--MUTTUCKS AND + MIRI, AND OTHER TRIBES OF THE VALLEY OF ASSAM.--THE GARO.-- + CLASSIFICATION.--MR. BROWN'S TABLES.--THE BODO.--DHIMAL.--KOCCH.-- + LEPCHAS OF SIKKIM.--RAWAT OF KUMAON.--POLYANDRIA.--THE TAMULIAN + POPULATIONS.--RAJMAHALI MOUNTAINEERS.--KULIS, KHONDS, GOANDS, + CHENCHWARS.--TUDAS, ETC.--BHILS.--WARALIS.--THE TAMUL, TELINGA, + KANARA AND MALAYALAM LANGUAGES. + + +_Aden._--The ethnology of the Arab stock would fill a volume. It is +sufficient to state that the British political dependency of Aden is, +ethnologically, an Arab town. + +Far more important possessions direct our attention towards India. +Nevertheless, there are certain preliminaries to its ethnology. + +Mongolia and China--each of these countries illustrates an important +ethnological phenomenon. + +The first is a physical one. Cheek-bones that project outwards, a broad +and flat face, a depressed nose, an oblique eye, a somewhat slanting +insertion of the teeth, a scanty beard, an undersized frame, and a tawny +or yellow skin, characterize the Mongol of Mongolia. + +The second is a philological one. A comparative absence of grammatical +inflexions, and a disproportionate preponderance of monosyllabic words, +characterize the language of China. + +So much for the simple elementary facts; the former of which will be +spoken of under the designation of _Mongolian conformation_; the second +under that of _monosyllabic language_. + +Neither term is limited to the nation by which it has been illustrated. +Plenty of populations besides those of Mongolia Proper are Mongol in +physiognomy. Plenty of nations besides the Chinese are monosyllabic in +language. + +All the nations speaking monosyllabic tongues are Mongol in physiognomy; +though all the nations which have a Mongol physiognomy do _not_ speak +monosyllabic tongues. This makes the latter group, which for shortness +will be called that of the _monosyllabic_ nations or tribes--a section, +or division, of the former. + +Little Tibet, Ladakh, Tibet Proper, Butan, and China, are all Mongol in +form, and monosyllabic in language. So are Ava, Pegu, Siam, Cambojia, +and Cochin China, the countries which constitute the great peninsula, +sometimes called _Indo-Chinese_, and sometimes _Transgangetic_. + +The extremity however--the Malayan peninsula--is _not_ monosyllabic. + +_The British possessions of Hindostan are monosyllabic on their Tibetan +and Burmese frontiers._ + +_Hong-Kong._--Aden was disposed of briefly. So is Hong-Kong; and that +for the same reason. Politically, British, it is ethnologically Chinese. + +_Maulmein, Ye, Tavoy, Tenasserim, and the Mergui Archipelago._--These +constitute what are sometimes called the _ceded_, sometimes the +_Tenasserim_ provinces. They came into possession of the British at the +close of the Burmese war of 1825. Unlike our dependencies in Hindostan, +they are cut off from connection with any of the great centres of +British power in Asia--in which respect they agree with the smaller and +still more isolated settlements of the Malaccan Peninsula. The power +that ceded them was the Burmese, so that it is with the existing +subjects of that empire that their present limits are in contact; though +only for the northern part. To the south they abut upon Siam. + +The population throughout is monosyllabic; except so far as it is +modified by foreign intermixture--of which by far the most important +element is the Indian. Everything in the way of religious creed which is +not native and pagan is Indian and Buddhist. The alphabets, too, of the +lettered populations are Indian in origin. + +The population of the _continental_ part of these British dependencies +is referable to four divisions--of unequal and imperfectly ascertained +value. 1. The Mon. 2. The Siamese. 3. The Avans. 4. The Kariens. + +1. _The Mon._--Mon is the native name of the indigenous population of +Pegu, so that the Mon of Maulmein, or Amherst, the most northern of the +provinces in question, on the left bank of the lower Salwin, are part +and parcel of the present occupants of the delta of the Irawaddi, and +the country about Cape Negrais. The Burmese call them _Talieng_, and +under that designation they are described in Dr. Helfer's Report.[22] +The Siamese appellation is _Ming-mon_; apparently the native name in a +state of composition. In the early Portuguese notices a still more +composite form appears--and we hear of the ancient empire of +_Kalamenham_, supposed to have been founded by the _Pandalus_ of Mon or +Pegu. + +None of the _lettered_ languages of the Indo-Chinese peninsula are less +known than that of Pegu. At the same time its unequivocally +monosyllabic character is beyond doubt. The alphabet is a slight +variation of the Avan. + +The geographical position of the Mon at the extremity of a promontory, +and on the delta of a river, taken along with their philological +isolation, is remarkable. They have evidently been encroached upon by +the Avans in latter times; whilst, at an earlier period, they themselves +probably encroached upon others. Whether they are the oldest occupants +of Maulmein is uncertain; it is only certain that they are older than +their conquerors. + +To the Mon of Pegu the exchange of Avan for British rule, has been a +great and an appreciated advantage. + +2. _The Siamese._--The native name for the Siamese language is _Tha'y_, +and _Tha'y_ is the national and indigenous denomination of the Siamese. +It is the Avans who call them _Sian_ or _Shan_; from whence the European +term has been derived through the Portuguese. + +The Siamese population is of course greatest on the Siamese frontier; so +that, increasing as we go south, it attains its _maximum_ in Tenasserim +just as the Mon did in Maulmein. It seems, also, to have been introduced +at different times; a fact which gives us a distinction between the +native Siamese and the recent settlers. + +Like the _Mon_, the Tha'y, at least in its more classical dialect, is a +lettered language; the alphabet, like the Buddhist religion, being +Indian. Unlike, however, the _Mon_, which is the only representative of +the family to which it belongs, the _Tha'y_ tribes constitute a vast +class, falling into divisions and subdivisions, and exceedingly +remarkable in respect to its geographical distribution. + +The Siamese of Siam, the kingdom of which Bankok is the capital, form +but a fraction of this great stock. The _upper_ half of the river Menam +is occupied by what are called the _Lau_, or _Laos_. These are partly +wholly independent, and partly in nominal dependence upon China; and +proportionate to their independence is the unlettered character of their +language, and the absence of Indian influences. Nor is this all. The +Menam is pre-eminently the river of the Tha'y stock, and along the +water-system of the Menam its chief branches are to be found; their +position being between the Burmese populations of the west, and the +Khomen of Cambojia on the east. This distribution is _vertical_, _i.e._, +it is characterized by its length, rather than its breadth, and runs +from south to north. So far does it reach in this direction that, as +high as 28 deg. North lat., in upper Assam we find a branch of it. This +is the _Khamti_. In a valuable comparison of languages, well-known as +"Brown's Tables,"[23] the proportion of the Khamti words to the South +Siamese is ninety-two _per cent._ + +Of the physical appearance of the Siamese, we find the best account in +"Crawfurd's Embassy," the classical work for the ethnology of the +southern part of the Indo-Chinese peninsula. Their stature is low; the +tallest man out of twenty having been five feet eight inches, the +shortest five feet three. The complexion, darker than that of the +Chinese, is lighter than that of the Malay; the eye oblique; the jaw +square; and the cheek-bones broad. + +_Tha'y_ is an ethnological term, and denotes all the nations and tribes +akin to the Siamese of the southern, the Khamti of the northern, or the +Lau of the intermediate area. The difference between the first and the +last of these three should be noticed. Some members of the family are +Indianized in religion, and organized in politics. Such are the Siamese +of Bankok. Others retain both their independence and their original +Paganism. Such are some of the Lau. _Mutatis mutandis_, the same applies +to the next family. + +This is the _Burmese_, to which both the Avans and the Kariens belong; +but as it has been already stated that the divisions under +consideration are by no means of equal value, the two branches will be +considered separately. + +3. _The Avans._--_Avan_ is a more convenient term than _Burmese_, +inasmuch as it is more definite; the _Burmese Empire_ containing not +only very distant members of the great _Burmese_ family, but also +populations which belong to other groups. _Ava_, on the other hand, is +the centre of the dominant division. + +Whether the _Mon_, or a family yet to be mentioned, represent the +aborigines of _Maulmein_, it is certain that the Avans of that country +are of comparatively recent introduction. + +Again, whether the _Tha'y_, or a family yet to be mentioned, represent +the aborigines of _Tenasserim_, it is certain that the Avans of that +country are of comparatively recent origin. + +Nevertheless, there are Avans in each; and in Maulmein, although the Mon +preponderate in number, they all are able to speak the language of their +conquerors. I say _conquerors_, because the Avans are for all the parts +south of 18 deg. North lat., an intrusive population: the end of the +eighteenth century being the date, when, under Alompra, an Avan or +Umerapura dynasty broke up and subjected, in different degrees, the Mon +and Tha'y populations to the south, as well as several others more akin +to itself on the east, west, and north. + +The kingdom of Ava, next to those of China and Siam, best represents the +civilization of those families whose tongue is monosyllabic. This +implies that it has an organized polity, a lettered language, and a +Buddhist creed; in other words that the influences of either China or +India have acted on it. Of these two nations it is the latter which has +most modified the Indianized members of the great Burmese stock. In +strong contrast with these is the fourth and last branch of the +_continental_ population for the provinces in question, the + +4. _Karien._--The Kariens are partially independent; chiefly pagan; and +their language, belonging to the same class with the Avan, is +unlettered. They are the first of a long list. + +Their geographical distribution is remarkable, like that of the Tha'y. +Its direction is north and south; its dimensions linear, rather than +broad; and it bears nearly the same relation to the water-system of the +Salwin that that of the Siamese does to the river Menam. There are +Kariens as far south as 11 deg. North lat. and there are Kariens as far +north as 25 deg. North lat. Hence we have them in Maulmein, and in +Tenasserim, and in the intermediate provinces of Ye and Tavoy as well. +All these, like the Mon, have been eased by the transfer from Avan +oppression to British rule; though this says but little. Hence, with one +exception, the other members of their family are decreasing; the +exception being the so-called _Red_ Karien. + +This epithet indicates a change in physiognomy; and, indeed, the +physical conformation of the Burmese tribes requires attention. It is +Mongolian in the way that the Siamese is Mongolian; but changes have set +in. The beard increases; the hair becomes crisper; and the complexion +darkens. The Kyo,[24] the isolated occupants of a single village on the +river Koladyng, are so much darker than their neighbours as to have been +considered half Bengali; and, as a general rule, the nearer we approach +India, the deeper becomes the complexion. The Mon, too, of Pegu, are +very dark. What is this the effect of? Certainly not of latitude, since +we are moving northward. Of intermarriage? There is no proof of this. +The greater amount of low alluvial soils, like those of the Ganges and +Irawaddi, is, in my mind, the truer reason. But this is too general a +question to be allowed to delay us. The Red Kariens are instances of an +Asiatic tribe with an American colour; just as the Red Fulahs were in +Africa. Such are the occupants of the _continent_. + +5. _The Silong._--In the _islands_ of the Mergui Archipelago, there is +another variety; but whether it form a class itself, or belong to any +of the previous ones, is uncertain. Their language is said to be +peculiar;[25] but of this we have no specimen. As it is probably that of +the oldest inhabitants of the continent opposite, this is to be +regretted. + +They are called _Silong_, are a sort of sea-gipsy; and amount to about +one thousand. Of all the creeds of either India or the Indo-Chinese +peninsula theirs is the most primitive; so primitive as to be +characterized by little except its negative characters. They believe +that the land, air, trees, and waters are inhabited by _Nat_, or +spirits, who direct the phenomena of Nature. How far they affect that of +man, except indirectly, is unascertained. "We do not think about that," +was the invariable answer, when any one was questioned about a future +state. Too vague for monotheism, the Silong creed is also said to be too +vague for idolatry, too vague for sacrifices. + +The Kariens, also, believe in _Nat_, but, as _they_ believe in their +influence on human affairs, they sacrifice to them accordingly. + +Little, then, as we know, respecting these two families, we know that +the common practice of _Nat_ worship connects them; and this worship +connects many other members of the _Burmese_ stock. Consequently it +helps us to place the Silong in that group. It also favours the notion +of the Tenasserim aborigines being Burmese. + +It is the delta of the Irawaddi which isolates the _Tenasserim +provinces_; and the British dependency from which it separates them is-- + +_Arakhan._--We are prepared for the ethnological position of the Arakhan +populations. They are _Burmese_. + +We are likewise prepared for a division of them; there will be the +Indianized and the Pagan--paganism and political independence going, to +a certain degree, together. + +We are prepared for even minuter detail; the paganism will be +Nat-worship; the Indian creed Buddhism: the alphabet also, where the +language is written, will be Indian also. In Captain Tower's +vocabulary,[26] only seven words out of fifty differ between the Burmese +of Arakhan, and the Burmese of Ava; and some of these are mere +differences of pronunciation. + +The language itself is called _Rukheng_ by those who use it; but the +Bengali name is _Mug_. + +This applies to the Indianized part of the population, the analogues of +the Avans and Siamese of Tenasserim, and of the Mon of Maulmein. What +are the Arakhan equivalents to the Karien? + +_The Khyen._--These inhabit the Yuma mountains between Arakhan and Ava. +A full notice of them is given by Lieutenant Trant, in the sixteenth +volume of the "Asiatic Researches." But as they are chiefly independent +tribes, it is enough to state that they form the Anglo-Burmese frontier. +It is also added that there are numerous Khyen slaves in Arakhan. + +Farther notice of them is the less important, because a closely allied +population will occur amongst the hill-tribes of-- + +_Chittagong._--Hindu elements now increase. Even in Arakhan, Buddhism +had ceased to be the only creed of western origin. There were Mahometans +who spoke a mixed dialect called the _Ruinga_;[27] and Brahminical +Hindus who spoke another called the _Rosawn_. In Chittagong, then, we +must look about us for the aborigines; so intrusive have become the +Hindu elements. Intrusive, however, they are, and intrusive they will be +for some time to come. + +The foot of the hill, and the hill itself, are important points of +difference in Indian ethnology. On the _lower_ ranges of the mountains +on the north-east of Chittagong are the _Khumia_ (_Choomeeas_) or +_villagers_; _khum_ (_choom_) meaning _village_. These are definitely +distinguished from the Hindus, by a flat nose, small eye, and broad +round face, in other words by Mongolian characteristics in the way of +physiognomy. But the _Khumia_ are less perfect samples of their class +than the true mountaineers. These are the _Kuki_,[28]--hunters and +warriors, divided into tribes, each under elective chiefs, themselves +subordinate to a hereditary _Raja_,--at least such is the Hindu +phraseology. + +Their creed consists in the belief of _Khogein Pootteeang_ as a +superior, and _Sheem Sauk_ as an inferior deity; the destruction of +numerous enemies being the best recommendation to their favour. A wooden +figure, of human shape, represents the latter. The skulls of their +enemies they keep as trophies. In the month of January there is a solemn +festival. + +Language and tradition alike tell us that the Kuki (and most likely the +Khumia as well) are unmodified Mugs. The displacement of their family +has been twofold--first by Hindus, secondly by Buddhist (or modified) +Mugs at the time of the Burmese conquest. The Kuki population extends to +the wilder parts of the district of _Tippera_. + +_Sylhet._--On the southern frontier we have Kukis; on the eastern +Cachari; on the northern Coosyas (_Kasia_). Due west of these last lie +the Garo. I imagine that both these last-named populations are members +of the same group--but cannot speak confidently. If so, we have +departed considerably from the more typical Burmese of Arakhan and Ava. +Still we are within the same great class. The Garo will command a +somewhat full notice. + +The Cachars depart still more from the more typical Burmese; the group +to which they most closely belong being one which will also be enlarged +on. + +North of the Kasia we reach the western portion of the southern frontier +of-- + +_Assam._--Here it will be convenient to take the whole of the +valley--Upper as well as Middle and Lower Assam--although parts of the +former are independent rather than British--and to go round it; +beginning with the Kasia country and the Jaintia mountains on the +south-west. I imagine--but am not certain--that the Kasia and Jaintia +mountaineers are very closely allied. + +Next to the Cachars on the southern, or Manipur, frontier are-- + +_The Nagas._--These are in the same class with the Kuki; _i.e._, the +wild tribes of Manipur, speaking a not very altered dialect of the +Burmese. + +_The Singpho._--This people is said to have come from a locality between +their present position and the north-eastern corner of Assam and the +Chinese frontier. An imperfect Buddhism, and an unappreciated alphabet +of Siamese origin, are the chief phenomena of their civilization. + +_The Jili._--These are conterminous with the Singpho; to whom they are +closely allied, in language, at least; seventy words out of one hundred +agreeing in the two vocabularies. + +The _Khamti_ come in now. These have been mentioned as Tha'y in their +most northern localities. They occupy north-eastern Assam, and are +conterminous with the Singpho. The Khamti language, with its per-centage +of ninety-two words common to it and the Siamese of Bankok, ten degrees +southwards, has only three out of one hundred that agree with the +Singpho, and ten in one hundred with the Jili. This shows the remarkable +character of their ethnological distribution, and, at the same time, +suggests the idea of great displacement. + +_The Mishimi._--These occupy the north-east extremity of Assam. With the +Mishimi we turn the corner, and find ourself on the northern or Tibetan +frontier. Here it is the most western tribes which come first; and these +are-- + +_The Abors and Padam Bor-Abors._--The first, like the Kuki, on the +mountain-tops; the latter, like the Khumia, on the lower ranges. + +_The Dufla._--Mountaineers west of the Abors, with whom they are +conterminous in about 94 deg. East lon. + +_The Aka._--Mountaineers west of the Dufla, with whom they are +conterminous in about 92 deg. East lon. The Akas bound Lower Assam, the +eastern part of which lies between them and the Cachari country. + +The tribes hitherto mentioned, although sufficiently numerous, represent +the mountaineers of the Manipur and Tibetan _frontiers_ only. The native +tribes of the valley still stand over. These are-- + +1. The _Muttuck_ or _Moa Mareya_, _south_ of the Brahmaputra, and so far +Indianized as to be Brahminical in religion. Their locality is the south +bank of the Brahmaputra; opposite to that of-- + +2. _The Miri_, on the _north_.--The Miri are backed on the north by the +Bor-Abors. + +3. _The Mikir._--Mr. Robertson looks upon these as an intrusive people +from the Jaintia hills: their present locality being the district of +Nowgong, where they are mixed up with-- + +4. _The Lalong._--I cannot say whether the Lalong speak their originally +monosyllabic tongue, or have learnt the Bengali--a phenomenon which does +much to disguise the true ethnology of more than one of the forthcoming +tribes; one of which is certainly-- + +5. _The Dhekra_, occupants of Lower Assam and Kamrup, where they are +mixed up with other sections of the population. + +6. _The Rabha._--Like the Dhekra, these are Hindus. Like the Dhekra +they speak Bengali. Hence, like the Dhekra, their true affinities are +disguised. It is, however, pretty generally admitted by the best +authorities that what may be predicated of the Garo and Bodo--two +families of which a fuller notice will be given in the sequel--may be +predicated of the sections in question, as also of-- + +7. _The Hajong_ or _Hojai_.--Hindus, speaking a form of the Bengali at +the foot of the Garo hills; and who join the Rabha, whose locality is +between Gwahatti and Sylhet, _i.e._, at the entrance of the Assam +valley. + +The _Garo_ of the Garo hills to the north-east of Bengal now require +notice. A mountaineer of these parts has much in common with the Coosya; +yet the languages are, _perhaps_, mutually unintelligible. In form they +are exceedingly alike. + +Now, a Garo[29] is hardy, stout, and surly-looking, with a flattened +nose, blue or brown eyes, large mouth, thick lips, round face, and brown +complexion. Their _buniahs_ (_booneeahs_) or chiefs, are distinguished +by a silken turban. They have a prejudice against milk; but in the +matter of other sorts of food are omnivorous. Their houses, called +_chaungs_, are built on piles, from three to four feet from the ground, +from ten to forty in breadth, and from thirty to one hundred and fifty +in length. They drink, feast, and dance freely; and, in their +matrimonial forms, much resemble the Bodo. The youngest daughter +inherits. The widow marries the brother of the deceased; if he die, the +next; if all, the father. + +The dead are kept for four days; then burnt. Then the ashes are buried +in a hole on the place where the fire was. A small thatched building is +next raised over them; which is afterwards railed in. For a month, or +more, a lamp is lit every night in this building. The clothes of the +deceased hang on poles--one at each corner of the railing. When the pile +is set fire to, there is great feasting and drunkenness. + +The Garo are no Hindus. Neither are they unmodified pagans. Mahadeva +they invoke--perhaps, worship. Nevertheless, their creed is mixed. They +worship the sun and the moon, or rather the sun _or_ the moon; since +they ascertain which is to be invoked by taking a cup of water and some +wheat. The priest then calls on the name of the sun, and drops corn into +the water. If it sink, the sun is worshipped. If not, a similar +experiment is tried with the name of the moon. Misfortunes are +attributed to supernatural agency: and averted by sacrifice. + +Sometimes they swear on a stone; sometimes they take a tiger's bone +between their teeth and then tell their tale. + +Lastly, they have an equivalent to the _Lycanthropy_ of the older +European nations:-- + +"Among the Garrows a madness exists, which they call transformation into +a tiger, from the person who is afflicted with this malady walking about +like that animal, shunning all society. It is said, that, on their being +first seized with this complaint they tear their hair and the rings from +their ears, with such force as to break the lobe. It is supposed to be +occasioned by a medicine applied to the forehead; but I endeavoured to +procure some of the medicine thus used, without effect. I imagine it +rather to be created by frequent intoxications, as the malady goes off +in the course of a week or fortnight. During the time the person is in +this state, it is with the utmost difficulty he is made to eat or drink. +I questioned a man, who had thus been afflicted, as to the manner of his +being seized, and he told me he only felt a giddiness without any pain, +and that afterwards he did not know what happened to him."[30] + +In a paper of Captain C. S. Reynolds, in the "Journal of the Asiatic +Society of Bengal,"[31] we have the notice of a hitherto undescribed +superstition; that of the _Korah_. A _Korah_ is a dish of bell-metal, of +uncertain manufacture. A small kind, called Deo Korah, is hung up as a +household god and worshipped. Should the monthly sacrifice of a fowl be +neglected, punishment is expected. If "a person perform his devotion to +the spirit which inhabits the Korah with increasing fervour and +devotion, he is generally rewarded by seeing the embossed figures +gradually expand. The Garos believe that when the whole household is +wrapped in sleep, the Deo Korahs make expeditions in search of food, and +when they have satisfied their appetites return to their snug retreats +unobserved." + +The Miri are supposed to believe the same of what are called _Deo +Guntas_, brought from Tibet. + +Now what is the classification of all these tribes? Preliminary to the +answer on this point, there are eleven dialects spoken in the parts +about Manipur--besides the proper language of Manipur itself--to be +enumerated. These are as follows:--1. Songpu. 2. Kapwi. 3. Koreng. 4. +Maram. 5. Champhung. 6. Luhuppa. 7, 8, 9. Northern, Central, and +Southern Tangkhul. 10. Khoibu; and 11. Maring. Now these twelve (the +Manipur being included) have been tabulated by Mr. Brown, in such a way +as to show the per-centage of words that each has with all the others; +and not only these, but nearly all the tongues which we have had to deal +with, are similarly put in order for being compared. The part of the +table necessary for the present use is as follows:-- + + |N.|C.|S.| + |C | | | | | + |M | |h | |T |T |T | + |M |B | |S | |a | |a |L |a |a |a | + |i |u | |i | |n |S | |K | |m |u |n |n |n |K |M + |s |r |K |n | |i |o |K |o |M |p |h |g |g |g |h |a + |A |h |m |a |g |J |G |p |n |a |r |a |h |u |k |k |k |o |r + |A |b |i |e |r |p |i |a |u |g |p |e |r |u |p |h |h |h |i |i + |k |o |m |s |e |h |l |r |r |p |w |n |a |n |p |u |u |u |b |n + |a |r |i |e |n |o |i |o |i |u |i |g |m |g |a |l |l |l |u |g + -----------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-- + Aka | |47|20|17|12|15|15| 5|11| 3|10| 3| 8| 8| 8| 5| 6|10| 8|10 + Abor |47| |20|11|10|18|11| 6|15| 6|11| 5| 8| 6| 8| 8| 8|10|10|18 + Mishimi |20|20| |10|10|10|13|10|11| 0|11| 0| 3| 5| 6| 8| 6|13|10| 8 + Burmese |17|11|10| |23|23|26|12|16| 8|20| 6|11|11|11|10|13|13|16|16 + Karen |12|10|10|23| |17|21| 8|15|10|15| 8|12| 4|12| 8|12|12|10|15 + Singpho |15|18|10|23|17| |70|16|25|10|18|11|11|13|15|13|25|13|20|18 + Jili |15|11|13|26|21|70| |22|16|10|21|13|11|11|18|20|20|13|20|20 + Garo | 5| 6|10|12| 8|16|22| |10| 5| 6| 5| 8| 5| 8|13|11| 5| 5| 5 + Manipuri |11|15|11|16|15|25|16|10| |21|41|18|25|28|31|28|35|33|40|50 + Songpu | 3| 6| 0| 8|10|10|10| 5|21| |35|50|53|20|23|15|15|13| 8|15 + Kapwi |10|11|11|20|15|18|21| 6|41|35| |30|33|20|35|30|40|45|38|40 + Koreng | 3| 5| 0| 6| 8|11|13| 5|18|50|30| |41|18|21|20|20|11|10|15 + Maram | 8| 8| 3|11|12|11|11| 8|25|53|33|41| |21|28|25|20|16|23|26 + Champhung | 8| 6| 5|11| 4|13|11| 5|28|20|20|18|21| |40|20|20|16|15|25 + Luhuppa | 8| 8| 6|11|12|15|18| 8|31|23|35|21|28|40| |63|55|36|33|40 + N. Tangkhul| 5| 8| 8|10| 8|13|20|13|28|15|30|20|25|20|63| |85|30|31|31 + C. Tangkhul| 6| 8| 6|13|12|25|20|11|35|15|40|20|20|20|55|85| |41|45|41 + S. Tangkhul|10|10|13|13|12|13|13| 5|33|13|45|11|16|16|36|30|41| |43|43 + Khoibu | 8|10|10|16|10|20|20| 5|40| 8|38|10|23|15|33|31|45|43| |78 + Maring |10|18| 8|16|15|18|20| 5|50|15|40|15|26|25|40|31|41|43|78| + +The last eleven dialects are not spoken in any British dependency; and +they have only been mentioned for the sake of explaining the table. + +All belong to one and the same class; a point upon which I see no room +for doubt; although respecting the _value_ of that class I admit that +some exists. + +For this, the term _Burmese_ is as good as any other--without professing +to be better; yet, should it seem too precise, there is no objection to +the sufficiently general term of _monosyllabic_ being substituted for +it. + +The reader, however, may doubt the fact of the affinities. This has +been done. Long before the present writer knew of such dialects as the +Jili, Mishimi, Aka, Abor, Singpho, and the like, he had satisfied +himself that the Garo was monosyllabic, and had so expressed himself in +1844,[32] when Brown's Tables had been published, though not seen by +him. It was with surprise, then, that he found the author of them +writing, that "it would be difficult to decide from the specimens before +us, whether it is to be ranked with the monosyllabic or polysyllabic +languages. It probably belongs to the latter." + +Again, Mr. Hodgson makes the Garo Tamulian, _i.e._, polysyllabic; a fact +which will be noticed again when the Bodo, Dhimal, and Kocch have been +disposed of. + +_The Kocch_, _Bodo_, and _Dhimal_ is the title of one of that writer's +works--a model of an ethnological monograph. This gives us a new class. +The Bodo of Hodgson are the wild tribes that skirt the Himalayas, from +Assam to Sikkim. West of these, between the river Konki and the river +Dhorla are the Dhimal, a small tribe mixed with Bodo; and, southwards, +in Kocch Behar, are the Kocch. The two former are so much described +together that a separation is difficult. This leaves us at liberty to +follow the details of either one population or of both. The history of +a Bodo from his cradle to his grave is as follows. The birth is attended +with a _minimum_ amount of ceremonies. Midwives there are none; but +labours are easy. Neither has the priest much to do with ushering-in the +new-comer to the world. A short period of uncleanness is recognized, but +it is only a short one; the purification consisting in the acts of +bathing and shaving performed by the parties themselves. Four or five +days after delivery, the mother goes out into the world; and at that +time, the child is named. Any passing event determines this; as there +are no family names, and no names taken from their mythology. The +account, however, of Mr. Hodgson, in this respect is somewhat obscure, +"A Bhotia chief arrives at the village, and the child is named Jinkhap; +or a hill peasant arrives, and it is named Gongar, after the titular, or +general designation of the Bhotias." + +As long as a mother can suckle a child (or _children_) she continues to +do so, sometimes for so long a period as three years, when the last and +last but one may be seen sucking together. + +The period of weaning is thus delayed; and, notwithstanding the current +notion as to the prematurity of marriages in warm climates, that of +wedlock is delayed as well: the male waits till he is twenty or +twenty-five, the female till between fifteen and twenty. The parties +least concerned are the bride and bridegroom; the parents do the +courtship. Those of the lady take a payment. This is called a _Jan_ +amongst the Bodo, and varies from ten to fifteen rupees. With the Dhimal +it is a _Gandi_, and amounts to a higher sum, ranging from fifteen to +forty-five. Failing this, service must be done by the youth; and a wife +be earned as Jacob earned Leah and Rachel. This is the _Gabor_ of the +Bodo, and the _Gharjya_ of the Dhimal. + +Such marriages are easily dissolved, _i.e._, at the option of either +party. In case, however, of infidelity on the part of a wife having +caused a divorce, the wedding-money is repaid. Adoption is common, +concubinage rare; each being on a level with marriage in respect to the +_status_ of the children. Of these, all males inherit alike; but the +rights of the female are limited. + +The ceremony itself begins with a procession on the part of the +bridegroom's friends to the bride's house, two females accompanying +them. Of these, it is the business to put red-lead and oil on the +bride-elect's hair. A feast follows; after which the husband takes his +wife home. Thus far the Bodo forms agree with the Dhimal; but they +differ in what follows. + +_The Bodo_ sacrifices a cock and a hen in the names of the bridegroom +and the bride, respectively to the Sun. + +_The Dhimal_ propitiate _Data_ and _Bedata_ by presents of betel-leaf +and red-lead. + +Both bury their dead, and purify themselves by ablution in the nearest +stream when the funeral procession is over. The family, however, of the +deceased is considered as unclean for three days. + +A feast with sacrifices attends the purification. Before sitting down, +they repair once more to the grave, and present the dead with some of +the food from the banquet;--"take and eat, heretofore you have eaten and +drunk with us; you can do so no more; you were one of us, you can be so +no longer; we come no more to you; come you not to us." After this each +member of the party takes from his wrist a bracelet of thread, and +throws it on the grave. + +A ceremonial implies a priesthood. Under this class come the Deoshi, the +Dhami, the Ojha, and the Phantwal. + +The first of these is the village, the second the district, priest. + +The Ojha is the village exorcist; and the Phantwal a subordinate of the +Deoshi. The influence of this clerical body, although probably higher +than Mr. Hodgson places it, is, evidently, anything but exorbitant. + +I cannot find anything in the Bodo and Dhimal superstitions higher than +what was found in Africa. Nor yet is anything _essentially_ different. +Similar intellectual conditions develop similar creeds, independent of +intercourse; a fact which, the more we go into the natural history of +religions, the more we shall verify. We read indeed of _oaths_ and +_ordeals_; but oaths and ordeals are by no means, what they have too +loosely been supposed to be, appeals to the moral nature of the +Divinity. The _dhoom_ test, in Old Calabar, is an ordeal. The criminal +tests of the Fantis are the same. Indeed, few, if any tribes, are +without them. What the real ideas are which determine such and such-like +ceremonies is difficult for intellectual adults to understand. The way +towards their appreciation lies in the phenomena of a child's mind; the +true clue to the psychology of rude populations. + +If we take the Bodo and Dhimal religions in detail we find ourselves in +a familiar field, with well-known forms of superstition around us. + +Diseases are attributed to supernatural agency; and the medicine-man, +exorcist, or Ojha, is more priest than surgeon. + +The _feticism_ of Africa re-appears; at least such is my inference from +the following extract. "_Batho_ is clearly and indisputably identifiable +with _something tangible_, _viz._, the _Sij_ or _Euphorbia_; though why +that useless and even exotic plant should have been thus selected to +type the Godhead, I have failed to learn." + +Euhemerism, or the worship of dead men deified, is to be found either in +its germs or its rudiments; at any rate, one of their deities bears the +name of Hajo, a known historic personage. But this may be referable to +Hindu influences unequivocally traceable in other parts of the Pantheon. + +It is the rites and ceremonies of a country that give us its religion in +the concrete. All beyond is an abstraction. These, with the Bodo and +Dhimal, are numerous. Invocations, deprecations, and thanksgivings are +all mentioned by Mr. Hodgson; and they are all attended by offerings or +sacrifices; libations attend the sacrifices, and feasting follows the +libations. + +The great festivals of the year are four for the Bodo, three for the +Dhimal. + +_a._ In December or January, when the cotton-crop is ready, the Bodo +hold their _Shurkhar_, the Dhimal their _Harejata_. + +_b._ In February or March, the Bodo hold the _Wagaleno_. + +_c._ In July or August, the rice comes into ear. This brings on the Bodo +_Phulthepno_, and the Dhimal _Gavipuja_. + +All these are celebrated out of doors, and on agricultural occasions. + +_d._ The fourth great festival is held at home; its time being the month +of October; its name _Aihuno_ in Bodo, and _Pochima paka_ in Dhimal. +Here, in the _Aihuno_ at least, the family assembles, the priest joins +it, and the Sij, or Euphorbia, represents Batho. This is placed in the +middle of the room, has prayers offered to it, and a _cock_ as a +sacrifice; whilst Mainou's offering is a _hog_; Agrang's a _he-goat_, +and so on, through the whole list of the nine _nooni madai_, or deities +thus worshipped. As for the symbols which represent them, besides the +Sij, which stands for Batho, there is a bamboo post about three feet +high, surmounted by a small cup of rice, denoting Mainou; but the +equivalents of the other seven are somewhat uncertain. + +The Wagaleno festival was witnessed by Mr. Hodgson and Dr. Campbell. The +account of it is something lengthy. I mention it, however, for the sake +of one of its principal actors--the Deoda. This is the _possessed_, who, +"when filled with the god, answers by inspiration to the question of the +priest as to the prospects of the coming season. When we first discerned +him, he was sitting on the ground, panting, and rolling his eyes so +significantly that I at once conjectured his function. Shortly +afterwards, the rite still proceeding, the Deoda got up, entered the +circle, and commenced dancing with the rest, but more wildly. He held a +short staff in his hand, with which, from time to time, he struck the +bedizened poles, one by one, and lowering it as he struck. The chief +dancer with the odd-shaped instrument waxed more and more vehement in +his dance; the inspired grew more and more maniacal; the music more and +more rapid; the incantation more and more solemn and earnest; till, at +last, amid a general lowering of the heads of the decked bamboo poles, +so that they met and formed a canopy over him, the Deoda went off in an +affected fit, and the ceremony closed without any revelation." This +self-excited state of ecstasy is an element of most religions in the +same stage of development; and a low level it indicates. In Greece, in +Africa, and in Northern Asia, we find it as regularly as we find a +coarse and material creed; and to the coarseness of the materialism of +such a creed it is generally proportionate. + +Witches, and the discovery of them, and the influence of the evil eye +are part and parcel of the Bodo and Dhimal superstitions. + +_Kocch_ means a population, which possibly amounts to as much as a +million souls, extended from about 88 deg. to 93-1/2 deg. East long., and +25 deg. to 27 deg. North lat., and of which Kocch Behar is the political +centre. The term is _ethnological_--not political. It is ethnological, +and not political, because, although originally native, it has since been +partially abandoned. _All_ the inhabitants of the parts in question +_once_ called themselves Kocch; and Kocch they were called by their +neighbours the Mech. At this time the country was unequivocally other +than Indian; _i.e._, in the same category with that of the Garo and +Bodo. Since then, however, great changes have taken place; so that, just +as Wales is partially Anglicized, the Welsh language being replaced by +the English, the Kocch--the native tongue--is under the process of being +replaced by a Hindu dialect. Nevertheless, just as many a Welshman who +speaks nothing but English is still a Welshman, so are the Kocch, who +have changed their languages, Bodo, Garo, or something closely akin, in +ethnological position. + +The extent to which different portions of the once great Kocch nation +have abandoned or retained their original characteristics is easily +measured. + +1. Those who have changed most speak a form of the Bengali, and are +imperfect Mahometans; imperfect, because their creed is strongly +tinctured with Hinduism. Thus the very epithet which they apply to +themselves is Brahminical; _Rajbansi_=_Suryabansi_=_Sun-born_. The +converted Kocch of the Mahometan creed are chiefly of the lower order +of the province of Behar. + +2. Those who have changed, but changed less than the _Mahometans_ of +Behar, are either Brahminists or Buddhists--speaking the same Bengali +dialect as the last. These are chiefly the higher classes of the +population of Behar. They are Kocch in the way that the Cornishmen are +Welsh. They consider them _Rajbansi_ also. Doubtless, their Hinduism is +imperfect; _i.e._, tinctured with the original paganism. + +3. The primitive, unconverted, or _Pani_ Kocch, have either not changed +at all, or changed but little. They retain the original name of Kocch; +which is not endured by the others. They retain their original tongue, +which, according to Buchanan, has no affinity with any of the Hindu +tongues. They retain their original customs; and they retain their +original paganism. Lastly, Mr. Hodgson attests the "entire conformity of +the physiognomy of all--with that of the other aborigines around them." +He adds that he cannot improve on Buchanan's account of them, which is +as follows:--"The primitive or Pani Kocch live amid the woods, +frequently changing their abode in order to cultivate lands enriched by +a fallow. They cultivate entirely with the hoe, and more carefully than +their neighbours who use the plough, for they weed their crops, which +the others do not. As they keep hogs and poultry they are better fed +than the Hindus, and as they make a fermented liquor from rice, their +diet is more strengthening. The clothing of the Pani Kocch is made by +the women, and is in general blue, dyed by themselves with their own +indigo, the borders red, dyed with Morinda. The material is cotton of +their own growth, and they are better clothed than the mass of the +Bengalese. Their huts are at least as good, nor are they raised on posts +like the houses of the Indo-Chinese, at least, not generally so. Their +only arms are spears: but they use iron-shod implements of agriculture, +which the Bengalese often do not. They eat swine, goats, sheep, deer, +buffaloes, rhinoceros, fowls, and ducks--not beef, nor dogs, nor cats, +nor frogs, nor snakes. They use tobacco and beer, but reject opium and +hemp. They eat no tame animal without offering it to God (the Gods), and +consider that he who is least restrained is most exalted, allowing the +Garos to be their superiors, because the Garos may eat beef. The men are +so gallant as to have made over all property to the women, who in return +are most industrious, weaving, spinning, brewing, planting, sowing; in a +word, doing all work not above their strength. When a woman dies the +family property goes to her daughters, and when a man marries he lives +with his wife's mother, obeying her as his wife. Marriages are usually +arranged by mothers in nonage, but consulting the destined bride. Grown +up women may select a husband for themselves, and another, if the first +die. A girl's marriage costs the mother ten rupees--a boy's five rupees. +This sum is expended in a feast with sacrifice, which completes the +ceremony. Few remain unmarried, or live long. I saw no grey hairs. +Girls, who are frail, can always marry their lover. Under such rule, +polygamy, concubinage, and adultery are not tolerated. The last subjects +to a ruinous fine, which if not paid, the offender becomes a slave. No +one can marry out of his own tribe. If he do, he is fined. Sutties are +unknown, and widows always having property can pick out a new husband at +discretion. The dead are kept two days, during which the family mourn, +and the kindred and friends assemble and feast, dance and sing. The body +is then burned by a river's side, and each person having bathed returns +to his usual occupation. A funeral costs ten rupees, as several pigs +must be sacrificed to the manes. This tribe has no letters; but a sort +of priesthood called Deoshi, who marry and work like other people. Their +office is not hereditary, and everybody employs what Deoshi he pleases, +but some one always assists at every sacrifice and gets a share. The +Kocch sacrifice to the sun, moon, and stars, to the gods of rivers, +hills and woods, and every year, at harvest-home, they offer fruits and +a fowl to deceased parents, though they believe not in a future state! +Their chief gods are Rishi and his wife Jago. After the rains the whole +tribe make a grand sacrifice to these gods, and occasionally also, in +cases of distress. There are no images. The gods get the blood of +sacrifices; their votaries, the meat. Disputes are settled among +themselves by juries of Elders, the women being excluded here, however +despotic at home. If a man incurs a fine, he cannot pay with purse, he +must with person, becoming a bondman, on food and raiment only, unless +his wife can and will redeem him." + +I must now request particular attention on the part of the reader to the +terms which Mr. Hodgson applies to the physical conformation of these +northern, or sub-Himalayan tribes; and still closer attention must be +given to his nomenclature. He calls the stock in question _Tamulian_. +This connects it with the _South_ Indian. He contrasts it with the +_Hindu_. By this he means the Brahminical elements of the Indian +populations. + +Let us then see what points he considers to be _Tamulian_. + +1. There is "less height, less symmetry, more dumpiness and flesh." + +2. There is "a somewhat lozenge contour (of face) caused by the large +cheek-bones." + +3. There is "less perpendicularity of features in the front--a larger +proportion of face to head--a broader flatter face--a shorter wider +nose, often clubbed at the end, and furnished with round nostrils." + +4. There is a smaller eye, "less fully opened, and less evenly crossing +the face by their line of aperture." In other words, there is the +_oblique_ eye, so much considered in the Chinese physiognomy. + +5. Lastly, there are larger ears, thicker lips, and less beard. + +I submit that all these points are Mongolian; and this is what Mr. +Hodgson evidently thinks also. + +The whole class has passed beyond the hunter state, if ever such +existed. It has passed beyond the pastoral or nomadic state also; if +such existed. It is at present--and, perhaps, has always been--an +agricultural state of society. On the other hand--the industrial state, +the development represented by towns and commerce, has not been +attained. + +The whole stock is essentially agricultural. Likewise, the agriculture +is peculiar. We may explain it by the term _erratic_. They "never +cultivate the same field beyond the second year, or remain in the same +village beyond the fourth to sixth year. After the lapse of four or five +years they frequently return to their old fields and resume their +cultivation, if in the interim the jungle has grown well, and they have +not been anticipated by others, for there is no pretence of +appropriation other than possessory, and if, therefore, another party +have preceded them, or, if the slow growth of the jungle give no +sufficient promise of a good stratum of ashes for the land when cleared +by fire, they move on to another site, new or old. If old, they resume +the identical fields they tilled before, but never the old houses or +site of the old village, that being deemed unlucky. In general, however, +they prefer new land to old, and having still abundance of unbroken +forest around them, they are in constant movement, more especially as, +should they find a new spot prove unfertile, they decamp after the first +harvest is got in." + +_Arva in annos mutant et superest ager._ This passage is explained by +their customs. + +In respect to their social constitution, they dwell in small communities +of from ten to forty houses; each of which community is under a _gra_ or +head. This is Hindu--except that as the Hindu villages are both larger +and more permanent, the functionaries, in addition to the _headman_, are +more numerous. This is noted, because the difference in the two sorts of +village government seems to be one of _degree_ rather than _kind_. + +And now comes more in the way of classification. The Bodo are Kachars, +or the Kachars are Bodo. Their languages are the same, so are their +gods, so is their name; since Kachar is a Hindu, and no native term--the +native name (_i.e._, of the Kachars) being _Bodo_. On the other hand, +the _Hindu_ name of the Bodo is Mech. Whoever looks to a map will find +that the outline of the Bodo area is very deeply indented; implying +either a great original irregularity of area, or great subsequent +displacement. + +Now follow the Garo. One fourth--fifteen out of sixty--of the words of +Mr. Brown's Garo vocabulary is Bodo. The inference? That the Bodo and +Garo are in the same category. What is this? Mr. Hodgson makes both +Tamulian or Indian. In my own mind both are Burmese. But be this as it +may, one fact is certain; _viz._, that a transition between the tongues +of the Indian and the tongues of the Indo-Chinese peninsula exists, and +that the lines of demarcation which divide them are less broad and +trenchant than is generally supposed. + +The Dhimal bring us to Sikkim. The dominant nation of Sikkim are-- + +_The Lepchas._--Their language also is monosyllabic; but it is Tibetan +rather than Burmese. They are a Sikkim rather than a British Indian +population. + +When we have passed the rajahship of Sikkim, we reach that of Nepal. +This, again, is independent. Such being the case, the line of frontier +between the Hindu populations and the populations of the Bodo and Garo +character lies beyond the pale of the British dependencies. + +But in proceeding westward, we pass Nepal, and reach Kumaon. + +This is British, and, as it extends as far north as the Himalayas, it +may contain monosyllabic languages, and tribes speaking them. It may +present also instances of intermixture like those which we have already +found in Behar--the line of demarcation being equally difficult and +undefined. Difficult and undefined it really is--because, although it is +an easy matter to take a portion of the Sirmor, Gurhwal, or Kumaon +population, and say, "this is Hindu because both language and creed make +it so," it is by no means so easy to prove that the blood, pedigree, or +descent is Hindu also. To repeat an illustration already in use--many +such populations may be Hindu only as the Cornishmen are English. + +Now the populations of the Tibetan stock to the west of Nepal, so little +known in detail, must be illustrated by means of our knowledge of the +tribes of Nepal and Tibet most closely related to them--by those of +Nepal on the east, and those of Tibet on the north. + +For neither of these areas are there any very minute _data_. For the +aborigines of _eastern_ and _central_ Nepal, we have plenty of +information. They are tribes speaking monosyllabic languages, and tribes +in different degrees of intercourse with the Hindus; being by name--1. +The Magars. 2. The Gurungs. 3. The Jariyas. 4. The Newars. 5. The +Murmis. 6. The Kirata. 7. The Limbu; and 8. The Lepchas, common to the +eastern boundary of Nepal, to the western part of Butan, and to Sikkim. +This, however, will not bring us far west enough for the Kumaon +frontier; indeed, for the forests of Nepal _west_ of the Great Valley, +we have the notice of one family only--the Chepang. For this, as for so +much more, we are indebted to Mr. Hodgson. It falls into three tribes; +the Chepang proper, the Kusunda, and the Haju. Its language (known to us +by a vocabulary) is monosyllabic; its physical conformation, that of the +unmodified Indian. + +So much for analogy. In the way of direct information we simply know +that the Pariahs, or outcasts, of Kumaon[33] are called _Doms_. These +have darker skins and curlier hair than the Hindus. Are these enslaved +and partially amalgamated aborigines? Probably. Nay more; in the +eastern part of the province, amidst the forests at the foot of the +Himalayas, a community of about twenty families, pertinaciously adheres +to the customs of their ancestors, resembles the _Doms_ in looks, and is +called _Rawat_ or _Raji_. Though I have seen no specimen of their +language, I have little doubt as to the _Rawat_ of Kumaon being the +equivalents to the Chepang of Nepal. + +From Konawur we have three monosyllabic vocabularies, the Sumchu, the +Theburskud, and the Milchan; but the exact amount to which the Tibetan +and the Hindu populations indent each other along the western Himalayas +is more than I can give. + +Here end the monosyllabic tongues spoken in British India. But they +fringe the Himalayas throughout, and occur in the country of Gholab +Singh, as well as in the independent rajahships between the Sutlege and +Cashmeer. My latest researches have carried them even further westward +than Little Tibet; as far as the Kohistan, or mountain country, of +Cabul--the Der, Lughmani, Tirhai, and other languages, known, wholly or +chiefly, through the vocabularies of Lieutenant Leach, being essentially +monosyllabic in structure, and definitely connected with the tongues of +Tibet, and Nepal in respect to their vocables. + +But this is episodical to the subject--a subject still requiring the +notice of a very important phenomenon. + +_Polyandria_[34] is a term in ethnology, even as it is in botany. Its +meaning, however, is different. Etymologically, it denotes a form of +_polygamy_. _Polygamy_, however, being restricted to that particular +form of marriage which consists in a multiplicity of _wives_, +_polyandria_ expresses the reverse, _viz._, the plurality of _husbands_. + +At the first glance, the word _polyandria_ looks like a learned name for +a common thing; and suggests the inquiry as to how it differs from +simple promiscuity of intercourse; or, at least, how far the Tibetan +wife differs from the fair frail one who was always constant to the 85th +regiment. The answer is not easy. Still it is certain that some +difference exists--if not in form, at least, in its effects. One of +these, in certain countries where _polyandria_ prevails, is the law of +succession to property. This follows the female line, rather than the +male. + +Again--the marriage of the widow with the surviving brother of her +husband, is polyandria under another form. + +What the exact polyandria of Tibet is, is uncertain. I am not prepared +to deny its existence even in so extreme a form as that of _one woman +being married to several husbands, all alive at once_. Still, I think it +more likely that either the circle of community was limited to certain +degrees of relationships, or else that the multiplied husbands were +successive, rather than simultaneous. Still, the facts of the Tibetan +_polyandria_ require further investigation. + +One thing, only, is certain--_viz._, that as an ethnological criterion +the practice is of no great value. Capable, as it has been shown to be, +of modification in form, it is anything but limited to either Tibet, or +the families allied to the Tibetan. It occurs in many parts of the +world. It is a Malabar practice; where it is, probably, as truly Tibetan +as in Tibet itself. But it is also Jewish, African, Siberian, and North +American; so that nothing would more mislead us in the classification of +the varieties of man than to mistake it for a phenomenon _per se_, and +allow it to separate allied, or to connect distinct populations. + +_Necdum finitus Orestes._--There are several populations which, on fair +grounds, have been believed to be in the same category with the Dhekra, +_i.e._, which are Hindu in language and creed, though monosyllabic in +blood. The Kudi, Batar, Kebrat, Pallah, Gangai, Maraha, Dhanak, Kichak, +and Tharu, are oftener alluded to than described--though, doubtless, a +better-informed investigator in such special matters than the present +writer could find several definite details concerning them. They seem +chiefly referable to Behar and north-eastern Bengal. The _Dhungers_--in +the same class--the husbandmen of South Behar, bring us down to the +vicinity of the population next to be noticed; a population which is +generally considered with reference to the nations, tribes, and families +of _Southern_ rather than _Northern_ India. + +The name of this family has already been mentioned. It is _Tamulian_; +and the _Tamulian_ physiognomy has been described. It has been seen to +extend as far north as the Himalayas. If so, the nations already +enumerated have been Tamulian; and no new class is now approaching. This +may or may not be the case. Another change, however, is more undeniable. +This is that of language. It is no longer referable to the Chinese type; +since separate monosyllables have, more or less perfectly, become +_agglutinated_ into inflected forms, and the speech is as +_poly_-syllabic as the other tongues of the world in general. As we +approach the south this abandonment of the monosyllabic character +increases, and from the _Tamul_ language spoken between Pulicat and Cape +Comorin, the term _Tamulian_--applicable in a general ethnological +sense--is derived. _Agglutinated_ (or _agglutinate_) is also a technical +term. It means languages in the second stage of their development; when +words originally separate, such as adverbs of time, prepositions, and +personal pronouns, have become permanently connected with the root, so +as to form tenses, cases, and persons--the union of the two parts of an +inflected word being still sufficiently recent and imperfect to leave +their original separation and independence visible and manifest. When +the incorporation or amalgamation, has become more complete; so +complete, as in most cases to have obliterated all vestiges of an +original independence; the _agglutinate_ character has departed, the +second stage of development has been passed, and the language is in the +same class with those of Greece, Rome, and Germany, rather than in that +of the tongues in question, and of many others. + +To return, however, to the _Tamulian_ family, meaning thereby a branch +of the great Mongolian stock, speaking, _either now or formerly_, a +language more or less allied to the Tamul of the Dekhan. + +The first members of the class, as we proceed southwards from Behar, are +certain hill-tribes of the Rajmahali Mountains--the Rajmahali +mountaineers. Their Mongolian physiognomy is unequivocal;--a Mongolian +physiognomy but conjoined with a dark skin. They have "broad faces, +small eyes, and flattish or rather turned-up noses. Their lips are +thicker than those of the inhabitants of the plain."[35] + +The flattened nose reminded the writer of the Negro, and the general +character of the features of the Chinese or Malay; though it is added +that the resemblance is in a great degree lost on closer inspection. At +the same time it has been sufficiently recognized to have originated the +hypothesis of a descent from one of those nations as a means of +accounting for it. + +With a slight tincture of Brahminic Hinduism, the Rajmahali mountaineers +are Pagans. _Bedo_ is one of their gods; doubtless the _Potteang_ of the +Kuki, and the _Batho_ of the Bodo. _Gosaik_, too, is either the name of +a god, or a holy epithet; this, also, being a mythological term current +amongst many other tribes of India. Other elements in their +imperfectly-known mythology deserve notice. Their priesthood contains +both _Demauns_ and _Dewassis_; the latter form being the Bodo _Deoshi_. +As the names are alike, so are the functions. The _Dewassi_ is an +oracular seer. When he vouchsafes to give answers, his inspiration takes +the form of frenzy--but he neither hurts nor speaks to any one. He makes +signs for a cock, and for a hen's egg as well. The cock's head he +wrenches off, and sucks the bleeding neck. The egg he eats. After this +he seeks the solitude of the wood or stream; and is fed by the deity. +Sometimes he has ridden a snake; sometimes put his hands in the mouth of +a tiger with impunity. Trees too large to move, or too thorny to touch, +he places on the roofs of houses. He sees Bedo Gosaik in visions; and, +in the sacrifices therein enjoined, red paint, rice, and pigeons make a +part. From the touch of women he abstains; so he does from the taste of +flesh. Either would make his prophecies false. + +There are also certain sacrifices that the _Maungy_ (chief?) of each +village makes, and in which threads of red silk play a part. + +One of their gods--an elemental one--is the god of rain, and the dangers +of a drought are averted by praying to him. A ceremony called the +_Satane_ determines the chief who takes the office of invoker. + +A black stone, called _Ruxy_, is much of the same sort of fetish with +these mountaineers as the Sij with the Bodo. The name, too, Ruxy _Nad_, +suggests the Nat worship of the Silong, Kariens, and others. + +The northern half of the Tamulian families are, like the Welsh, the +Cornish, and the Bretons of France, members of the same ethnological +group, but not in geographical contact with each other. Or, rather, they +are, like the Celtic population of Wales and the Scottish Highlands, +cut off from one another by a vast tract of intervening Anglo-Saxons. +Yet the time was when all was Celtic, from Cape Wrath to the Land's End; +and when the original population extended, in its full integrity, over +York and Nottingham, as well as over Merioneth and Argyleshire. And so +it is with the populations in question. They stand apart from each +other, like islands in an ocean; the intervening spaces being filled up +by Hindus. At the same time the isolation has been much overvalued, and, +I imagine that when greater attention shall have been bestowed upon this +important subject, connecting links which have hitherto been unnoticed +will be detected. + +The next locality where we find a population akin to the Rajmahali +mountaineers, is the mountain system of Orissa. These are called by the +Hindus _Kols_ (_Coolies_), _Khonds_ and _Surs_. Such, however, are no +native designations--no more than the classical term _Barbarian_, or the +English word _Tartar_. The people themselves have no collective name; +but, being divided into tribes, have a separate one for each. + +I say that this branch of Tamulians is isolated, because I am not able +to show its continuity; the range of hill-country which gives rise to +the rivers between the Ganges and Mahanuddy being but imperfectly known. + +In Orissa, the most northern of the hill-tribes are the Kol of Cuttack. +South of these come the Khonds best studied in the neighbourhood of +Goomsoor. The following is a list of their gods, and as _n_ seems to +stand for _d_, _Pennu_ is but another name for _Bedo_, and _Gossa Pennu_ +for _Bedo Gosaik_:-- + + 1. Bera _Pennu_, or the earth god. + 2. Bella _Pennu_, the sun god, and Danzu _Pennu_, the moon god. + 3. Sandhi _Pennu_, the god of limits. + 4. Loha _Pennu_, the iron god, or god of arms. + 5. Jugah _Pennu_, the god of small-pox. + 6. Madzu _Pennu_, or the village deity, the universal _genius loci_. + 7. Soro _Pennu_, the hill god. + 8. Jori _Pennu_, the god of streams. + 9. Gossa _Pennu_, the forest god. + 10. Munda _Pennu_, the tank god. + 11. Sugu _Pennu_, or Sidruja _Pennu_, the god of fountains. + 12. Pidzu _Pennu_, the god of rain. + 13. Pilamu _Pennu_, the god of hunting. + 14. The god of births.[36] + +The most southern of the Orissa hill-tribes are the _Sur_; connected by +language with the preceding tribes; as they were with each other and the +Rajmahali mountaineers. + +These stand in remarkable contrast with the rest of the population of +Orissa; whose language is the Udiya, a tongue which, according to many, +belongs to a wholly different class, or, at least, to a different +division of the present. + +South of Chicacole, however, the Tamul tongues are spoken continuously. +I cannot say where the southern limits of the Sur population come in +contact with the northern ones of the-- + +_Chenchwars_--who occupy the same range of mountains, in the parts +between the rivers Kistna and Pennar, and, probably, extending as far +south as the neighbourhood of Madras. Their language is the Telugu, the +language of the parts around, and of Tamul origin.[37] The contrast +between the Chenchwars of the hills, and the Telingas of the lower +country lies in their mythologies; the former retaining much of the +original creed of their country, the latter being Brahminists. + +Below Madras, the mountain range changes its direction, and the next +locality under notice is the Neilgherry hills. + +The families here are-- + +1. _The Cohatars_--so little Indianized as to eat of the flesh of the +cow, amounting to about two thousand in number, and occupants of the +highest part of the range. + +2. _The Tudas._--An interesting monograph by Captain Harkness has drawn +unusual attention to these mountaineers, the chief points of importance +being the comparative absence of all elements of Brahminism, and the +occurrence in their physiognomy of the most favourable points of Hindu +beauty--regular and delicate features, oval face, and a clear brunette +skin. Free from the other religious and social characteristics of +Hinduism as the Tudas may be, they still admit a sort of caste; _e.g._, +whilst the _Peiki_, or _Toralli_, may perform any function, the _Kuta_, +or _Tardas_, are limited. Neither did they always intermarry, though +they do now; their offspring being called _Mookh_, or _descendants_. + +3. _The Curumbas_, called by the Tudas _Curbs_, inhabit a lower level +than the preceding populations, but a higher one than-- + +4. _The Erulars_ at the foot of the hills; falling into two +divisions--_a_, the _Urali_ (a name to be noticed), and _b_, the +_Curutali_. + +Between the Neilgherries and Cape Comorin, the hill-tribes are worth +enumerating, if only for the sake of showing their complexity. According +to Lieutenant Conner in the "Madras Journal," they are--1, Cowders; 2, +Vaishvans; 3, Mudavenmars; 4, Arreamars, or Vailamers; 5, Ural-Uays. +Besides these, there is a population of predial slaves, divided and +subdivided. + + 1. Vaituvan, Konaken. + 2. Polayers-- + _a._ Vulluva. + _b._ Kunnaka. + _c._ Morny Pulayer. + 3. Pariahs. + 4. Vaidurs. + 5. Ulanders and Naiadi. + +To return to the Neilgherries, and follow the western Ghauts upwards, a +population more numerous than any hitherto mentioned is that of the-- + +_Buddugurs_, called also _Marves_. This name takes so many forms that +_Berdar_ may be one of them. One division of Buddugurs is called +_Lingait_. + +I cannot follow the Ghauts consecutively; however, when we reach the +southern portion of the Mahratta country, we find in the rajahship of +Satarah, two predatory tribes:-- + +_The Berdars_, supposed to be closely allied to Ramusi. The-- + +_Ramusi_ themselves connected by tradition and creed, with the _Lingait_ +Buddugurs. But not by language; or at any rate not wholly so. The Ramusi +dialect is a mixture of Tulava and Marathi--the former being undoubted +Tamul, but the latter in the same category with the Udiya. + +The continuous Tamul languages are now left to the south of us, and the +hill-tribes next in order, will have unlearnt their native tongues, and +be found speaking the Hindu dialects of the countries around them. +Hence, the evidence of their Tamulian descent will be less conclusive. + +_Warali of the Konkan._--Mountaineers of the northern Konkan. We have +seen this name twice already, and we shall see it again. The evidence of +their Tamulian extraction is imperfect. Their language is Marathi and +their creed an imperfect Brahminism. Their mountaineer habits separate +them from-- + +_The Katodi_--outcasts, who take their name from preparing the _kat_, or +_cat-echu_, and who hang about the villages of the _plains_. + +_The Kuli._--From Poonah to Gujerat, the occupants of the range of +mountains parallel to the coast are called _Kuli_ (_Coolies_), the same +in the eyes of the Hindus of the western coast, as the _Kol_ were in +those of the Bengalese and Orissans; and similarly named. Their language +is generally (perhaps always) that of the country around them, _viz._, +Marathi amongst the Mahrattas, and Gujerathi in Gujerat. However, +difference of habits and creed sufficiently separate them from the +Hindus. + +_The Bhils._--These are generally associated with the Kulis; from whom +they chiefly differ geographically, belonging, as they do to the +transverse ranges--the Satpura and Vindhia mountains--rather than to the +main line of the Ghauts with its due north-and-south direction, and with +its parallelism to the coast. + +_The Paurias._--Hill-tribes in Candeish, belonging to the Satpura range, +and conterminous with the Bhil tribes, and with-- + +_The Wurali of the Satpura range._--The Wurali re-appear for the fourth +time. In the parts in question they are in contact with the Bhils and +Paurias; from whom they keep themselves distinct; and from whom they +differ in dialect. Still their language is Marathi. Pre-eminent as they +are for their Paganism, their country contains ruins of brick buildings, +and considerable excavations.[38] + +These three are the hill-tribes of the water-shed of the rivers Tapti +and Nerbudda. The water-system of the south-western feeders of the +Ganges is more complex. Along the mountains between Candeish and Jeypur +come-- + +Certain _Bhil_ tribes. + +_The Mewars_--under the Grasya chiefs of Joora, Meerpoor, Oguna, and +Panurwa. The political relations of these tribes--in some cases of an +undetermined nature--are with the Rajput governments; in other words, +we are now amongst the aborigines of Rajasthan. + +_The Minas._--These, like the Mewars, are in geographical contact with +certain Bhil tribes; in political contact with the Rajputs--the Mewars +with those of Udipur; the Minas with those of Ajmer, Jeypur, and Kota. + +_The Moghis._--At present, a free company rather than a population; +although the representatives of what was once one--_viz._, the +aborigines of Jodpure. So little Brahminists are they that they eat of +the flesh of the jackal and the cow, and indulge freely in fermented +drinks. + +The hills that separate Malwah from the Haroti country, and from the +south-eastern boundary of the valley of the River Chumbul are occupied +by-- + +_The Saireas._--This is a name which has occurred before and +elsewhere;[39] and is almost certainly, anything but native. Tribes, +under this name, extend into Bundelcund.[40] + +_The Goands._--The central parts between Candeish and Orissa, the +head-waters of the Nerbudda and Tapti on the west, and of the Godavery +on the east, still require notice. Here the hill population is at its +_maximum_, both in point of numbers and characteristics; and the _Khond_ +forms of the Tamul re-appear under the name _Goand_. Of these we have +specimens from-- + +_a._ The Gawhilghur mountains near Ellichpoor. + +_b._ Chupprah. + +_c._ Mundala in _Gundwana_, or the _Goand_ country. + +Such are the chief hill-populations; which, although they belong to +Tamulian stock, differ as to the extent to which they carry outward and +visible signs of their origin. Some, like the Rajmahali, are merely +separated geographically; and, perhaps, not even that. Others, like the +Khonds of Orissa, are contrasted with the Tamuls of the south, by their +inferior and social condition, and their non-Brahminical creeds. The +Minas and Bhils differ in language; whilst the Ramusis and Berdars, +probably, exhibit transitional forms of speech. The Tudas and Chenchwars +surrounded by Telingas and Tamuls, as the Khonds and Goands are by +Udiyas and Mahrattas, are merely the population of the parts around them +with a primitive polity and religion. + +The _lettered_ languages of the Dekhan, where the Tamul character is +unequivocal, but where the civilizational influences have chiefly been +Hindu, are spoken in continuity from Chicacole, east, and the parts +about Goa, west, to Cape Comorin, _i.e._, in the Madras Presidency, and +in the countries of Mysore, Travancore, and the coasts of Malabar and +Coromandel. Of these, the most northern--beginning on the eastern +coast--is-- + +_The Telinga or Telugu._--Spoken from the parts about Chicacole to +Pulicat, where it is succeeded by-- + +_The Tamul Proper._--The language of the Coromandel coast and the parts +of the interior as far as Coimbatore. Each of these tongues has a double +form, one for literature, and one for common use; the former being +called the High, the latter the Low, Tamul or Telugu, as the case may +be, and the creed which it embodies being either Brahminism, or some +modification of it. + +In Travancore and on the Malabar coast the language is-- + +_The Malayalma_ or _Malayalam_--and in the greater part of Mysore-- + +_The Kanara_--which, like the Tamul and Telinga, is both High and +Low--literary or vulgar. + +Amongst these four well-known forms of the South Tamulian tongue, may be +distributed several dialects and sub-dialects. Such as the Tulava for +the parts between Goa and Mangalore, and the Coorgi of the Rajahship of +Coorg, not to mention the several varieties in the language of the +hill-tribes. + +Now all the populations of the present chapter agree in this +particular--their language is generally admitted to be Tamulian at the +present moment, or if not, to have been so at some earlier period. With +the languages next under notice, the original Tamulian character is not +so admitted--indeed, it is so far denied as to make the affirmation of +it partake of the nature of paradox. + +The distinction then is raised on the existence of the doubt in +question, or rather on the differences that such a doubt implies. Hence +the division of the languages of India into the Hindu and the Tamulian +is practical rather than scientific--the _Hindu_ meaning those for which +a _Sanskrit_, rather than a _Tamul_ affinity is claimed. + +_Sanskrit_ is the name of a language; a name upon which nine-tenths of +the controversial points in Indian ethnology and in Indian history +turn. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[22] "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. viii. + +[23] "Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. vi. part 2. +See also pp. 112, 113 of the present volume. + +[24] Described by Lieutenants Phayre and Latter in "Journal of the +Asiatic Society of Bengal." + +[25] Dr. Helfer, "Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol. viii. + +[26] "Asiatic Researches," vol. v. + +[27] Dr. Buchanan, "Asiatic Researches," vol. v. + +[28] Macrae in "Asiatic Researches," vol. vii. + +[29] Eliot, in "Asiatic Transactions," vol. iii. + +[30] Eliot, _ut supra_. + +[31] For Jan. 1849. + +[32] "Transactions of the British Association for the Advancement of +Science," 1844. + +[33] "Statistical Sketch of Kumaon," by G. W. Traill, Asiatic +Researches, vol. xvi. + +[34] From the Greek _polys_=_many_, and _anaer_=_man_. + +[35] Eliot in "Asiatic Researches," vol. iv. + +[36] Captain S. C. Macpherson, "Journal of the Asiatic Society," vol. +xiii. + +[37] See Lieut. Newbold, "Journal of the Asiatic Society," vol. viii. + +[38] Lieut. C. P. Rigby, in "Transactions of the Bombay Geographical +Society," May to August 1850. + +[39] The Soars of Orissa. + +[40] Col. Todd, "Travels in Western India." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE.--ITS RELATIONS TO CERTAIN MODERN LANGUAGES + OF INDIA; TO THE SLAVONIC AND LITHUANIC OF EUROPE.--INFERENCES.-- + BRAHMINISM OF THE PURANAS--OF THE INSTITUTES OF MENU.--EXTRACT.--OF + THE VEDAS.--EXTRACT.--INFERENCES.--THE HINDUS.--SIKHS.--BILUCHI.-- + AFGHANS.--WANDERING TRIBES.--MISCELLANEOUS POPULATIONS.--CEYLON.-- + BUDDHISM.--DEVIL-WORSHIP.--VADDAHS. + + +The language called _Sanskrit_ has a peculiar alphabet. It has long been +written, and embodies an important literature. It has been well studied; +and its ethnological affinities are understood. They are at least as +remarkable as any other of its characters. + +Like most other tongues, it falls into dialects; just like the ancient +Greek. Like the Doric, AEolic, and Ionic, these dialects were spoken over +distant countries, and cultivated at different periods. Like them, too, +each is characterized by its peculiar literature. + +The Sanskrit itself, in its oldest form, is the _Vedaic_ dialect of the +religious hymns called _Vedas_--of great, but of exaggerated, antiquity. + +Another form of equal antiquity is the language of the Persepolitan and +other arrow-headed inscriptions. These are of a known antiquity, and +range from the time of Cambyses to that of Artaxerxes. + +By _old_ is meant _old in structure_, _i.e._, betraying by its archaic +forms, an early stage of development. It is by no means _old_ in +chronology. In the way of chronology, the English of Shakespeare is +older than the German of Goethe; yet the German of Goethe is the older +tongue, because it retains more old inflections. + +The third form is called _Pali_. In this is written the oldest Indian +inscription; one containing the name of Antiochus, one of Alexander's +successors. It is also the dialect of the chief Buddhist works. + +A fourth form is the _Bactrian_. This occurs in the coins of Macedonian +and other Indianized kings of Bactria, and is best studied in the +"Ariana Antiqua," of Wilson. + +A fifth is the _Zend_ of the Zendavesta, the Scriptures of the followers +of Zoroaster. + +Others are called _Pracrit_. Some of the Sanskrit works are dramatic. In +the modern comedies of Italy we find certain characters speaking the +provincial dialects of Naples, Bologna, and other districts. The same +took place here. In the Sanskrit plays we find deflexions from the +standard language, put into the mouths of some of the subordinate +characters. It is believed that these Pracrits represented certain local +dialects, as opposed to the purer and more classical Sanskrit. + +Every spoken dialect of Hindostan has a per-centage of Sanskrit words in +it; just as every dialect of England has an amount of Anglo-Norman. What +does this prove? That depends upon the per-centage; and this differs in +different languages. In a general way it may be stated that, amongst the +tongues already enumerated, it is smallest in the isolated Tamulian +tongues; larger in the Tamul of the Dekhan; and largest in the tongues +about to be enumerated; these being the chief languages of modern +Hindostan. + +1. The _Marathi_ of the Mahrattas. Here the Sanskrit words amount to +four-fifths in the Marathi dictionaries. + +2. The _Udiya_, of Cuttack and Orissa, with a per-centage of Sanskrit +greater than that of the Marathi, but less than that of-- + +3. The _Bengali_. Here it is at its _maximum_, and amounts to +nine-tenths. + +4. The _Hindu_, of Oude, and the parts between Bengal and the Punjab, +falling into the subordinate dialects of the Rajput country. + +5. The _Gujerathi_ of Gujerat. + +6. The _Scindian_ of Scinde. + +7. The _Multani_ of Multan; probably a dialect of either the Gujerathi +or-- + +8. The _Punjabi_ of the Punjab. + +By going into minor differences this list might be enlarged. + +None of the previous languages were mentioned in the last chapter; in +fact, they were those different Hindu tongues which were contrasted with +the Tamulian, and which, in the northern part of the Peninsula had +effected those displacements which separated, or were supposed to +separate, the Rajmahali, Kol, and Khond dialects from each other. They +formed the _sea_ of speech, in which those tongues were _islands_. + +Now what is the inference from these per-centages? from such a one as +the Bengali, of ninety out of one hundred? What do they prove as to the +character of the language in which they occur? Do they make the Sanskrit +the basis of the tongue, just as the Anglo-Saxon is of the English, or +do they merely show it as a superadded foreign element, like the +Norman--like that in kind, but far greater in degree? The answer to this +will give us the philological position of the North-Indian tongues. It +will make the Bengali either Tamul, with an unprecedented amount of +foreign vocables, or Sanskrit, with a few words of the older native +tongue retained. + +If the question were settled by a reference to authorities, the answer +would be that the Bengali was essentially Sanskrit. + +It would be the same if we took only the _prima facie_ view of the +matter. + +Yet the answer is traversed by two facts. + +1. In making the per-centage of Sanskrit words it has been assumed that, +whenever the modern and ancient tongues have any words in common, the +former has always taken them from the latter,--an undue assumption, +since the Sanskrit may easily have adopted native words. + +2. The grammatical inflections are so far from being as Sanskritic as +the vocables, that they are either non-existent altogether, +unequivocally Tamul, or else _controverted_ Sanskrit. + +Here I pause,--giving, at present, no opinion upon the merits of the two +views. The reader has seen the complications of the case; and is +prepared for hearing that, though most of the highest authorities +consider the languages of northern India to be related to the Sanskrit, +just as the English is to the Anglo-Saxon, and the Italian to the Latin; +others deny such a connexion, affirming that as the real relations of +the Sanskrit are those of the Norman-French to our own tongue, and of +the Arabic to the Spanish, there is no such thing throughout the whole +length and breadth of Hindostan as a dialect descended from the +Sanskrit, or a spot whereon that famous tongue can be shown to have +existed as a spoken and indigenous language. + +But, perhaps, we may find in Persia what we lack in India; and as the +modern Persian is descended from the Zend, and as the Zend is a sister +to the Sanskrit, Persia may, perhaps, supply such a locality. The same +doubts apply here. + +Such are the doubts that apply to an important question in Asiatic +ethnology. I am not, at present, going beyond the simple fact of their +existence. Rightly or wrongly, there is an opinion that the Sanskrit +never was indigenous to any part of India, not even the most +north-western; and there is an extension of this opinion which--rightly +or wrongly--similarly excludes it from Persia. So much doubt should be +relieved by the exhibition of some universally admitted fact as a +set-off. + +Such a contrast shall be supplied, in the shape of a comment on the +following tables.[41] It is one of Dr. Trithem's. + + ENGLISH. LITHUANIC. RUSSIAN. SANSKRIT. + + _Father_ tewas otets pitr. + _Mother_ motina mat' m[=a]tr. + _Son_ sunai suin s[=u]nu. + _Brother_ brolis brat bhratr. + _Sister_ sessu sestra svasr. + _Daughter-in-law_ -- snokha snush[=a].[42] + _Father-in-law_ -- svekor[43] ['s]vasura. + _Mother-in-law_ -- svekrov'[44] ['s]vas ru. + _Brother-in-law_ -- dever'[45] devr. + _One_ wienas odin eka. + _Two_ du dva dv[=a]. + _Three_ trys tri tri. + _Four_ keturi chetuire chatv[=a]rah. + _Five_ penki piat' pancha. + _Six_ szessi shest' shash. + _Seven_ septyni sedm' saptan. + _Eight_ asstuoni osm' ashtan. + _Nine_ dewyni deviat' navan. + _Ten_ dessimtis desiat' dasa. + +The following similarities go the same way, _viz._, towards the proof of +a remarkable affinity with certain languages of _Europe_, there being +none equally strong with any existing and undoubted Asiatic ones. + + ENGLISH. LITHUANIC. SANSKRIT. ZEND. + + _I_ ass aham azem. + _Thou_ tu twam t[=u]m. + _Ye_ yus y[=u]yam y[=u]s. + _The_[46] tas ta-_d_ tad. + -- szi sah ho. + + + LITHUANIC. + + Laups-inni = _I praise._ + + _Present._ + + 1. Laups -innu -innawa -inname. + 2. -- -inni -innata -innata. + 3. -- -inna -inna -inna. + + + SANSKRIT. + + Jaj-ami = _I conquer._ + + _Present._ + + 1. Jaj -[=a]mi -[=a]vah -[=a]mah. + 2. -- -[)a]si -[)a]thah -[)a]tha. + 3. -- -[)a]ti -[)a]tah -anti. + + + LITHUANIC. + + Esmi = _I am._ + + 1. Esmi eswa esme. + 2. Essi esta esti. + 3. Esti esti esti. + + + SANSKRIT. + + Asmi = _I am._ + + 1. Asmi swah smah. + 2. Asi sthah stha. + 3. Asti stah santi. + +The inference from the vast series of philological facts, of which the +following is a specimen, has, generally--perhaps _universally_--been as +follows, _viz._, that the Lithuanic, Slavonic, and the allied languages +of Germany, Italy, and Greece--numerous, widely-spread, and +unequivocally European--are _Asiatic_ in origin; the Sanskrit being +first referred to Asia, and then assumed to represent the languages of +that Asiatic locality. I merely express my dissent from this inference; +adding my belief that the relations of the Sanskrit to the Hindu tongues +are those of the Anglo-Norman to the English, and that its relation to +those of the south-eastern Slavonic area, is that of the Greek of +Bactria, to the Greek of Macedon--greater, much greater in degree, but +the same in kind.[47] + +The Brahminic creed of Hindostan is the next great characteristic. +Brahminism may be viewed in two ways. We may either take it in its later +forms, and trace its history backwards, or begin with it in its simplest +and most unmodified stage, and notice the changes that have affected it +as they occur. At the present its principles are to be found in the holy +book called _Puranas_; the Brahminism of the _Puranas_ standing in the +same relation to certain earlier forms, as the Rabbinism of the Talmud, +or the Romanism of the fathers does to primitive Judaism and +Christianity. The pre-eminence of a sacred caste--the sanctitude of the +cow--an impossible cosmogony--the worship of Siva and Vishnu--and an +indefinite sort of recognition of beings like Rama, Krishna, Kali, and +others, are the leading features here; the recognition of the Ramas and +Krishnas being of an indefinite and equivocal character, because the +extent to which the elements of their divine nature are referable to the +idea of _dead men deified_, or the very opposite notion of _Gods become +incarnate_, are inextricably mixed together. The Puranas are referable +to different dates between the twelfth and sixth centuries A.D. + +The germs of the Brahminism of the Puranas are the two great epics, the +_Ramayana_, or the conquest of Hindostan by Rama, and the _Mahabharata_, +or great war between the Sun and Moon dynasties. If we call the _worship +of dead men deified_, Euhemerism, it is the Ramayana and the +Mahabharata, to which the Euhemerist elements of the present Brahminism +are to be attributed. They increased the _personality_ of the previous +religion. This is the natural effect of narrative poetry, and one of +which we may measure the magnitude by looking at the influence and +tendencies of the great Homeric poems of Greece. It is these which give +us Kali, Rama, Krishna, Siva, and Vishnu, and which helped to determine +the preponderance of the two last over Brahma--Brahma being the Creator; +Vishnu, the Preserver; and Siva, the Destroyer. The highest antiquity +which has been given to the _epics_ is the second century B.C.; and this +is full high enough. + +The Brahminism of the "Institutes of Menu," the oldest Indian code of +laws, is simpler than that of the epics. Its Euhemerism is less. +Nevertheless, it contains the great text on the caste-system, the +_fulcrum_ of priestly pre-eminence. + + +INSTITUTES OF MENU. + +_Sir Graves Haughton's Translation._ + + 1. For the sake of preserving this universe, the Being, supremely + glorious, allotted separate duties to those who sprang respectively + from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and his foot. + + 2. To _Brahmins_ he assigned the duties of reading the _Veda_, of + teaching it, of sacrificing, of assisting others to sacrifice, of + giving alms, _if they be rich_, and, if _indigent_, of receiving + gifts. + + 3. To defend the people, to give alms, to sacrifice, to read the + _Veda_, to shun the allurements of sensual gratification, are, in a + few words, the duties of a _Cshatriya_. + + 4. To keep herds of cattle, to bestow largesses, to sacrifice, to + read the scripture, to carry on trade, to lend at interest, and to + cultivate land, are _prescribed or permitted_ to a _Vaisya_. + + 5. One principal duty the Supreme Ruler assigns to a _Sudra_; + namely, to serve the before-mentioned classes, without depreciating + their worth. + + 6. Man is declared purer above the navel; but the Self-Creating + Power declared the purest part of him to be his mouth. + + 7. Since the Brahmin sprang from the most excellent part, since he + was the first born, and since he possesses the _Veda_, he is by + right the chief of this whole creation. + + 8. Him, the Being, who exists of himself, produced in the beginning, + from his own mouth, that having performed holy rites, he might + present clarified butter to the gods, and cakes of rice to the + progenitors of mankind, for the preservation of this world. + + 9. What created being then can surpass Him, with whose mouth the + gods of the firmament continually feast on clarified butter, and the + manes of ancestors, on hallowed cakes? + + 10. Of created things, the most excellent are those which are + animated; of the animated, those which subsist by intelligence; of + the intelligent, mankind; and of men, the sacerdotal class. + + 11. Of priests those eminent in learning; of the learned, those who + know their duty; of those who know it, such as perform it + virtuously; and of the virtuous, those who seek beatitude from a + perfect acquaintance with scriptural doctrine. + + 12. The very birth of _Brahmins_ is a constant incarnation of + DHERMA, _God of Justice_; for the _Brahmin_ is born to promote + justice, and to procure ultimate happiness. + + 13. When a _Brahmin_ springs to light, he is borne above the world, + the chief of all creatures, assigned to guard the treasury of + duties, religious and civil. + + 14. Whatever exists in the universe, is all in effect, _though not + in form_, the wealth of the _Brahmin_; since the _Brahmin_ is + entitled to it all by his primogeniture and eminence of birth. + + 15. The _Brahmin_ eats but his own food; wears but his own apparel; + and bestows but his own in alms: through the benevolence of the + _Brahmin_, indeed, other mortals enjoy life. + + 16. To declare the sacerdotal duties, and those of the other classes + in due order, the sage MENU, sprung from the self-existing, + promulged this code of laws. + + 17. A code which must be studied with extreme care by every learned + _Brahmin_, and fully explained to his disciples, but _must be + taught_ by no other man _of an inferior class_. + + 18. The _Brahmin_ who studies this book, having performed sacred + rites, is perpetually free from offence in thought, in word, and in + deed. + + 19. He confers purity on his living family, on his ancestors, and + on his descendants, as far as the seventh person; and He alone + deserves to possess this whole earth. + +Subtract from the Brahminism of the Institutes, the importance assigned +to caste; substitute for the Euhemerism of the Epics, an _elemental +religion_, and we ascend to the religion of the Vedas; the nominal, but +only the nominal basis, of all Hinduism. In the following Vedaic hymns, +_Agni_ is _fire_; _Indra_, the _sky_, _firmament_, or _atmosphere_; and +_Marut_, the _cloud_. + + +RIGVEDA SANHITA. + +_Wilson's Translation._ + + + I. + + 1. I glorify AGNI, the high priest of the sacrifice, the divine, the + ministrant, who presents the oblation (to the gods), and is the + possessor of great wealth. + + 2. May that AGNI, who is to be celebrated by both ancient and modern + sages, conduct the gods hither. + + 3. Through AGNI the worshipper obtains that affluence, which + increases day by day, which is the source of fame and the multiplier + of mankind. + + 4. AGNI, the unobstructed sacrifice of which thou art on every side + the protector, assuredly reaches the gods. + + 5. May AGNI, the presenter of oblations, the attainer of knowledge; + he who is true, renowned, and divine, come hither with the gods! + + 6. Whatever good thou mayest, AGNI, bestow upon the giver (of the + oblation), that verily, ANGIRAS, shall revert to thee. + + 7. We approach thee, AGNI, with reverential homage in our thoughts, + daily, both morning and evening. + + 8. Thee, the radiant, the protector of sacrifices, the constant + illuminator of truth, increasing in thine own dwelling! + + 9. AGNI, be unto us easy of access, as is a father to a son; be ever + present with us for our good! + + + II. + + 1. A['S]WINS, cherishers of pious acts, long-armed, accept with + outstretched hands the sacrificial viands! + + 2. A['S]WINS, abounding in mighty acts, guides (of devotion), + endowed with fortitude, listen with unaverted minds to our praises! + + 3. A['S]WINS, destroyers of foes, exempt from untruth, leaders in + the van of heroes, come to the mixed libations sprinkled on the + lopped sacred grass! + + 4. INDRA, of wonderful splendour, come hither; these libations, ever + pure, expressed by the fingers (of the priests), are desirous of + thee! + + 5. INDRA, apprehended by the understanding and appreciated by the + wise, approach and accept the prayers (of the priest), as he offers + the libation! + + 6. Fleet INDRA with the tawny coursers, come hither to the prayers + (of the priests), and in this libation accept our (proffered) food. + + 7. Universal Gods! protectors and supporters of men, bestowers (of + rewards), come to the libation of the worshipper! + + 8. May the swift-moving universal Gods, the shedders of rain, come + to the libation, as the solar rays come 'diligently' to the days! + + 9. May the universal Gods, who are exempt from decay, omniscient, + devoid of malice, and bearers of riches, accept the sacrifice! + + 10. May SARASWATI, the purifier, the bestower of food, the + recompenser of worship with wealth, be attracted by our offered + viands to our rite! + + 11. SARASWATI, the inspirer of those who delight in truth, the + instructress of the right-minded, has accepted our sacrifice! + + 12. SARASWATI makes manifest by her acts a mighty river, and (in her + own form) enlightens all understandings. + + + III. + + 1. Come, INDRA, and be regaled with all viands and libations, and + thence, mighty in strength, be victorious (over thy foes)! + + 2. The libation being prepared, present the exhilarating and + efficacious (draught) to the rejoicing INDRA, the accomplisher of + all things. + + 3. INDRA, with the handsome chin, be pleased with these animating + praises: do thou, who art to be reverenced by all mankind, (come) to + these rites (with the gods)! + + 4. I have addressed to thee, INDRA, the showerer (of blessings), the + protector (of thy worshippers), praises which have reached thee, and + of which thou hast approved! + + 5. Place before us, INDRA, precious and multiform riches, for + enough, and more than enough, are assuredly thine! + + 6. Opulent INDRA, encourage us in this rite for the acquirement of + wealth, for we are diligent and renowned! + + 7. Grant us, INDRA, wealth beyond measure or calculation, + inexhaustible, the source of cattle, of food, of all life. + + 8. INDRA, grant us great renown and wealth acquired in a thousand + ways, and those (articles) of food (which are brought from the + field) in carts! + + 9. We invoke, for the preservation of our property, INDRA, the lord + of wealth, the object of sacred verses, the repairer (to the place + of sacrifice), praising him with our praises! + + 10. With libations repeatedly effused, the sacrificer glorifies the + vast prowess of INDRA, the mighty, the dweller in (an eternal + mansion)! + + + IV. + + 1. The MARUTS who are going forth decorate themselves like females: + they are gliders (through the air), the sons of RUDRA, and the doers + of good works, by which they promote the welfare of earth and + heaven: heroes, who grind (the solid rocks), they delight in + sacrifices! + + 2. They, inaugurated by the gods, have attained majesty, the sons of + RUDRA have established their dwelling above the sky: glorifying him + (INDRA) who merits to be glorified, they have inspired him with + vigour: the sons of PRISNI have acquired dominion! + + 3. When the sons of the earth embellish themselves with ornaments, + they shine resplendent in their persons with (brilliant) + decorations; they keep aloof every adversary: the waters follow + their path! + + 4. They who are worthily worshipped shine with various weapons: + incapable of being overthrown, they are the overthrowers (of + mountains): MARUTS, swift as thought, intrusted with the duty of + sending rain, yoke the spotted deer to your cars! + + 5. When MARUTS, urging on the cloud, for the sake of (providing) + food, you have yoked the deer to your chariots, the drops fall from + the radiant (sun), and moisten the earth, like a hide, with water! + + 6. Let your quick-paced smooth-gliding coursers bear you (hither), + and, moving swiftly, come with your hands filled with good things: + sit, MARUTS, upon the broad seat of sacred grass, and regale + yourselves with the sweet sacrificial food! + + 7. Confiding in their own strength, they have increased in (power); + they have attained heaven by their greatness, and have made (for + themselves) a spacious abode: may they, for whom VISHNU defends + (the sacrifice) that bestows all desires and confers delight, come + (quickly) like birds, and sit down upon the pleasant and sacred + grass! + + 8. Like heroes, like combatants, like men anxious for food, the + swift-moving (MARUTS) have engaged in battles: all beings fear the + MARUTS, who are the leaders (of the rain), and awful of aspect, like + princes! + + 9. INDRA wields the well-made, golden, many-bladed thunderbolt, + which the skilful TWASHTRI has framed for him, that he may achieve + great exploits in war. He has slain VRITRA, and sent forth an ocean + of water! + + 10. By their power, they bore the well aloft, and clove asunder the + mountain that obstructed their path: the munificent MARUTS, blowing + upon their pipe, have conferred, when exhilarated by the _soma_ + juice, desirable (gifts upon the sacrificer)! + + 11. They brought the crooked well to the place (where the _Muni_ + was), and sprinkled the water upon the thirsty GOTAMA: the + variously-radiant (MARUTS) come to his succour, gratifying the + desire of the sage with life-sustaining waters! + + 12. Whatever blessings (are diffused) through the three worlds, and + are in your gift, do you bestow upon the donor (of the libation), + who addresses you with praise; bestow them, also, MARUTS, upon us, + and grant us, bestowers of all good, riches, whence springs + prosperity! + +If we investigate the antiquity of these hymns we shall find no definite +and unimpeachable date. Their epoch is assigned on the score of internal +evidence. The language is so much more archaic than that of the +Institutes, and the mythology so much simpler; whilst the Institutes +themselves are similarly circumstanced in respect to the Epics. Fixing +these at about 200, B.C.; we allow so many centuries for the archaisms +of Menu, and so many more for those of the Vedas. For the whole, eleven +hundred has not been thought too little, which places the Vedas in the +fourteenth century, B.C., and makes them the earliest, or nearly the +earliest records in the world. + +It is clear that this is but an approximation, and, although all +inquirers admit that creeds, languages, and social conditions present +the phenomena of _growth_, the opinions as to the _rate_ of such growths +are varied, and none of much value. This is because the particular +induction required for the formation of anything better than a mere +impression has yet to be undertaken--till when, one man's guess is as +good as another's. The age of a tree may be reckoned from its concentric +rings, but the age of a language, a doctrine, or a polity, has neither +bark nor wood, neither teeth like a horse, nor a register like a child. + +Now the antiquity of the Vedas, as inferred from the archaic character +of their language, has been shaken by the discovery of the structure of +the Persepolitan dialect of the arrow-headed inscriptions. It approaches +that of the Vedas; being, in some points, older than the Sanskrit of +Menu. Yet its date is less than 500, B.C. Again, the Pali is less +archaic than the Sanskrit; yet the Pali is the language of the oldest +inscriptions in India, indeed, of the oldest Indian records of any sort, +with a definite date. + +One of the few cases where the phenomena of _rate_ have been studied +with due attention, is in the evolution of the three languages of +Denmark, Norway, and Sweden out of the Icelandic. What does this tell +us? The last has altered so slowly that a modern Icelander can read the +oldest works of his language. In Sweden, however, the speech _has_ +altered. So it has in Denmark; whilst both these languages are +unintelligible to the Icelander, and _vice versa_. As to their +respective changes, Petersen shows that the Danish was always about a +hundred years forwarder than the Swedish, having attained that point at +(say) 1200, which the Swedish did not reach till 1300. Both, however, +changed; and that, at a uniform rate; the Danish having, as it were, the +start of a century. The Norwegian, however, comported itself +differently. Until the Reformation it hardly changed at all; less than +the stationary Icelandic itself. Fifty years, however, of sudden and +rapid transformation brought it, at once, to the stage which the Danish +had been three hundred years in reaching. How many times must the +observation of such phenomena be multiplied before we can strike an +average as to the rate of change in languages, creeds, and polities? + +Again--it is by no means certain that the Institutes and the Vedas +represent a contemporary state of things. All doctrinal writings contain +something appertaining to a period older than that of their composition. + +Lastly,--the proof that all the writings in question belong to the same +linear series, and represent the growth of _the same phenomena in the +same place_ is deficient. The AEgyptologist believes that contemporary +kings are mistaken for successive ones; the philologist, that difference +of dialects simulates a difference of age. Doubts of a more specific +nature dawn upon us when we attempt to realize the alphabet in which an +Indian MS. of even only eight hundred years B.C., was written. No Indian +MS. is fifteen hundred years old; no inscription older than Alexander's +time. Nevertheless,--though I write upon this subject with +diffidence--the Devanagari characters of the Sanskrit MSS. can be +deduced from the alphabet of the inscriptions; whilst these inscriptions +themselves approach the alphabets of the Semitic character in proportion +to their antiquity: so that the oldest alphabet of the Vedas is +referable to that of the inscriptions, and that of the inscriptions +betrays an origin external to India. Its introduction _may_ be very +early; nevertheless its epoch must be investigated with a full +recognition of the comparatively modern date of even the earliest +alphabets of Persia, and the parts westward; early as compared with such +a date as 1400, B.C., the accredited epoch of the Vedas; an epoch, +perhaps, a thousand years too early. + +Nevertheless, the existence of an alphabet, an architecture, a coinage, +and an algebra at a period which no scepticism puts much later than 250, +B.C., is so undoubted, that they may pass as ethnological facts, _i.e._, +facts sufficiently true to be not merely admitted with what is called an +_otiose_ belief, but to be classed with the most unexceptionable _data_ +of history, and to be used as effects from which we may argue +backwards--_more ethnologico_--to their antecedent causes; the +appreciation of these requiring a philosophy and an induction of its +own. + +We cannot detract from the antiquity of Indian civilization without +impugning its indigenous origin, nor doubt this without stirring the +question as to the countries from which it was introduced. These have +been Persia, Assyria, Egypt, and Greece; the introduction being direct +or indirect as the case might be. + +In this way are contrasted the views of the general ethnologist, with +those of the special orientalist, in respect to the great and difficult +question of Indian antiquity. Yet, how far does the scepticism of the +former affect our views concerning the descent of the Hindus, the +Mahrattas, the Bengali, and those other populations, to the languages +whereof they applied? Not much. Whichever way we decide, the population +may still be Tamulian; only, in case we make the language Sanskritic, it +is Tamulian in the same way as the Cornish are Welsh; _i.e._, Tamulian +with a change of tongue. + +The doubts, too, as to the antiquity of the Sanskrit literature unsettle +but little. They merely make the introduction of certain foreign +elements some centuries later. + +Whatever may be the oldest of the great Hindu creeds, that of the +_Sikhs_ is the newest. Its founder, Nanuk, in the fifteenth century, was +a contemplative enthusiast; his successor, Govind, a zealous man of +action; himself succeeded by similar _gurus_, or priests, who +eventually, by means of fanaticism, organization, and union with the +state raised the power of the _Khalsa_ to the formidable height from +which it has so lately fallen. _Truth_ is the great abstraction of the +Sikh creeds; and the extent to which it is at once intolerant and +eclectic may be seen from the following extracts.[48] They certainly +present the doctrine in a favourable light. + + + I. + + The true name is God; without fear, without enmity; the Being + without death; the Giver of salvation; the Gooroo and + Grace. + Remember the primal truth; truth which was before the world began. + Truth which is, and truth, O Nanuk! which will remain. + By reflection it cannot be attained, how much soever the attention + be fixed. + A hundred wisdoms, even a hundred thousand, not one accompanies the + dead. + How can truth be told, how can falsehood be unravelled? + O Nanuk! by following the will of God, as by Him ordained. + + + II. + + Time is the only God; the First and the Last, the Endless Being; the + Creator, the Destroyer; He who can make and unmake. + God who created angels and demons, who created the East and the + West, the North and the South; How can He be expressed by + words? + + + III. + + Numerous Mahomets have there been, and multitudes of Bruhmas, + Vishnoos, and Sivas. + Thousands of Peers and Prophets, and tens of thousands of saints and + holy men: + But the chief of Lords is the one Lord, the true name of God. + O Nanuk! of God, His qualities, without end, beyond reckoning, who + can understand? + + + IV. + + Many Bruhmas wearied themselves with the study of the Veds, but + found not the value of an oil seed. + Holy men and saints are sought about anxiously, but they were + deceived by Maya. + There have been, and there have passed away, ten regent Owtars, and + the wondrous Muhadeo. + Even they, wearied with the application of ashes, could not find + Thee. + + + V. + + He who speaks of me as the Lord, him will I sink into the pit of + hell! + Consider me as the slave of God; of that have no doubt in thy mind. + I am but the slave of the Lord, come to behold the wonders of + creation. + + + VI. + + Dwell thou in flames uninjured, + Remain unharmed amid ice eternal, + Make blocks of stone thy daily food, + Spurn the earth before thee with thy foot, + Weigh the heavens in a balance, + And then ask of me to perform miracles. + + + VII. + + Since he fell at the feet of God, no one has appeared great in his + eyes. + Ram and Ruheem, the Poorans, and the Koran, have many votaries, but + neither does he regard. + Simruts, Shasters, and Veds, differ in many things; not one does he + heed. + O God! under Thy favour has all been done, nought is of myself. + + + VIII. + + All say that there are four races, + But all are of the seed of Bruhm. + The world is but clay, + And of similar clay many pots are made. + Nanuk says man will be judged by his actions, + And that without finding God there will be no salvation. + The body of man is composed of five elements; + Who can say that one is high and another low? + + + IX. + + There are four races and four creeds in the world among Hindoos and + Mahometans; + Selfishness, jealousy, and pride drew all of them strongly; + The Hindoos dwelt on Benares and the Ganges, the Mahometans on the + Kaaba; + The Mahometans held by circumcision, the Hindoos by strings and + frontal marks. + They each called on Ram and Ruheem, one name, and yet both forgot + the road. + Forgetting the Veds and the Koran, they were inveigled in the snares + of the world. + Truth remained on one side, while Moollas and Brahmins disputed, + And salvation was not attained. + + + X. + + God heard the complaint (of virtue or truth), and Nanuk was sent + into the world. + He established the custom that the disciple should wash the feet of + his Gooroo, and drink the water; + Par Bruhm and Poorun Bruhm, in his Kulyoog, he showed were one. + The four feet (of the animal sustaining the world) were made of + faith; the four castes were made one; + The high and the low became equal: the salutation of the feet (among + disciples) he established in the world; + Contrary to the nature of man, the feet were exalted above the head. + In the Kulyoog he gave salvation; using the only true name, he + taught men to worship the Lord. + To give salvation in the Kulyoog, Gooroo Nanuk came. + + +PARTS BEYOND THE INDUS. + +The Punjab is the most western locality of the Indian stock, whether we +call the members of it Hindu or Tamulian. On crossing the Indus we reach +a new ethnological area, only partially, and only recently British; +_viz._, the country of the Biluch, and the country of the Afghans. And +here we must prepare for new terms; for hearing of _tribes_ rather than +_castes_; and for finding a polity more like that of the Jews and Arabs +than the institutions of the Brahmins. + +_The Biluch._--_Biluchi-stan_ means the country of the _Biluch_, just as +_Hindo-stan_ and _Afghani-stan_ mean that of the Hindus and Afghans. It +is the south-western quarter of Persia, that is the chief area of the +tribes in question. Hence, however, they extend into Kutch Gundava, +Scinde, and Multan, and the northern parts of Gujerat. Between Kelat, +the Indus, and the sea, they are mixed with Brahui. + +The Biluchi is a dialect of the Persian--sufficiently close to be +understood by a Persian proper. + +There are no grounds for believing the Biluch to have been other than +the aborigines of the country which they occupy; as their advent lies +beyond the historical period; beyond the pale of admissible tradition. +We may, perhaps, be told that they came from Arabia; an origin which +their Mahometanism, their division into tribes, and their manners, +suggest; an origin, too, which their physiognomy by no means impugns. +Yet the tradition is not only unsupported, but equivocal. The _Arabia_ +that it refers to is, probably, the country of the ancient _Arabitae_; +and that is neither more nor less than a part of the province of Mekran, +within--or nearly within--the present Biluch domain. Hence, they may be +_Arabite_, though not _Arabian_; or rather the old _Arabitae_ of the +_Arabius fluvius_ were Biluch. + +But the Arabs are not the only members of the Semitic family with which +the Biluch have been affiliated. A multiplicity of Jewish +characteristics has been discerned. These are all the more visible from +their contrast to the manners of the Hindus. Intermediate in appearance +to the Hindu and the Persian, the Biluch "cast of feature is certainly +Jewish;"[49] his tribual divisions are equally so; whilst the Levitical +punishment of adultery by stoning, and the transmission of the widow of +a deceased brother to the brothers who survive, have been duly +recognized as Hebrew characteristics. We know what follows all this; as +surely as smoke shows fire. Levitical peculiarities suggest the +ubiquitous decad of the lost tribes of Israel. We shall soon hear of +these again. + +Tribes under chiefs--hereditary succession--pride of blood--clannish +sentiments--feuds between tribe and tribe--the sacro-sanctity of revenge +as a duty--the suspension of private wars when foreign foes +threaten--greater rudeness amongst the mountains--comparative industry +in the plains--the business of robbery tempered by the duties of +hospitality--black mail, &c. All this is equally Biluch, Arabian, and +Highland Scotch; and it all shows the similarity of details which +accompanies similarity of social institutions. Ethnological relationship +it does _not_ show. + +The word _Biluch_ is Persian. The bearer of the designation either calls +himself by the name of his tribe, or else glorifies himself by the term +_Usul_ or _Pure_. The tribes or _khoums_ are numerous. Sir H. Pottinger +gives the names of no less than fifty-eight; without going into their +subdivisions. + +If, however, instead of details, we seek for classes of greater +generality we find that _three_ primary divisions comprise all the +ramifications of the Biluch. The first of these is the _Rind_; the other +two are the _Nihro_ and the _Mughsi_. The daughter of a Rind may be +given to a Rind as a wife; but to marry into a tribe of Nihro or Mughsi +extraction is a degradation. Here the elements of _caste_ intermix with +those of _tribe_ or _clan_. + +_Afghans._--_Afghani-stan_ means the country of the Afghans, just as +_Hindo-stan_ and _Biluchi-stan_ mean that of the Hindus and Biluchi, +respectively. + +In India the Afghans are called _Patan_. + +Their language is called _Pushtu_. It is allied to the Persian--but less +closely than the Biluch. + +Fully and accurately described in the admirable work of Lord Mountstuart +Elphinstone, the Afghans have long commanded the attention of the +ethnologist; and all that has been said about the Judaism of the Biluchi +has been said in respect to them also, though not by so good a writer as +the one just quoted. No wonder. Their tribual organization, if not more +peculiar in character, has been more minutely described; a greater +massiveness of frame and feature has been looked upon as eminently +Judaic; and, lastly, an incorrect statement of Sir William Jones's, as +to the Hebrew character of the Pushtu language, has added the authority +of that respected scholar to the doctrine of the Semitic origin of the +Afghans. Against this, however, stands the evidence of their peculiar +and hitherto unplaced language. I say _unplaced_, because the criticism +that separates the modern dialects of Hindostan from the Sanskrit, +disconnects the Pushtu and the old Persian. Nevertheless, it is anything +but either Hebrew or Arabic. + +Similarity of political constitution, and its attendant spirit of +independence, have given a political importance to both the Biluch and +the Afghan. Each is but partially--very partially--British; and each +became dependent upon Britain, not because they were the Afghans and +Biluch of their own rugged countries, but because they were part and +parcel of certain territories in India. It was on the Indus that they +were conquered; and it as Indians that they are British. + +Four great patriarchs are the hypothetical progenitors of the four +primary Afghan divisions--though it is uncertain whether any such +quaternion be more of an historical reality than the four castes of +Brahminism. Subordinate to these four heads is the division called +_Ulus_ (_Ooloos_). + +A minuter knowledge of the Afghan affiliations--real or supposed--is to +be gained by premising that _khail_ has much the same meaning as the +Biluch _khoum_, so that it denotes a division of population which we may +call _clan_, _tribe_, or _sept_; whilst the affix -_zye_, means _sons_ +or _offspring_. Hence, _Eusof-zye_ is equivalent to what an Arab would +call _Beni Yusuf_; a Greek, _Ioseph-idae_; or a Highland Gael, +_MacJoseph_. All this is clear. When, however, we try to give precision +to our nomenclature, and ask whether the _khail_ contains a number of +-_zye_, or the -_zye_ a number of _khails_, difficulties begin. +Sometimes the one, sometimes the other is the larger class. And a +_khail_ in one case may be divided into groups ending in -_zye_; in +others, a group denoted by -_zye_ may contain two or more _khails_. Each +is a _generic_ or _specific_ designation as the case may be. + +However, to proceed to instances, the following groups of Afghans may be +constituted. + +1. Three sections--the _Acco-zye_, the _Mulle-zye_, and the +_Lawe-zye_--are subdivisions of the-- + +2. _Eusof._--The Eusof and _Munder_ being branches of the-- + +3. _Eusof-zye._--Now the _Eusof-zye_ is one out of four divisions of +the-- + +4. _Khukkhi._--The _Guggiani_, _Turcolani_, and _Mahomed-zye_, being the +other three. + +5. Lastly, the _Khukkhi_, the _Otman-khail_, the _Khyberi_, the +_Bungush_, the _Khuttuk_ and, probably, some others form the _Berdurani_ +Afghans. + +But as _Berdurani_ is a geographical, or political, rather than a +tribual designation; as it is the name by which the _north_-eastern +Afghans were known to the Moghuls; and as it is equivalent to such an +expression as _Western_ or _Eastern Highlander_, rather than to names so +specific as _Campbell_ or _MacDonald_, it may be excluded from the true +Afghan affiliations. + +With this deduction, however, the classification is sufficiently +complex; besides which, it is, probably, much more systematic on paper +than in reality. This, however, can only be indicated. + +The valley of Peshawar is the valley of the _Guggiani_, and +_Mahomed-zye_ Afghans. + +The parts round it belong to the _Eusof-zye_, the _Otman-khail_, the +_Turcolani_, the _Momunds_, and the _Khyberi_ of the Khyber Range and +Pass. These last fall into the _Afridi_, the _Shainwari_, and the +_Uruk-zye_. Their country is chiefly to the north of the Salt Range. + +The river Kurum gives us the two valleys of Dowr and Bunnu[50]--the +_Bunnuchi_ being as pre-eminently a mixed, as the mountaineers around +them--the _Vizeri_--are a pure branch. These, and others, appear to +belong to the great _Khuttuk_ division. + +The _south_-eastern Afghans are called _Lohani_; and, as a proof of this +designation being of the same geographico-political character as +_Berdurani_, the Khuttuk Afghans are divided between the two sections; +at least the particular Khuttuks called _Murwuti_ are mentioned as +Lohani, though the Khuttuk class in general is placed in the Berdurani +branch. The chief Lohani Afghans are the _Shirani_ near the +Tukt-i-Soliman mountain, and the _Storiani_ (_Storeeanees_, +_Oosteraunees_) conterminous with the most northern of the Biluch. + +Of these the Bugti and Murri are the chief populations of the frontier; +whilst the _Nutkani_, _Kusrani_, _Lund_, _Lughari_, _Gurkhari_, +_Mudari_, and others, help to fill up the Muckelwand (or the parts +immediately along the course of the Indus), and the Biluch portions of +Multan. + +_The Brahui._--The Brahui, with whom it has been stated that the Biluch +are intermixed, are pastoral tribes, with a coarser physiognomy, and a +stouter make than their neighbours. Their language also is different. A +specimen of it may be found amongst the well-known and important +vocabularies of Lieutenant Leach; and this forms the subject of a memoir +of no less a scholar than Lassen. Without placing it, he remarks that +the numerals are _South_-Indian (or Tamulian) rather than aught else. He +might have said more. The Brahui is a remarkable and unexplained branch +of the Tamul; but whether it be of late introduction or indigenous +origin in the parts where it now occurs is uncertain. The mountains +between Kutch Gundava and Mekran seem to form the area of the Brahui; +some eastern branches of which population I presume to be British, mixed +with Biluch.[51] + + * * * * * + +_Ceylon._--The inhabitants of the northern part of Ceylon speak the +Tamul language, and are Brahminists in creed. They are not, however, the +true natives of the island. These latter use a Hindu tongue, called the +_Singhalese_. Its philological relations are exactly those of the +Mahratta, Bengali, and Udiya,--neither better nor worse defined, more or +less unequivocal. Some make it out to be of Sanskrit, others of Tamulian +origin. All that is certain is, that it is more Sanskritic than the +proper Tamul, and more Tamul than the Bengali. It is _written_; and +embodies a copious, but worthless literature, its alphabet being derived +from that of the Pali language. + +This introduces a new characteristic. The Pali has the same relation to +Buddhism, that the Sanskrit has to Brahminism. It is the language of the +Scriptures, the priest, and the scholar, and, although, at the present +moment, it is as little recognized as a holy tongue on the continent of +India, as the Greek of the New Testament is at Rome, it divides with the +Arabic and Latin, the honour of being the most widely-spread literary +language of the world. All the forms of Buddhism in the transgangetic +peninsula are embodied in Pali writings. So are those of the Mongols; +and so, to a great extent, those of the Tibetans as well. This makes the +language and the creed nearly co-extensive. In China, however, and +Japan, where great changes have taken place, and where either the +development, or the deterioration of Buddhism has gone far enough to +abolish the more palpable characteristics of the original Indian +doctrine, the Pali language is no longer the medium. It _is_ so, +however, for the vast area already indicated. + +In Buddhism, as opposed to Brahminism, there is a greater tenderness of +animal life in general, whilst less respect is paid to the ox-tribe in +particular. There is less also of the system of caste; and, in +consequence of this, fewer of those elements of priestly influence, +which originate in the ideas of the hereditary transmission of +sacro-sanctitude. Buddhism, too, has the credit of running further in +the dream-land of subjective metaphysics than Brahminism,--though this, +as far as my own very imperfect means of judging go, is doubtful. Into +practical pantheism, and into the deification of human reason it _does_ +run. + +When self-contemplation has reached its highest degree of abstraction, +the state of _Nirwana_ is induced. This seems to mean the absorption of +the spirit within itself; a condition which at once suggests adjectives +like _impassive_, _subjective_, _exalted_, and _supra-sensual_, or +substantives like _transcendentalism_, _egoism_, &c., and the like; in +some cases with definite ideas to correspond with the term; oftener as +mere meaningless words. Such, however, is the nomenclature which is +requisite; a nomenclature to which I have recourse, not for the sake of +illustrating my subject, but with the view of giving a practical notion +of its indistinctness. + +Buddha himself is a specimen and model of self-absorption, consummation, +perfection, or exaltation rather than a deity, or even a prophet. He +shows what purity can effect, rather than teaches what purity consists +in. He may even have become what he was, by his own unaided powers of +supra-sensual abstraction. + +All this is but a series of negations, at least in the way of theology. +But his spirit, after the departure of his body from the earth,[52] +became incarnate in the body of some successor--and so on _ad +infinitum_. This connects Buddhism with the doctrine of metempsychosis; +a doctrine which the incarnations of Brahminism also suggest. + +Such are some of the speculative points of Buddhism. Its morality has +been greatly, and, perhaps, unduly extolled. So much contemplation can +scarcely exist without the condemnation of the more palpable sins of +_commission_. Hence, those vices which are the offspring of passion and +ignorance are condemned; as is but natural. The suspension of exertion +precludes active vice. Of the active virtues, however, the recognition +is as slight as may be; so slight as to make it doubtful whether +Buddhism be a better rule for the formation of good citizens than +Brahminism. Which has been the most resistant to the influences of +Christianity is doubtful.[53] + +Just as the Anglo-Saxon language, although it originated in Germany, has +survived and developed itself in Britain only, the Buddhist creed, once +indigenous to the continent of Hindostan, is now found nowhere between +the Himalayas and Cape Comorin; whilst beyond the pale of India, it is +as widely extended as the English language is beyond the limits of +Germany. The rival religion of the Brahmins expelled it. Which of the +two was the older is uncertain. Still more difficult is it to determine +how far each is a separate substantive mythological growth, or merely a +modification of the rival creed. + +I lay but little stress upon the internal evidence derivable from the +character of the religions themselves. Both are complicated and +artificial--both, perhaps, equally so. In contrast, however, to the more +speculative and transcendental points, suggestive of recent development, +there are others indicative of great antiquity. Nevertheless, it is as +difficult to affirm that the primitive parts of the one creed are older +than the most primitive parts of the other, as it is to affirm that the +highest transcendentalisms are more recent. + +The fact of the oldest inscriptions being in the Pali dialect, is +favourable to the greater antiquity of Buddhism, but it is not +conclusive. The notion that Sanskrit itself is comparatively recent, of +course subtracts from that of Brahminism. But this is far from being +admitted. Besides which, it by no means follows, that because Brahminism +is, comparatively speaking, recent, Buddhism must be ancient. + +The best clue in this labyrinth of conflicting opinions is the study of +the superstitions of the ruder tribes of the hill-ranges of India +itself, of the sub-Himalayas, and of the Indo-Chinese peninsula; the +result of which investigation will be that that creed which has most +points in common with the primitive and unmodified mythologies of the +Tamulian stock, and of those branches of the monosyllabic populations +nearest akin thereto, has also the best claim to be considered as the +older. + +In my own mind, I believe that the _Bedo_ of the Rajmahali mountaineers, +is the _Batho_ of the Bodo, the _Pennu_ of the Khonds, and the +_Potteang_ of the Kukis,[54]--name for name. I believe this without +doubt or hesitation. But if I ask myself the import of this identity, +the answer is unsatisfactory. There is doubt and hesitation in +abundance. _Bedo_, _Batho_, _Petto_, and _Potteang_, _may_ represent the +germ of what afterwards became _Buddh-ism_. They may exhibit the Indian +creed in its _rudiments_. True. But they may also represent it in its +_fragments_, so that _Bedo_ and _Batho_ may be but _Buddh_, distorted in +form, and but imperfectly comprehended in import. In our own Gospel, the +name for the place of punishment, which the Greeks called _Hades_, and +the Hebrews typified by _Gehenna_, is the name of a Saxon goddess +_Hela_; and, in this particular instance, a point of our original +paganism has been taken up into our present Christianity. The same is +the case with the Finnic nation, where _Yumala_ signifies _God_; Yumala +being as truly heathen as _Jupiter_. On the other hand we find amongst +the genuine pagan Gallas of Africa, an object of respect or worship +called _Miriam_. What is this? No true piece of heathendom at all. Dr. +Beke has given good reasons for believing that it means the Virgin +Mother of the Saviour, the only extant member of the Christian +Revelation now known to that once imperfectly Christianized community. + +Buddhism, then, may claim a higher antiquity than Brahminism under the +two following conditions. + +1. That the names _Batho_, &c., be really a form of _Buddh_. + +2. That they have belonged to superstitions in which they occur from the +beginning; and are not in the same category with the _Miriam_ of the +Gallas, _i.e._, recent introductions from a wholly different +religion--grafts rather than embryos. + +How far this latter is the case must be ascertained by a wide and minute +inquiry, foreign to the present work. + +It is no wonder that, side by side with a semi-philosophical creed like +Buddhism, we should have such a phenomenon as Devil-worship. When the +spirit falls short of its due degree of self-sustained hardihood, fear +finds its way to the heart. The evil powers are then propitiated; +sometimes in a manner savouring of dignity, sometimes with groveling and +grotesque cowardice. The Yezid of Mesopotamia, whose belief in the power +of an evil spirit is derived from the Manicheism of old, shows his fear +of the arch-enemy by simple and not unreasonable acts of negation. He +does nothing that may offend; never mentions his name; and dwells on his +attributes as little as possible. The devil-worshipper of Ceylon uses +such invocations as the following:-- + + I. + + Come, thou _sanguinary Devil_, at the sixth hour. Come, thou _fierce + Devil_, upon this stage, and accept the offerings made to thee! + + The _ferocious Devil_ seems to be coming measuring the ground by the + length of his feet, and giving warnings of his approach by throwing + stones and sand round about. He looks upon the meat-offering which + is kneaded with blood and boiled rice. + + He stands there and plays in the shade of the tree called _Demby_. + He removes the sickness of the person which he caused. He will + accept the offerings prepared with blood, odour, and reddish boiled + rice. Prepare these offerings in the shade of the _Demby_ tree. + + Make a female figure of the _planets_ with a monkey's face, and its + body the colour of gold. Offer four offerings in the four corners. + In the left corner, place some blood, and for victims a fowl and a + goat. In the evening, place the scene representing the planets on + the high ground. + + The face resembles a monkey's face, and the head is the colour of + gold. The head is reddish, and the bunch of hair is black and tied. + He holds blood in the left-hand, and rides on a bullock. After this + manner make the sanguinary figure of the planets. + + + II. + + O thou great devil _Maha-Sohon_, preserve these sick persons without + delay! + + On the way, as he was going, by supernatural power he made a great + noise. He fought with the form of _Wessamoony_, and wounded his + head. The planet _Saturn_ saw a wolf in the midst of the forest, and + broke his neck. The _Wessamoony_ gave permission to the great devil + called _Maha-Sohon_. + + O thou great devil _Maha-Sohon_, take away these sicknesses by + accepting the offerings made frequently to thee.--The qualities of + this devil are these: he stretches his long chin, and opens wide his + mouth like a cavern: he bears a spear in his right-hand, and grasps + a great and strong elephant with his left-hand. He is watching and + expecting to drink the blood of the elephant in the place where the + two and three roads meet together. + + Influenced by supernatural power, he entered the body of the + princess called _Godimbera_. He caused her to be sick with severe + trembling sickness. Come thou poor and powerless devil _Maha-Sohon_ + to fight with me, and leave the princess, if thou hast sufficient + strength. + + On hearing these sayings, he left her, and made himself like a blue + cloud, and violently covered his whole body with flames of fire. + Furiously staring with his eyes, he said, "Art thou come, blockhead, + to fight with me who was born in the world of men? I will take you + by the legs, and dash you upon the great rock _Maha-meru_, and + quickly bring you to nothing." + + Thou wast born on Sunday, the first day of the month, and didst + receive permission from the _King of Death_, and didst brandish a + sword like a plantain-leaf. Thou comest down at half-past seven, to + accept the offerings made to thee. + + If the devil _Maha-Sohon_ cause the chin-cough, leanness of the + body, thirst, madness, and mad babblings, he will come down at + half-past seven, and accept the offerings made to him. + + These are the marks of the devil _Maha-Sohon_: three marks on the + head, one mark on the eye-brow and on the temple; three marks on the + belly, a shining moon on the thigh, a lighted torch on the head, an + offering and a flower on the breast. The chief god of the + burying-place will say, May you live long! + + Make the figure of the _planets_ called the emblem of the _great + burying-place_, as follows: a spear grasped by the right-hand, an + elephant's figure in the left-hand, and in the act of drinking the + blood of the elephant by bruising its proboscis. + + Tip the point of the spear in the hand with blood, pointed towards + the elephant's face in the left-hand. These effigies and offerings + take and offer in the burying-place,--discerning well the sickness + by means of the devil-dancer. + + Make a figure of the _wolf_ with a large breast, full of hairs on + the body, and with long teeth separated from each other. The effigy + of the _Maha-Sohon_ was made formerly so. + + These are the sicknesses which the great devil causes by living + among the tombs: chin-cough, itching of the body, disorders in the + bowels; windy complaints, dropsy, leanness of the body, weakness and + consumptions. + + He walks on high upon the lofty stones. He walks on the ground where + three ways meet. Therefore go not in the roads by night: if you do + so, you must not expect to escape with your life. + + Make two figures of a goose, one on each side. Make a lion and a dog + to stand at the left-leg, bearing four drinking-cups on four + paws--and make a moon's image, and put it in the burying-place. + + Comb the hair, and tie up a large bunch with a black string. Put + round the neck a cobra-capella, and dress him in the garments by + making nine folds round the waist. He stands on a rock eating men's + flesh. The persons that were possessed with devils are put in the + burying-place. + + Put a corpse at the feet, taking out the intestines through the + mouth. The principal thing for this country, and for the Singhalese, + is the worship of the planets.[55] + +In the centre of the island is the kingdom of Kandy; naturally fortified +by impervious forests, and long independent. This creates a variety; the +Kandyans being somewhat ruder than the other Singhalese. It is not, +however, an important one. The really important ethnology of Ceylon is +that of the _Vaddahs_, in the eastern districts, inland of Battacaloa. +They are still unmodified by either the Hindu habits, or the great +Indian creeds,--the true analogues of the Khonds, and Kols, and Bhils, +&c. Their language, however, is Singhalese; an important fact, since it +denotes one of two phenomena,--either the antiquity of the conquest of +Ceylon supposing the extension of the Singhalese language to have been +gradual, or the thorough-going character of it, if it be recent. + +Who were the _Padaei_ of the following extract from +Herodotus?[56]--"Other Indians there are, who live east of these. They +are nomads, eaters of raw flesh; and called Padaei. They are said to have +the following customs. Whenever one of their countrymen is sick, whether +man or woman, he is killed. The males kill the males, and amongst these +the most intimate acquaintance kill their nearest friends; for they say +that for a man to be wasted by disease is for their own meat to be +spoilt. The man denies that he ails; but they, not letting him have his +own way, kill and feast on him. If a female be sick, the women that are +most intimate with her treat her as the males do the men. They sacrifice +and feast upon all who arrive at old age. Few, however, go thus far, +since they kill every one who falls sick before he reaches that stage of +life." + +Name for name, the _Vaddahs_ of Ceylon have a claim to be _Padaei_. +Besides which they are Indian. + +But, name for name, the _Battas_[57] of Sumatra have a claim as well; +and although they are not exactly Indian, they are cannibals of the sort +in question--or, at any rate, cannibals in a manner quite as remarkable. + +This gives us a conflict of difficulties. The solution of them lies in +the fact of neither _Vaddah_ nor _Batta_ being _native_ names; a fact +which leaves us a liberty to suppose that the _Padaei_ of Herodotus were +simply some wild Indian tribe sufficiently allied in manners to the +_Vaddahs_ of Ceylon, and the _Battas_ of Sumatra, to be called by the +same name, but without being necessarily either the one or the other; or +even ethnologically connected with either. + + * * * * * + +Now look at the _gipsies_ of Great Britain. They are wanderers without +fixed habitations; whilst, at the same time, they are more abundant in +some parts of the island than others. They have no very definite +occupation; yet they are oftener tinkers and tinmen than aught else +equally legal. They intermarry with the English but little. All this is +_caste_, although we may not exactly call it so. Then, again, they have +a peculiar language, although it is so imperfectly known to the majority +of the British gipsies, as to have become well-nigh extinct.[58] These +gipsies are of Indian origin, and a wandering tribe of Hindostan, called +Sikligurs, reminded Mr. Pickering of the European gipsies more than any +other Indians he fell in with. Like these, the Sikligurs are _coves_, or +tinkers. + +This, however, is by the way. Although it is as well to make a note of +the Indian extraction of the English and other European gipsies, it is +not for this reason that they have been mentioned. They find a place +here for the sake of illustrating what is meant by the _wandering tribes +of India_, whilst at the same time they throw a slight illustration over +the nature of _castes_. Lastly, they are essentially parts of an +ethnological investigation--ethnological rather than either social or +political. Their characteristics are referable to a difference of +descent; and they are tinkers, wanderers, poachers, and smugglers, not +so much because they are either gipsies, or Indians, as because they are +of a different stock from the English. They are foreigners in the +fullest sense of the term; and they differ from their fellow-citizens +just as the Jew does--though less advantageously. + +Now India swarms with the analogues of the English gipsy; so much so as +to make it likely that the latter is found as far from his original +country as Wales and Norway, simply because he is a vagabond, not +because he is an Indian. + +Of the chief of the tribes in question a good account is given by Mr. +Balfour. This list, however, which is as follows, may be enlarged. + +1. The _Gohur_ are, perhaps, better known under the name of _Lumbarri_, +and better still as the _Brinjarri_, the bullock-drivers of many parts +of India, but more especially of the Dekhan. They are corn-merchants as +well. Their organization consists of divisions called _Tandas_, at the +head of which is a _Naek_. Two Naeks paramount over the rest, reside +permanently at Hyderabad, on the confines of the Mahratta and Telugu +countries. The bullock, _Hatadia_, devoted to the God _Balajee_, is an +object of worship. In a long line of Brinjarri met by Mr. Pickering,[59] +one of the females was carrying a dog, which neither a Hindu nor a Parsi +would have done. Many of them are Sikhs. There are, certainly, three +divisions of the Gohuri--the Chouhane,[60] the Rhatore, and the Powar, +and probably-- + +_The Purmans_ are another branch of them; consisting of about +seventy-five families of agriculturists on the Bombay islets. + +2. _The Bhowri_, called also _Hirn-shikarri_ and _Hern-pardi_, though +Bhowri is the native name, are hunters. They also fall into subordinate +divisions. + +3. _The Tarremuki_; so-called by themselves, but known in the Dekhan as +_Ghissaris_, or _Bail-Kumbar_, and amongst the Mahrattas, as _Lohars_, +are blacksmiths. + +4. _The Korawi_, fall in tribes which neither eat with each other, nor +intermarry, _viz._:-- + +_a._ The Bajantri, who are musicians. + +_b._ The Teling--basket-makers and prostitutes. + +_c._ The Kolla. + +_d._ The Soli. + +5. _The Bhattu_, _Dummur_, or _Kollati_, are exorcists and exhibitors of +feats of strength. + +6. _The Muddikpur_, so called by themselves, though known under several +other names, follow a variety of employments; some being ferrymen. + +All these tribes wander about the country without any permanent home, +speak a peculiar dialect with a considerable proportion of +Non-Sanskritic words, and preserve certain peculiarities of creed; +though in different degrees--the Muddikpur being wholly or nearly pagan, +the Tarremuki Brahminic. + +The wandering life of these, and other similar tribes is not, by itself, +sufficient to justify us in separating them from the other Hindus. But +it does not stand alone. The fragments of an earlier paganism, and the +fragments of an earlier language are phenomena which must be taken in +conjunction with it. These suggest the likelihood of the Gohuri, the +Bhatti, and their like, being in the same category with the Khonds and +Bhils, &c., _i.e._, representatives of the earlier and more exclusively +Tamulian populations. If the gipsy language of England had, instead of +its Indian elements, an equal number of words from the original +British, it would present the same phenomena, and lead to the same +inference as that which is drawn from the Bhatti, Bhowri, Tarremuki, and +Gohuri vocabularies,[61] _viz._: the doctrine that fragments of the +original population are to be sought for amongst the wanderers over the +face of the country, as well as among the occupants of its mountain +strongholds. + + * * * * * + +In a country like India, where differences of habit, business, +extraction, and creed, are accompanied by an inordinate amount of +separation between different sections and subsections of its population, +and where slight barriers of diverse kinds prevent intermixture, the +different sects of its numerous religions requires notice. This, +however, may be short. As sectarianism is generally in the direct ratio +to the complexity of the creed submitted to section, we may expect to +find the forms of Brahminism and Buddhism, not less numerous than those +of either Christianity or Mahometanism. And such is really the case. The +sects are too numerous to enlarge upon. The Sikh creed has been noticed +from its political importance. That of the Jains is also remarkable, +since it most closely resembles Buddhism, without being absolutely +Buddhist in the current sense of the word. It is, possibly, the actual +and original Buddhism of the continent of India--supposed to have been +driven out bodily by Brahminism, but really with the true vitality of +persecuted creeds, still surviving in disguise. Again, in India, though +in a less degree than in China, Philosophy replaces belief--so much so, +that the different forms of one negation--Natural Religion--must be +classed amongst the creeds of Hindostan; by the side of which there +stand many kinds of simple philosophy; just as was the case in ancient +Greece, where, in one and the same city, there were the philosophers of +the Academy and the believers in Zeus. + +There is, then, creed within creed in the two great religions of +India--to say nothing about the numerous fragments of modified and +unmodified paganism. + +And besides these there are the following introduced religions--each +coinciding, more or less, with some ethnological division. + +1. Christianity from, at least, four different sources-- + +_a._ That of the Christians of Thomas on the Malabar Coast. Here the +doctrine is that of the Syrian Church, and the population being +_perhaps_ (?) Persian in origin. + +_b._ The Romanism of the French and Portuguese; the latter having its +greatest development in the Mahratta country, about Goa. + +_c._ Dutch and Danish Protestantism. + +_d._ English and American Protestantism. To which add small infusions of +the Armenian and Abyssinian churches. + +Of these it is only the Christians of St. Thomas that are of much +ethnological importance. + +2. Judaism on the coast of Malabar; or the Judaism of the so-called +_Black Jews_. + +3. Parseeism in Gujerat; of Persian origin, and, probably, nearly +confined to individuals of Persian blood. + +4. Mahometanism. + + * * * * * + +Of foreign blood there are numerous infusions. + +1. _Arab._--On the western coast, more especially amongst the Moplahs of +the neighbourhood of Goa; where the stock seems to be Arabian on the +father's, and Indian on the mother's side. + +2. _Persian._--Amongst the Parsees and Saint Thomas Christians (?); and, +far more unequivocally, and in greater proportions, amongst the _Moghul_ +families--these being always more or less Persian; but Persian with such +heterogeneous intermixtures of Turk and Mongol blood besides as to make +analysis almost impossible. + +3. _Afghan._--The Rohillas of Rohilcund are Afghan in origin; so are the +Patani--indeed, the term _Patan_ means an Afghan of Hindostan wherever +he may be. + +4. _Jewish._ + +5, 6, 7.--_Chinese_, _Malay_, _Burmese_, &c. + +8. _European._ + +Of the _Indians out of India_, by far the most are-- + +1. The _Gipsies_. + +2. The _Banians_, who are the Hindu traders of Arabia, Persia, Cashmir, +and other parts of the East. + +3. The _Hill Coolies_, individuals of the Khond and Kuli class, upon +whom England is trying the experiment of what may end in a revival of +the old crimping system, as a substitute for slave-labour in our +intertropical colonies. + + * * * * * + +Such is a sketch of the ethnology of India; pre-eminently complex, but +not pre-eminently mysterious; its chief problems being-- + +1. The general ethnological relations of the Tamulian stock. + +2. Those of the intrusive Brahminical Hindus. + +3. The relation of the intrusive population to the aboriginal.[62] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[41] "Transactions of Philological Society," No. 94. + +[42] Latin _nurus_, from _snurus_. + +[43] Latin _socer_, Greek {hekyros}. + +[44] Latin _socrus_, Greek {hekyra}. + +[45] Latin _levir_ (_devir_), Greek {daer}. + +[46] Or _that_, _this_. + +[47] The full exposition of this doctrine is in the present writer's +ethnological edition of the "Germania" of Tacitus; v. _AEstyi_. + +[48] Taken from the Appendix to Captain Cunningham's "History of the +Sikhs." + +[49] Captain Postans, in "Transactions of Ethnological Society," who, +along with Sir H. Pottinger, is my chief authority. + +[50] For a description of these parts see Major Edwardes' "Year on the +Punjab Frontier." + +[51] The best account of the Brahui is to be found in Sir H. Pottinger's +Travels. + +[52] In the sixth century, B.C. according to the Buddhist chronology. + +[53] Such, at least, is the opinion of the author of "Christianity in +Ceylon," Sir E. Tennent. + +[54] Names explained in Chapter iii. + +[55] From Callaway's "Translation of the _Kolan Nattannawa_." + +[56] Book iii. Sec.. 99. + +[57] The same, probably, is the case with the BIDI of Java. + +[58] From this language, I imagine that the three following words have +come into the English--two of them being slang and one a sporting +term--_rum_, _cove_, _jockey_. + +[59] "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," No. 145. + +[60] These names introduce a difficulty: They are _Rajput_ as well. + +[61] All of which may be found in the paper already quoted; and all of +which contain numerous Tamul roots. + +[62] Since this was written Major-General Briggs' valuable paper on the +_Aboriginal Tribes of India_, has been published in "Transactions of the +British Association," &c., for 1851. Having been seen in MS. by the +present writer it has been freely used. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + BRITISH DEPENDENCIES IN THE MALAYAN PENINSULA.--THE OCEANIC STOCK + AND ITS DIVISIONS.--THE MALAY, SEMANG, AND DYAK TYPES.--THE ORANG + BINUA.--JAKUNS.--THE BIDUANDA KALLANG.--THE ORANG SLETAR.--THE + SARAWAK TRIBES.--THE NEW ZEALANDERS.--THE AUSTRALIANS.--THE + TASMANIANS. + + +Our isolated and small settlements in the Malayan Peninsula,[63] the +depot at Labuan, Sir James Brooke's Rajahship of Sarawak, New Zealand, +the joint protectorate of the Sandwich Islands and Tahiti, Australia, +and Van Dieman's Land, bring us to a new division of the human species, +which is conveniently called the _Oceanic_. + +Its divisions and subdivisions are as follows:-- + + { PROTONESIANS { MICRONESIANS + { AMPHINESIANS -{ POLYNESIANS -{ POLYNESIANS + { { MALAGASI { PROPER + OCEANIC-{ + { { PAPUANS + { KELAENONESIANS-{ AUSTRALIANS + { TASMANIANS. + +Our settlements are limited to the Protonesian, Proper Polynesian, +Australian, and Tasmanian sections: and we have no political authority +over any of the Malagasi, Micronesians, or Papuans. + +With the exception of the occupants of the Malayan Peninsula, all the +Oceanic population occupy islands. This explains the term _Oceanic_. + +Their _distribution_ is as remarkable as their _extension_. The +Amphinesian[64] stream of population, originating in the peninsula of +Malacca, is continued through Borneo, the Moluccas, and the Philippines, +Lord North's Island, Sonsoral, the Pelew group, the Caroline and +Marianne Isles, the Ralik and Radack chains, the Kingsmill group and the +Gilbert and Scarborough Islands, to the Navigators', Society, Friendly, +Marquesas, Sandwich, and New Zealand groups; having become _Micronesian_ +rather than _Protonesian_, after passing the Philippines, and _Proper +Polynesian_ rather than _Micronesian_, after passing the Scarborough and +Gilbert Archipelagoes. In this course it passes _round_ New Guinea and +Australia; in each of which islands the population is Kelaenonesian. + +The Malay of the Malacca peninsula is no longer either monosyllabic or +uninflectional, although in immediate contact with the southern +dialects of the Siamese. Hence, the transition is abrupt; although by no +means conclusive as to any broad and trenchant line of ethnological +demarcation. + +The differences of physical form are less than those of language. No one +has denied that the Malay configuration is a modification of the +Mongolian--_at least in some of its varieties_. + +I say _at least in some of its varieties_, because within the narrow +range of the Malaccan peninsula and the island of Borneo we find no less +than three different types. In _Polynesia_ one of these, and in +_Kelaenonesia_ another becomes exaggerated--so much so, as to suggest the +idea of a different origin for the populations. + +_a._ The _Malays_ are referable to the first type. Mahometans in +religion, they partake of the civilization of the Arab and Indian, and +differ but slightly from the Indo-Chinese nations; the complexion being +dark and the hair straight. The Mahometan Malays, however, are no true +aborigines. They are not only a new people on the peninsula, but they +consider themselves as such; and those occupants which they recognize as +older than themselves, they call _Orang Binua_, or _men of the soil_. Of +these some have a darker complexion and crisper hair than the intruding +population: and when we reach a particular section called-- + +_b._ The _Semang_, we find them described as having curly, crisp, +matted, and even woolly hair, thick lips, and a black skin. These, like +most of the other _Orang Binua_, are Pagans. Still their language is +essentially Malay; and their physical conformation passes into that of +the Malays by numerous transitions. + +_c._ Thirdly, we find in Borneo the _Dyaks_. Many of these are as much +fairer than the Malays as the Semang are darker. Their language, +however, belongs to the Malay class; whilst their religion and +civilization may reasonably be supposed to be that of the Malays +previous to the influences of Brahminism from India, Mahometanism from +Arabia, and the changes effected in their habits, language, and +appearance effected thereby. + +It is not too much to say that within the peninsula of Malaya, the +Johore Archipelago, and the island of Borneo, each of these types, and +every intermediate form as well, is to be found. + +_Malacca._--The town of Malacca is a town of Mahometan Malays, but I +believe that the eastern parts of Wellesley province are on the frontier +of the _Jokong_, _Jakon_, or _Jakun_. These are _Orang Binua_, or +aborigines--at least as compared with the true Malays. + +In the eighth century--I am drawing an illustration from the history of +our own island, and its relations to continental Germany--the +Anglo-Saxons of Great Britain, themselves originally Pagan Germans, took +an interest in the spiritual welfare of the so-called Old Saxons, a +tribe of Westphalia, immediately related to their own continental +ancestors, these Old Saxons having retained their primitive Paganism. +The mission partly succeeded, and partly failed. + +Now, if in addition to this partial success of the Anglo-Saxon mission, +there had been a partial Anglo-Saxon colonization as well, and if, side +by side with this, fragments of the old unmodified Paganism had survived +amongst the fens and forests up to the present time, we should have had, +in the relations of England and Germany, precisely what I imagine to +have been the case with the Malayan peninsula and the island of Sumatra. +Like Germany, the peninsula would have supplied the original stock to +the island; but, in the island, that stock would have undergone certain +modifications. With these modifications it would--so to say--have been +_reflected_ back upon the continent--_re_-colonizing the old +mother-country. Now just what the Old Saxons of Westphalia were to the +Anglo-Saxons of the eighth century, are the Jakun to the true Malays. +They differ from them in being something other than Mahometan; _i.e._, +in being nearly what the Mahometan Malays were before their conversion. + +The Jakun are Malays, _minus_ those points of Malay civilization which +are referable to the religion of the Koran. + +But the Jakun are only a few out of many; a single branch of a great +stem. + +The most convenient term for the members in general of this class is +_Orang Binua_--a term already explained. + +_The Biduanda Kallang._--The next, then, of the _Orang Binua_ that comes +in contact with a British dependency--many others _not_ thus politically +connected with us being passed over--are the _Biduanda Kallang_ of the +parts about Sincapore. Their present locality is the banks of the most +southern of the rivers of the peninsula, the Pulai. Thither they were +removed when the British took possession of the island of Sincapore; of +which they were previously the joint occupants--joint occupants, because +they shared it with the tribe which will be next mentioned. They were an +_Orang Laut_ in one sense of the word, but not in another. _Orang_ means +_men_ or _people_, and _laut_ means _sea_ in Malay; and the Biduanda +Kallang were boatmen rather than agriculturists. But they were only +freshwater sailors; since, though they lived on the water, they avoided +the open sea. They formerly consisted of one hundred families; but have +been reduced by small-pox to eight. + +Their priest or physician is called _bomo_, and he invokes the _hantu_, +or deities, the _anito_ of the Philippine Islanders, the _tii_ of the +Tahitians; and, probably, the _Wandong_ and _Vintana_ of Australia and +Madagascar respectively. + +They bury their dead after wrapping the corpse in a mat; and placing on +the grave one cup of woman's milk, one of water, and one of rice; when +they entreat the deceased to seek nothing more from them. + +Persons of even the remotest degree of relationship are forbidden to +intermarry. + +The accounts of their physical appearance is taken from too few +individuals to justify any generalization. Two, however, of them had the +forehead broader than the cheek-bones, so that the head was pear-shaped. +In a third, it was lozenge-shaped. The head was small, and the face +flat. The lower jaw projected; but not the upper--so that "when viewed +in profile, the features seem to be placed on a straight line, from +which the prominent parts rise very slightly."[65] + +_The Orang Sletar._--The original joint-occupants of Sincapore with the +Biduanda Kallang, were the _Orang Sletar_, or _men of the river Sletar_; +differing but little from the former. Of the two families they are the +shyer, and the more squalid; numbering about two hundred individuals and +forty boats. Their dialect is Malay, spoken with a guttural +pronunciation, and with a clipping of the words. + +At the birth of a child they have no ceremonies; at marriage a present +of tobacco and rice to the bride's mother confirms the match; at death +the deceased is wrapped in his garments and interred. + +Skin diseases and deformities are common; nevertheless, many of their +women are given in marriage to both the Malays and Chinese; but I know +of no account of the mixed progeny. + +A low retreating forehead throws the face of the _Orang Sletar_ +forwards, though the jaw is rather perpendicular than projecting.[66] + +Such are the _Orang Binua_ originally, or at present, in contact with +the small and isolated possessions of the British in the Malayan +peninsula. + +Of the proper Malays I have said next to nothing. Excellent works give +full accounts of them;[67] whilst it is not through _them_ that the true +ethnological problems are to be worked. + +I believe that when we reach Borneo, the equivalents to the _Orang +Binua_, or the original populations in opposition to the Mahometan +Malays, become referable to a fresh type, and that instead of being +_darker_ than the true Malays they are often _lighter_. At any rate, one +thing is certain, _viz._, that, whether the skin be brown, blackish, or +fair, the language belongs to the same stock. + +Again--although in one area the darker tribes may preponderate, it is +not to the absolute exclusion of the fairer. The Dyaks of Borneo are, +generally speaking, light-complexioned; yet, there is special evidence +to the existence of dark tribes in that island. On the other hand there +is equal evidence to the existence of families lighter-skinned than the +true Malays in the peninsula. Nevertheless, as a general rule, the +departure from the type of that population is towards darkness of colour +on the continent, and towards lightness in Borneo. + +With what physical conditions these differences coincide is not always +easy to be discerned. In the South Sea Islands, where in one and the +same Archipelago, we find some tribes tall and fair, whereas others are +dark and ill-featured, it has been remarked by Captain Beechy that this +contrast of complexion coincides with the geological structure of the +soil. The lower and more coralline the island, the blacker the +islanders; the more elevated and volcanic, the lighter. In Africa, it is +the low alluvia of rivers that favour the Negro configuration. +Mountains or table-lands, on the other hand, give us red or yellow +skins, rather than sable. + +The Dyaks, then, are light-coloured Pagans, speaking languages allied to +the Malay; little touched by Arabic, and less by Hindu influences; with +manners and customs that, more or less, re-appear amongst the Battas (or +ruder tribes of Sumatra), and the so-called Harafuras of Celebes--and +not only here but elsewhere. In other words, in all the islands, where +Indian and Arabic civilization have not succeeded in wholly changing +the primitive character, analogues of the _Orang Binua_ are to be +found; their greatest differences being those of stature and +complexion--differences upon which good judges have laid great stress; +but differences which will probably be found to coincide with certain +geological conditions in the way of physical, and with a lower level of +civilization in the way of moral causes--these moral causes having +indirectly a physical action. + +The Dyaks, in general, use the _sumpitan_, or blow-pipe, about five feet +long; out of which some tribes shoot simple, others poisoned arrows. The +utmost distance that the sumpitan carries is about one hundred yards. At +twenty it is sure in its aim. The differences between the Dyak weapon, +and one in use with the Arawaks of Guiana is but trifling--perhaps it +amounts to nothing at all. + +Some Dyak tribes tattoo their bodies; others do not. + +Before a Dyak youth marries he must lay at the feet of the bride-elect +the head of an enemy. This makes _head-hunting_ a normal item of Dyak +courtship. + +Traces of the Indian mythology--measures of the Indian influence in +other respects--just exist amongst the Dyaks--_e.g._, _Battara_ is a +name in their Pantheon, and this is an alteration of the Brahminic +_Avatar_. + +The pirates who harass the coasts of Borneo and the Chinese +Seas--destined, at some future time to be, like the Kaffres, but too +well-known to the English tax-payers--are Malays rather than _Orang +Binua_, or their equivalents; the navigation of the Dyaks being chiefly +confined to rivers. + +The particular tribes of Sarawak are the following--the Lundu, the +Sarambo, the Singe, the Suntah, the Sow, and the Sibnow. It is almost +unnecessary to name the great fountain-head for all our recent knowledge +of Borneo--Sir James Brooke. + +The Dyak type predominates amongst the _Orang Binua_ of Borneo. In the +Philippines the Semang complexion re-appears. But the prolongation of +the eastward line of migration takes us through the Mariannes and +Ladrones to Polynesia; and here the magnitude of the islands decreases; +in other words, the influences of the sea-air become greater. The +aliment becomes almost wholly vegetable. The separation from the +civilizational influences of Asia amounts to absolute isolation. Of the +general ethnology of the South Sea Islanders I say nothing. The reasons +which took me over China, Arabia, and the Malayan peninsula, _sicco +pede_, spare the necessity of details here. + +In the Sandwich Islands there is a constitution. In Tahiti, a school of +native Christian Missionaries. + +New Zealand exhibits the contrast between the darker and +lighter-coloured Oceanic populations in so remarkable a manner as to +have engendered the notion that two stocks occupy the island. If it were +so, the fact would be remarkable and mysterious. How _one_ population +found its way to a locality so distant is by no means an easy question; +whilst the assumption of a second family of immigrants just doubles its +difficulty.[68] + + * * * * * + +In Java the proper Malay influences have been so great as to leave but +few traces of the _Orang Binua_; and, earlier even than these, those of +India were actively at work. + +East of Bali, however, the _Orang Binua_ re-appear, and here the type is +that of the Semangs. From Ombay, parts of Ende, and parts of Sumbawa, we +have short vocabularies--short, but not too scanty to set aside the +hasty, but accredited, assertion of the Australian language, having +nothing in common with those of the Indian Archipelago.[69] + +I feel as satisfied that Australia was peopled from either Timor or +Rotti, as I do about the Gallic origin of the ancient Britons. + +I believe this because the geographical positions of the countries +suggest it. + +I believe it, because the older and more aboriginal populations of Timor +and Rotti approach, in physical character, the Australian. + +I believe it, because the proportion of words in the vocabularies +alluded to is greater than can be attributed to accident; whilst the +words themselves are not of that kind which is introduced by +intercourse. Besides which, no such intercourse either occurs at the +present moment, or can be shown to have ever existed. + +Australia agrees with parts of Africa, South America, and Polynesia, in +being partially intertropical and wholly south of the equator--no part +of continental Asia or Europe coming under these conditions. But it +differs from Polynesia in being continental rather than insular in +climate; from South America in the absence of great rivers and vast +alluvial tracts; and from Africa in being wholly isolated from the +Northern Hemisphere. It is with South Africa, however, that its closest +analogies exist. Both have but small water-systems; both vast tracts of +elevated barren country; and both a distinctive vegetation. The animal +kingdoms, however, of the two areas have next to nothing in common. The +comparative non-existence of Australian mammalia, higher in rank than +the marsupials, is a subject for the zoologist. Ethnology only indicates +its bearing upon the sustenance of man. Poor in the vegetable elements +of food, and beggarly in respect to the animal, the vast continental +expanse of Australia supports the scantiest aboriginal population of the +world, and nourishes it worst. The steppes of Asia feed the horse; the +_tundras_, the reindeer; the circumpolar icebergs, the seal; and each of +these comparatively inhospitable tracts is more kindly towards its +Mongolian, its Samoeid, and its Eskimo occupant, than Australia with its +intertropical climate, but wide and isolated deserts. + +Except that his hair (which is often either straight, or only crisp or +wavy) has not attained its _maximum_ of frizziness, and has seldom or +never been called _woolly_, the Australian is a Semang under a South +African climate, on a South African soil, and with more than a South +African isolation. + +Few Australians count as far as five, and fewer still beyond it. This +paucity of numerals is South American as well--the Brazilian and Carib, +and other systems of numeration being equally limited. + +The sound of _s_ is wanting in the majority of Australian languages. So +it is in many of the Polynesian. + +The social constitution is of extreme simplicity. Many degrees removed +from the industrial, almost as far from the agricultural state, the +Australian is hardly even a hunter--except so far as the kangaroo or +wombat are beasts of chase. Families--scarcely large enough to be called +tribes or clans--wander over wide but allotted areas. Nowhere is the +approach to an organized polity so imperfect. + +This makes the differences between section and section of the Australian +population, both broad and numerous. Nevertheless, the fundamental unity +of the whole is not only generally admitted, but--what is better--it has +been well illustrated. The researches of Captain Grey, Teichelmann, +Schurrmann, and others, have chiefly contributed to this. + +The appreciation of certain apparent characteristic peculiarities has +been less satisfactory; differences having been over-rated and points of +similarity wondered at rather than investigated. + +The well-known instrument called the _boomerang_ is Australian, and it +is, perhaps, exclusively so. + +Circumcision is an Australian practice--a practice common to certain +Polynesians and Negroes, besides--to say nothing of the Jews and +Mahometans. + +The recognition of the _maternal_ rather than the _paternal_ descent is +Australian. Children take the name of their mother. What other points it +has in common with the Malabar polyandria has yet to be ascertained. + +When an Australian dies, those words which are identical with his name, +or (in case of compounds) with any part of it, cease to be used; and +some synonym is adopted instead; just as if, in England, whenever a Mr. +_Smith_ departed this life, the parish to which he belonged should cease +to talk of _blacksmiths_, and say _forgemen_, _forgers_, or something +equally respectful to the deceased, instead. This custom re-appears in +Polynesia, and in South America; Dobrizhoffer's account of the +Abiponian custom being as follows:--The "Abiponian language is involved +in new difficulties by a ridiculous custom which the savages have of +continually abolishing words common to the whole nation, and +substituting new ones in their stead. Funeral rites are the origin of +this custom. The Abipones do not like that anything should remain to +remind them of the dead. Hence appellative words bearing any affinity +with the names of the deceased are presently abolished. During the first +years that I spent amongst the Abipones, it was usual to say _Hegmalkam +kahamatek_, when will there be a slaughtering of oxen? On account of the +death of some Abipon, the word _Kahamatek_ was interdicted, and, in its +stead, they were all commanded by the voice of a crier to say, +_Hegmalkam negerkata?_ The word _nihirenak_, a tiger, was exchanged for +_apanigehak_; _peu_, a crocodile, for _Kaeprhak_, and _Kaama_, +Spaniards, for _Rikil_, because these words bore some resemblance to the +names of Abipones lately deceased. Hence it is that our vocabularies are +so full of blots occasioned by our having such frequent occasions to +obliterate interdicted words, and insert new ones." + +The following custom is Australian, and it belongs to a class which +should always be noticed when found. This is because it appears and +re-appears in numerous parts of the world, in different forms, and, +apparently, independent of ethnological affinities. + +A family selects some natural object as its symbol, badge, or armorial +bearing. + +All natural objects of the same class then become sacred; _i.e._, the +family which has adopted, respects them also. + +The modes of showing this respect are various. If the object be an +animal, it is not killed; if a plant, not plucked. + +The native term for the object thus chosen is _Kobong_. + +A man cannot marry a woman of the same _Kobong_. + +Until we know the sequence of the cause and effect in the case of the +Australian _Kobong_, we have but little room for speculation as to its +origin. Is the plant or animal adopted by a particular family selected +because it was previously viewed with a mysterious awe, or is it +invested with the attributes of sacro-sanctity because it has been +chosen by the family? This has yet to be investigated. + +Meanwhile, as Captain Gray truly remarks, the Australian _Kobong_ has +elements in common with the Polynesian _tabu_! Might he not have added +that the _names_ are probably the same? The change from _t_ to _k_, and +the difference between a nasal and a vowel termination, are by no means +insuperable objections. + +He also adds that it has a counterpart with the American system of +_totem_; although the exact degree to which the comparison runs on all +fours is undetermined. + +But the disuse of certain words on the death of kinsmen, and the +_Kobong_ are not the only customs common to the Australian and American. + +The admission to the duties and privileges of manhood is preceded by a +probation. What this is in the Mandan tribe of the Sioux Americans, and +the extent to which it consists in the infliction and endurance of +revolting and almost incredible cruelties, may be seen in Mr. Catlin's +description--the description of an eye-witness. In Australia it is the +_Babu_ that cries for the youths that have arrived at puberty. Suddenly, +and at night, a cry is heard in the woods. Upon hearing this, the men of +the neighbourhood take the youths to a secluded spot previously fixed +upon. The ceremony then takes place. Sham fights, dances, partial +mutilations of the body, _e.g._, the knocking out of a front tooth, are +elements of it. And this is as much as is known of it; except that from +the time of initiation to the time of marriage, the young men are +forbidden to speak to, or even approach a female. + +Surely, it is the common conditions of a hunter life which determine +these probationary preparations for the hardships which accompany it in +populations so remote as the Australian and the American of the prairie. +I say of the prairie, because we shall find that in the proportion as +the agricultural state replaces the erratic habits of the hunter, +ceremonies of the sort in question decrease both in number and +peculiarity of character. + +A third regulation forbids the use of the more enviable articles of +diet, like fish, eggs, the emu, and the choicer sorts of opossum and +kangaroo to the Australian youth. + +All that is known of the Australian religion is due to the researches of +the United States Exploring Expedition. The most specific fact in this +respect is the name _Wandong_ as applied to the evil spirit. I believe +this to be truly a word belonging to the Oceanic Pantheon in general, +and--as stated above--to be the same as _Vintana_ in Malagasi, and as +the root _anit_ in many of the Polynesian languages. + +_The Tasmanians._--A few families, the remains of the aborigines of Van +Dieman's Land, occupy Flinder's Island, whither they have been removed. + +I can give but little information concerning them. + +From the Australians they differ but slightly in mental capacity, and +civilizational development. Perhaps their very low level in this +respect is the lower of the two. + +The language seems to have fallen into not less than four mutually +unintelligible forms of speech. + +Their _hair_ constituted their chief physical difference. This was +curled, frizzy, or mopped. + +The _a priori_ view of their origin is that they crossed Torres Straits +from Australia. I have, however, stated elsewhere that a case may be +made out for either Timor or New Caledonia being their mother countries; +in which case the stream of population has gone _round_ Australia rather +than _across_ it. Certain peculiarities of the Tasmanian language give +us the ground for thus demurring to the _prima facie_ view of their +descent. The same help us to account for the differences in texture of +the hair.[70] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[63] Malacca, Wellesley Province, Penang, and Sincapore. For excellent +information about the ethnology of these parts see Newbold's "British +Settlements," and the "Journal of the Indian Archipelago." + +[64] From {amphi} (_amfi_) _roundabout_, and {nesos} (_naesos_) _an +island_. + +[65] Logan in "Journal of the Indian Archipelago," vol. i. + +[66] Logan and Thompson in "Journal of the Indian Archipelago," vol. i. + +[67] Especially Crawfurd's "Indian Archipelago," Sir Stamford Raffles' +"History of Java," and Marsden's "Sumatra." + +[68] Dr. Dieffenbach's work on New Zealand is the repertory of details +here--a valuable and standard book. + +[69] The collation of these may be seen in the Appendix to Mr. Jukes' +"Voyage of the Fly." + +[70] In the Appendix to Jukes' "Voyage of the Fly," and in "Man and his +Migrations." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +DEPENDENCIES IN AMERICA. + + THE ATHABASKANS OF THE HUDSON'S BAY COUNTRY.--THE ALGONKIN + STOCK.--THE IROQUOIS.--THE SIOUX.--ASSINEBOINS.--THE ESKIMO.--THE + KOLUCH.--THE NEHANNI.--DIGOTHI.--THE ATSINA.--INDIANS OF BRITISH + OREGON, QUADRA'S AND VANCOUVER'S ISLAND.--HAIDAH.--CHIMSHEYAN.-- + BILLICHULA.--HAILTSA.--NUTKA.--ATNA.--KITUNAHA INDIANS.--PARTICULAR + ALGONKIN TRIBES.--THE NASCOPI.--THE BETHUCK.--NUMERALS FROM + FITZ-HUGH SOUND.--THE MOSKITO INDIANS.--SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS OF + BRITISH GUIANA.--CARIBS.--WAROWS.--WAPISIANAS.--TARUMAS.--CARIBS OF + ST. VINCENT.--TRINIDAD. + + +_The Athabaskans._--The best starting-point for the ethnology of the +British dependencies in America is the water-system of the largest of +the rivers which empty themselves into the Polar Sea, a system which +comprises the Rivers Peel, Dahodinni, and the Riviere aux Liards, +tributaries to the McKenzie, as well as the Great Bear Lake, the Great +Slave Lake, and Lake Athabaska; a vast tract, and one which is _almost_ +wholly occupied by a population belonging to one and the same class; a +class sometimes known under the name _Chepewyan_, or _Chepeyan_, +sometimes under that of _Athabaskan_. + +The water-system in question forms the centre of the great Athabaskan +area--the centre, but not the whole. _Eastward_, there are Athabaskan +tribes as far as the coasts of Hudson's Bay; westwards as far as the +immediate neighbourhood of the Pacific; and southwards as far as the +head-waters of the Saskatchewan. Full nineteen-twentieths of the +Athabaskan population, in respect to its political relations, is +British; all that is not British being either Russian or American. To +this we may add, that it is the Hudson's Bay territory rather than +Canada to which the British Athabaskans belong. + +The divisions and subdivisions of the Athabaskans are as follows:-- + +1. The _Si-isaw-dinni_ (_See-eesaw-dinneh_), or +_rising-sun-men_.--These, generally called either _Chipewyans_, or +_Northern Indians_, are the most eastern members of the family, and +extend from the mouth of the Churchill River to Lake Athabaska. I +imagine that the _Brushwood_, _Birchrind_, and _Sheep_ Indians are +particular divisions of this branch. + +2. _The Beaver Indians._--From the Lake Athabaska to the Rocky Mountain, +_i.e._, the valley of the Peace River. + +3. The _Daho-dinni_.--On the head-waters of the Riviere aux Liards. +Called also _Mauvais Monde_. + +4. The _Strong-Bows_.--Mountaineers of the upper part of the Rocky +Mountains. + +5. The _Kancho_.--Called also _Hare_ and _Slave_ Indians. Starved and +miserable occupants of the parts along the River McKenzie between the +Slave and Great Bear Lakes. Accused of occasional cannibalism, justified +by the pressure of famine. Due east of these come-- + +6. The _Dog-ribs_, and + +7. The _Yellow-knives_, on the _Copper River_; these last being also +called the Copper Indians. + +8, 9. The _Slaous-cud-dinni_[71] of the McKenzie River is, probably, a +division of some of the other groups rather than a separate substantive +class. + +10. The _Takulli_.[72]--These fall into eleven minor tribes or clans. + +_a._ The _Tau-tin_; probably the same as the _Naote-tains_. + +_b._ The _Tshilko-tin_. + +_c._ The _Nasko-tin_. + +_d._ The _Thetlio-tin_. + +_e._ The _Tsatsno-tin_. + +_f._ The _Nulaau-tin_. + +_g._ The _Ntsaau-tin_. + +_h._ The _Natliau-tin_. + +_i._ The _Nikozliau-tin_. + +_j._ The _Tatshiau-tin_. + +_k._ The _Babine_ Indians. + +11. The _Susi_ (_Sussees_).--On the head-waters of the Saskatchewan. + +New Caledonia is the chief area of the _Takulli_. + +Adjacent to them, but to the east of the Rocky Mountains, lie-- + +12. The _Tsikani_ (_Sicunnies_). + +The Athabaskan is the _first_ class in our list; and, if we look only at +the area which its population occupies, it is a great one. All the +Athabaskan languages or dialects are mutually intelligible. + +_The Algonkins._--The _second_ class is the Algonkin. It is greater in +every way than the Athabaskan--greater in respect to the number of its +divisions and subdivisions, greater in respect to the ground it covers, +and greater in respect to the range of difference which it embraces. All +the Algonkin languages are not mutually intelligible. + +Unlike the Athabaskan the Algonkin stock is nearly equally divided +between the United States and Great Britain. + +Unlike, too, the Athabaskan, it is divided between the Canadas and our +other possessions and the Hudson's Bay territory. + +The whole of the Canadas, with one small but important exception, the +whole of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward's +Isle, is Algonkin. Labrador and Newfoundland are chiefly Algonkin. + +To this stock belonged and belong the extinct and extant Indians of New +England, part of New York, part of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, +Virginia, part of the Carolinas, and part of even Kentucky and +Tennessee; a point of American rather than of British ethnology, but a +point necessary to be noted for the sake of duly appreciating the +magnitude of this stock. + +Amongst others, the Pequods, the Mohicans, the Narragansetts, the +Massachuset, the Montaug, the Delaware, the Menomini, the Sauks, the +Ottogamis, the Kikkapus, the Potawhotamis, the Illinois, the Miami, the +Piankeshaws, the Shawnos, &c. belong to this stock--all within the +United States. + +The British Algonkins are as follows:-- + +1. The _Crees_; of which the _Skoffi_ and _Sheshatapush_ of Labrador are +branches. + +2. The _Ojibways_;[73] falling into-- + +_a._ The _Ojibways Proper_, of which the _Sauteurs_ are a section. + +_b._ The _Ottawas_ of the River Ottawa. + +_c._ The original Indians of Lake _Nipissing_; important because it is +believed that the form of speech called _Algonkin_, a term since +extended to the whole class, was their particular dialect. They are now +either extinct or amalgamated with other tribes. + +_d._ The _Messisaugis_, to the north of Lake Ontario. + +3. The _Micmacs_ of New Brunswick, Gaspe, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and +part of Newfoundland; closely allied to the-- + +4. _Abnaki_ of Mayne, and the British frontier; represented at present +by the _St. John's Indians_. + +5. The _Bethuck_--the aborigines of Newfoundland. + +6. The _Blackfoots_, consisting of the-- + +_a._ _Satsikaa_, or _Blackfoots Proper_. + +_b._ The _Kena_, or _Blood Indians_. + +_c._ The _Piegan_. + +To these must be added numerous extinct tribes. + +_The Iroquois._--The single and important exception to the Algonkin +population of the Canadas is made by the existence of certain members of +the great Iroquois class on the New York frontier; a class falling into +two divisions. The _northern_ Iroquois belong to New York and +Pennsylvania, the _southern_ to the Carolinas. + +The former of these two falls into two great confederations, and into +several unconfederate tribes. + +The chief of the unconfederate tribes are the now extinct _Mynkasar_ and +_Cochnowagoes_--extinct, unless either or both be represented by a small +remnant mentioned by Schoolcraft, in his great work on the Indian +tribes, now in the course of publication, under the sanction of +Congress, as the _St. Regis Indians_. + +Of the second confederation the leading members were the _Wyandots_, or +_Hurons_, of the parts between Lakes Simcoe, Huron, and Erie. + +The first was that of the famous and formidable _Mohawks_. To these add +the _Senekas_, the _Onondagos_, the _Cayugas_, and the _Oneidas_, and +you have the _Five_ Nations. Then add, as a later accession, from the +southern Iroquois, the _Tuskaroras_, and the _Six_ Nations are formed. + +Between these two there was war _even to the knife_; the greater portion +of the Wyandot league belonging to the Algonkin class. + +Nevertheless, a few representatives of the whole seven tribes[74] still +remain extant, their present locality--a reserve--being the triangular +peninsula which was the original Huron area. + +Again, in the present site of Montreal, the earlier occupants were the +_Hochelaga_; an Iroquois tribe also. + +_The Sioux._--In tracing the Nelson River from its embouchure in +Hudson's Bay, towards its source in the Rocky Mountains, we reach Lake +Winnepeg, and the Red River Settlement--the Red River rising within the +boundary of the United States, flowing from south to north, and +receiving, as a feeder, the Assineboin. Now the Valley of the Assineboin +is an interesting ethnological locality. + +Either the river takes its name from the population, or the population +from the river; the division to which it belongs being a new one. +Different from the Algonkins on the east, different from the Athabaskans +on the north, and (in the present state of our knowledge) different from +the Arrapahoes on the west, the Assineboins have all their affinities +southwards. In that direction the family to which they belong extends as +far as Louisiana. These Indians it is to whom nine-tenths of the Valley +of Missouri originally belonged--the Indians of the great Sioux class; +Indians whose original hunting-grounds included the vast prairie-country +from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi, and who again appear as an +isolated detachment on Lake Michigan. These isolated Sioux are the +Winebagoes; the others being the Dahcota, the Yankton, the Teton, the +Upsaroka, the Mandan, the Minetari, the Missouri, the Osage, the Konzas, +the Ottos, the Omahaws, the Puncas, the Ioways, and the Quappas,--all +American, _i.e._, belonging to the United States. + +None of the Sioux tribe come in contact with the sea. None of them +belong to the great _forest_ districts of America. Most of them hunt +over the country of the buffalo. This makes them warlike, migratory +hunters; with fewer approaches to agricultural or industrial +civilization than any Indians equally favoured by soil and climate. + +Of this class the Assineboins are the British representatives. They are +the chief _Red River_ aborigines. + +It is the Iroquois, the Sioux, and certain members of the Algonkin +stock, upon which the current and popular notions of the American +Indian, the _Red Man_, as he is called-- + + The Stoic of the woods, the man without a tear, &c., + +have been formed. The Athabaskans, on the other hand, have not +contributed much to our notions on this point. In the first place, they +are less known; in the next, they are less typical. + +But this raises their value in the eyes of the ethnologist; and the very +fact of their possessing certain characteristics, in a comparatively +slight degree, makes them all the fitter for illustrating the phenomena +of _transition_. + +Previous, however, to this, we must get our other _extreme_. This is to +be found in the ethnology of-- + +_The Eskimo._--It is a very easy matter for an artistic ethnologist to +make some fine light-and-shade contrasts between two populations, where +he has an Iroquois or a Sioux at one end, and an Eskimo of Labrador at +the other. An oblique eye, bleared and sore from the glare of the snow, +with a crescentic fold overshadowing the _caruncula lacrymalis_, +surmounted by a low forehead and black shaggy locks, with cheek-bones of +such inordinate development as to make the face as broad as it is long, +are elements of ugliness which catch the imagination, and produce a +caricature, where we want a picture. And they are elements of ugliness +which can be accumulated. We may add to them, a nose so flat, and cheeks +so fleshy, as for a ruler, placed across the latter, to leave the former +untouched. We may then notice the state of the teeth, from the +mastication of injurious substances; and having thus exhausted nature, +we may revert to the deformities of art. We may observe that wherever +there is a fleshy portion of the face that can be perforated by a stone +knife, or pierced by a whalebone, there will be tattooing and incisions; +and that wherever there are incisions, bones, nails, feathers, and such +like ornaments will be inserted. All this is the case. What European +ladies do with their ears, the Eskimo does with the cartilage of his +nose, the lips, the corners of his mouth, and the cheeks. More than +this--in the lower lip, parallel to the mouth, and taking the guise of a +mouth additional, a slit is made quite through the lip, large enough to +allow the escape of spittle and the protrusion of the tongue. The +insertion of a shell or bone, cut into the shape of teeth, completes the +adornment. + +Then comes the question of colour. The Indian has a tinge of red; a +tinge which enables us to compare his skin to _copper_. The Eskimo is +simply brown, swarthy, or tawny. + +Again, the Eskimo hold periodical fairs. Whales are scarce in the south, +and wood in the north of Greenland; and in consequence of this, there +are regular meetings for the business of barter. This gives us the +elements of commercial industry; elements which must themselves be taken +in conjunction with the maritime habits of the people. What stronger +contrast can we find to all this than the gloomy isolation of the +hunters of the prairie-countries, whether Sioux, Iroquois, or Algonkin? + +Again, it is safe, in the way of intellectual capacity, to give the +Eskimo credit for ingenuity and imitativeness. The Indian, of the type +which we have chosen to judge him by, is pre-eminently indocile and +inflexible. + +Yet all this, with much more besides, is capable of great +qualification--qualification which we find necessary, whether we look to +the extent to which the Eskimos approach the Indian, or the Indian the +Eskimo--each receding from its own more extreme representative. + +The prominence of the nasal bones is certainly common amongst the Red +Indian tribes; and rare amongst the Eskimo. Yet it is neither universal +in the one, nor non-existent in the other. Oval features, a mixture of +red in the complexion, an aquiline nose, have all been observed amongst +the more favoured of the Circumpolar men and women. + +In respect, too, to stature, the Eskimo is less remarkable for +inferiority than is generally supposed. His bulky, baggy dress makes him +look square and short. Measurements, however, correct this impression. +Men of the height of five feet ten inches have been noticed as +particular specimens--better grown individuals than their fellows. And +men under five feet have also been noticed for the contrary reasons. +Numerous measurements, however, give about five feet as the height of an +Eskimo woman, and five feet six inches as that of a man. This is more +than so good an authority as Mr. Crawfurd gives to the Malays; whose +person is squat, and whose average stature does not exceed five feet +three or four inches. It is more, too, than Sir R. Schomburgk gives the +Guiana Indians, as may be seen from the following table:-- + + +---------------+-------+-------------+ + | | Aged. | ft. in. | + +---------------+-------+-------------+ + | _Wapisianas._ | 12 | 4 8-5/10 | + | | 15 | 4 6 | + | | 16 | 5 1-1/10 | + +---------------+-------+-------------+ + | _Tarumas._ | 14 | 4 11-3/10 | + +---------------+-------+-------------+ + | _Mawackas._ | 15 | 4 10 | + | | 16} | 4 9-5/10 | + | | 17} | | + +---------------+-------+-------------+ + | _Atorais._ | 35 | 5 1-5/10 | + | | 15 | 5 1 | + +---------------+-------+-------------+ + | _Macusis._ | 14} | 4 8 | + | | 15} | | + | | 14 | 5 0 | + +---------------+-------+-------------+ + +It is more than the average of several other populations. + +Neither is the Eskimo skull so wholly different from the American. It +is, probably, larger in its dimensions; so that its cavity contains more +cubic inches. The measurements, however, which suggest this view, are +but few. On the other hand, the relations between the _width_ and the +_depth_ of the skull, are considered important and distinctive. + +By _width_ is meant the number of inches from side to side, from one +parietal bone to the other; in other words, the _parietal diameter_. + +_Depth_ signifies the length of the _occipito-frontal_ diameter, or the +number of inches from the forehead to the back of the skull. + +Now, in one out of four of the Eskimo crania examined by Dr. Morton, the +parietal diameter so nearly approaches the occipito-frontal as for the +skull in question to be as much as 5.4 inches in width, and as little as +5.7 in depth; a measurement which makes the Eskimo brain almost as +broad as it is long. _Valeat quantum._ It is an extreme specimen. The +remainder are as 5.5 to 7.3; as 5.1 to 7.5; and as 5 to 6.7, proportions +by no means exclusively Eskimo, and proportions which occur in very many +of the undeniably American stocks. + +Likeness there is; and variety there is;--likeness in physical feature, +likeness in language, and likeness in the general moral and intellectual +characteristics. And then there is variety--variety in all the details +of their arts; variety in their bows, their canoes, their dwellings, +their fashions in the way of incisions and tattooings, and their +fashions in the dressing of their hair. + +This is as much as can be said about the Eskimo at present. It is, +however, preparatory to the general statement that _all the remaining_ +Indians of British North America recede from the Sioux and Iroquois +type, and approach that of the family in question. Such, indeed, has +been the case, though (perhaps) in a less degree, with one of the +classes already considered--the Athabaskan. + +_The Koluch._--The extreme west of the British possessions beyond the +Rocky Mountains, _north_ of latitude 55 deg. is but imperfectly known. +Indeed, for scientific, and, perhaps, for political purposes as well, +the country is unfortunately divided. The Russians have the long but +narrow strip of coast; and, consequently, limit their investigations to +its bays and archipelagoes. The British, on the contrary, though they +possess the interior, have no great interest in the parts about the +Russian boundary. In the way of trade, they are not sufficiently on the +sea for the sea-otter, nor near enough the mountains for other +fur-bearing animals. + +Now, the mouth of the Stikin River is Russian, the head-waters British. +Beyond these, we have the water-system of the McKenzie--for that river, +although falling into the Arctic Sea, has a western fork, which breaks +through the barrier of the Rocky Mountains, and changes in direction +from west and south-west to north. Lake Simpson, Lake Dease, and the +River Turnagain belong to this branch; the tract in which they lie being +a range of highlands, if not of mountains. + +This is the country of the Nehannis; conterminous on the south with that +of the Takulli, and on the north-east with that of the Dahodinni. How +far, however, it extends towards the Russian boundary and in the +north-west direction I cannot say. + +The Nehannis are, probably, the chief British representatives of the +class called Koluch.[75] Assuming this--although from the want of a +special Nehanni vocabulary, the philological evidence is wanting--I +begin with the notice of the _Nehannis_, as known to the Hudson's Bay +Company, and afterwards superadd a sketch of the _Sitkans_, as known to +the Russians of New Archangel; the two notices together giving us the +special description of a family, and the general view of the class to +which that family belongs. + +That the Nehannis are brave, warlike, and turbulent, is no more than is +expected. We are far beyond the latitude of the peaceful Eskimo. That +they are ruled by a woman should surprise us. Such, however, is the +case. A female rules them--and rules them, too, with a rod of iron. +Respect for sex has here attained its height. It had begun to be +recognized amongst the Athabaskans. + +The Nehannis are strong enough to rob; but they are also civilized +enough to barter; buying of the inland tribes, and selling to the +Russians--a practice which seems to divert the furs of British territory +to the markets of Muscovy. But this is no business of the ethnologist's. +They are slavers and slave-owners; ingenious and imitative; fond of +music and dancing; fish-eaters; active in body; bold and treacherous in +temper; and with the common Koluch physiognomy and habits. + +_These_ we must collect from the descriptions of the Russian +Koluches--the locality where they have been best studied being Sitka +Sound, or New Archangel. We must do it, however, _mutatis mutandis_, +_i.e._, remembering that the Sitkans are Koluch of an Archipelago, the +Nehanni Koluch of a continent. + +The Koluch complexion is light; the hair long and lank; the eyes black; +and the lip and chin often bearded. + +The _Konaegi_ are the natives of the island Kadiak. Now Lisiansky, from +whom the chief details of the Sitkan Koluch are taken, especially states +that, with few exceptions, their manners and customs are those of these +same Konaegi; one of the minor points of difference being the greater +liveliness of the Sitkans, and one of the more important ones, their +treatment of the dead. They _burn_ the bodies (as do the Takulli +Athabaskans) and deposit the ashes in wooden boxes placed upon pillars, +painted or carved, more or less elaborately, according to the wealth of +the deceased. + +On the death of a _toyon_, or chief, one of his slaves is killed and +burned with him. If, however, the deceased be of inferior rank the +victim is _buried_. If the death be in battle, the head, instead of +being burned, is kept in a wooden box of its own. But it is not with the +shaman as with the warrior. The shaman is merely interred; since he is +supposed to be too full of the evil spirit to be consumed by fire. The +reason why burning is preferred to burying is because the possession of +a piece of flesh is supposed to enable its owner to do what mischief he +pleases. + +_Now the Konaegi are admitted Eskimo._ + +Notwithstanding the similarity between the Sitkans and Konaegi there is +no want of true American customs amongst them. Cruelty to prisoners, +indifference to pain when inflicted on themselves, and the habit of +scalping are common to the Indians of King George's Archipelago, and +those of the water-system of the Mississippi. On the other hand, they +share the skill in painting and carving with the Chenuks and the +aborigines of the Oregon. + +_The Digothi._--The Dahodinni are Athabaskan rather than Koluch; the +Nehanni Koluch rather than Athabaskan. Now I imagine that the Dahodinni +country is partially encircled by Koluch populations, and that a fresh +branch of this stock re-appears when we proceed northwards. On the Lower +McKenzie, in the valley of the Peel River, and at the termination of the +great Rocky Range on the shore of the Polar Sea, we find the _Digothi_ +or _Loucheux_; the only family not belonging to the Eskimo class, which +comes in contact with the ocean; and, consequently, the only +unequivocally Indian population which interrupts the continuity of the +Eskimo from Behring's Straits to the Atlantic. Perhaps the alluvium of +a great river like the McKenzie, has determined this displacement. Such +an occupancy would be as naturally coveted by an inland population, as +undervalued by a maritime one. At any rate, the Loucheux have the +appearance of being an encroaching tenantry; indeed, few Indians have +had their physical appearance described in terms equally favourable. +Black-haired and fair-complexioned, with fine sparkling eyes, and +regular teeth, they approach the Nehanni in physiognomy, and surpass +them in stature. The same authority which expressly states that the +Nehanni are not generally tall, speaks to the athletic proportions and +tall stature of the Loucheux; adding that their countenances are +handsome and expressive. + +Whence came they? From the south-east, from Russian America. Their +points of contrast to the Eskimo indicate this. Their points of contrast +to the Athabaskans indicate it also. Their points of similarity to the +Koluch do more. The Loucheux possessive pronoun is the same as the +Kenay. Thus-- + + ENGLISH. LOUCHEUX. KENAY. + + _My_-son _se_-jay _ssi_-ja. + _My_-daughter _se_-zay _ssa_-za. + +Fuller descriptions, however, of both the Loucheux and Nehanni are +required before we can decidedly pronounce them to be Koluch; indeed, +so high an authority as Gallatin places the latter amongst the +Athabaskans. + +_The Fall Indians._--In a MS. communicated by Mr. Gallatin to Dr. +Prichard, and, by the latter kindly lent to myself, and examined by me +some years back, was a vocabulary of the language of the Indians of the +Falls of the Saskatchewan. In this their native name was written +_Ahnenin_. Mr. Hale, however, calls them _Atsina_. Which is correct is +difficult to say. + +_Gros ventres_ is another of their designations; _Minetari of the +Prairie_ another. This last is inconvenient, as well as incorrect, since +the true _Minetari_ are a Sioux tribe, different in language, manners, +and descent. + +_Arrapaho_ is a third synonym; and this is important, since there are +other _Arrapahoes_ as far south as the Platte and Arkansas Rivers. + +The identity of name is _prima facie_ evidence of two tribes so distant +as those of Arkansas and the Saskatchewan being either offsets from one +another, or else from some common stock; but it is not more. Nothing can +be less conclusive. This has just been shown to be in the case of the +term _Minetari_. + +The Ahnenin, or Atsina language is peculiar; though the confederacy to +which the Indians who speak it belong, is the Blackfoot. + +Of the southern Arrapaho we have no vocabulary; neither do we know +whether the name be native or not. + + * * * * * + +A tract still stands over for notice. As we have no exact northern +limits for the Nehanni, no exact western ones for the Dahodinni, and no +exact southern ones for the Loucheux, the parts due east of the Russian +boundary are undescribed. + +I can only _contribute_ to the ethnology here. + +_The Ugalentses._--Round Mount St. Elias we have a population of +_Ugalentses_ or Ugalyakhmutsi. Though said to consist of less than forty +families,[76] as their manners are migratory, it is highly probable that +some of them are British. + +_The Tshugatsi_.--In contact with the Ugalents, who are transitional +between the true Eskimo and the true Koluch, the Tshugatsi are +unequivocally Eskimo. The parts about Prince William's Sound are their +locality. + +_The Haidah._--Queen Charlotte's, and the southern extremity of the +Prince of Wales' Archipelago, are the parts to which the Indians +speaking the Haidah language have been referred. In case, however, any +members of their family extend into the British territory, they are +mentioned here. + +Three Haidah tribes are more particularly named-- + +_a._ The _Skittegat_. + +_b._ The _Cumshahas_--a name remarkably like that of the _Chimsheyan_, +hereafter to be noticed. + +_c._ The _Kygani_. + +_The Tungaas._--This is the name of the language of the most Northern +Indians, with which the Hudson's Bay Company comes in contact. It is +Koluch; and more Russian than British. + +The chief authority is Dr. Scouler. The whole of his valuable remarks +upon the North-western Indians, is a commentary upon the assertion +already made as to the extent which we have formed our ideas of the +Aboriginal American upon the Algonkins and Iroquois exclusively; and his +facts are a correction to our inferences. In what way do the moral and +intellectual characters of the Western Indians differ from those of the +Eastern? I shall give the answer in Dr. Scouler's only terms. They are +less inflexible in character. Their range of ideas is greater. They are +imitative and docile. They are comparatively humane.[77] No scalping. No +excessive torture of prisoners. No probationary inflictions. + +Now--whether negative or positive--there is not one of those +characteristics wherein the Western American differs from the Eastern, +in which he does not, at the same time, approach the Eskimo. In the +absence of the scalping-knife, the tomahawk, the council fire, the +wampum-belt, the hero chief, and the metaphorical orator, the Eskimo +differs from the Ojibway, the Huron, and the Mohawk. True. But the +Haidah and the Chimsheyan do the same. + +The religion of the Algonkin and Iroquois is Shamanistic; like the Negro +of Africa they attribute to some material object mysterious powers. As +far as the term has been defined, this is Feticism. But, then, like the +Finn, and the Samoeid of Siberia, they either seek for themselves or +reverence in others, the excitement of fasting, charms, and dreams. As +far as the term has been defined this is Shamanism. Now lest our notions +as to the religion of the Indians be rendered unduly favourable through +the ideas of pure theism, called up by the missionary term _Great +Spirit_, we must simply remember, in the first place, that the term is +_ours_, not _theirs_; and that those who, by looking to facts rather +than words, have criticised it, have arrived at the conclusion that the +creed of the Indians of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi is neither +better nor worse than the creed of the Indians of the Columbia. Both are +alike, Shamanistic. And so is the Eskimo. + +The names in detail of the Indians of British Oregon, over and above +those of the Athabaskan family already enumerated, are as follows; Dr. +Scouler still being the authority, and, along with him, Mr. Tolmie and +Mr. Hale. + +1. The _Chimsheyan_, or _Chimmesyan_, on the sea-coast and islands about +55 deg. North lat. Their tribes are the _Naaskok_, the _Chimsheyan Proper_, +the _Kitshatlah_, and the _Kethumish_. + +2. The _Billichula_, on the mouth of the Salmon River. + +3. The _Hailtsa_, on the sea-coast, from Hawkesbury Island to +Broughton's Archipelago, and (perhaps) the northern part of Quadra's and +Vancouver's Island. Their tribes are the _Hyshalla_, the _Hyhysh_, the +_Esleytuk_, the _Weekenoch_, the _Nalatsenoch_, the _Quagheuil_, the +_Ttatla-shequilla_, and the _Lequeeltoch_. The numerals from Fitz-Hugh +Sound will be noticed in the sequel. + +4. _The Nutka Sound Indians_ occupy the greater part of Quadra's and +Vancouver's Island, speak the _Wakash_ language, and fall into the +following tribes-- + +_a._ _The Naspatl._ + +_b._ _The Nutkans Proper._ + +_c._ _The Tlaoquatsh._ + +_d._ _The Nittenat._ + +5. _The Shushwah_, or _Atna_, are bounded on the north by the Takulli, +belong to the interior rather than the coast, are members of a large +family, called the _Tsihaili-Selish_, extending far into the United +States. According to Mr. Hale, they present the remarkable phenomenon +of an aboriginal stock having increased from about four hundred to +twelve hundred, instead of diminishing. + +6. _The Kitunaha_, _Cutanies_, or _Flat-bows_, hardy, brave and shrewd +hunters on the Kitunaha, or Flat-bow River, and conterminous with the +Blackfoots, are the Oregon Indians whose habits most closely approach +those of the Indians to the east of the Rocky Mountains. + + * * * * * + +To some of these I now return, since three points of Algonkin ethnology +require special notice. + +_a._ _The Nascopi_ or _Skoffi_.--This is a frontier tribe. Much as we +connect the ideas of cold and cheerless sterility with the inclement +climate and naked moorlands of Labrador, and much as we connect the +Eskimo as a population with a similarly inhospitable country, it is only +the coast of that vast region which is thus tenanted. On Hudson's +Straits there are Eskimo; on the Straits of Belleisle there are Eskimo; +along the intervening coast there are Eskimo, and as far south as +Anticosti there are Eskimo, but in the interior there are no Eskimo. +Instead of them we find the Skoffi, and the Sheshatapush--subsections +(as stated before) of the same section of the great Algonkin stock. In +them we have a measure of the effect of external conditions upon +different members of the same class. Between the Skoffi of Mosquito Bay +and the Pamticos of Cape Hatteras we have more than 25 deg. of latitude +combined with a difference of other physical conditions which more than +equals the difference between north and south. Yet the contrast between +the Algonkin and other inhabitants of Labrador is as evident (though +not, perhaps, so great) as that between the Greenlander and the +Virginian; so that just as the Norwegian is distinguishable from the +Laplander so is the Skoffi from Eskimo. + +Dirtier and coarser than any other Algonkins, the Nascopi hunts and +fishes for his livelihood exclusively; depending most upon the autumnal +migrations of the reindeer; and, next to that, upon his net. This he +sets under the ice, during the earlier months of the winter. After +December, however, he would set them in vain; the fish being, then, all +in the deep water. Woman, generally a drudge in North America, is +pre-eminently so with the Nascopis. All that the man does, is the +_killing_ of the game. The woman brings it home. The woman also drags +the loaded sledges from squatting to squatting, clears the ground, and +collects fuel; whilst the man sits idle and smokes. Of such domestic +slaves more than one is allowed; so that as far as the Nascopi +recognizes marriage at all, he is a polygamist. In this sense the +contracting parties are respectively the parents of the couple--the +bride and bridegroom being the last parties consulted. When all has been +arranged, the youth proceeds to his father-in-law's tent, remains there +a year, and then departs as an independent member of the community. +Cousins are addressed as brothers or sisters; marriage between near +relations is allowed; and so is the marriage of more than one sister +successively. + +The Paganism of the Nascopi is that of the other Cree tribes; their +Christianity still more partial and still more nominal. Sometimes +rolling in abundance, sometimes starving, they are attached to the +Whites by but few artificial wants; the few fur-bearing animals of their +country being highly prized, and, consequently, going a long way as +elements of barter. Their dress is almost wholly of reindeer skin; their +travelling gear a leathern bag with down in it, and a kettle. In this +bag the Nascopi thrusts his legs, draws his knees up to his chin, and +defies both wind and snow. + +This account has been condensed from M'Lean's "Five and Twenty Years' +Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory." I subjoin the remainder in his +own words: "The horrid practice still obtains among the Nascopis of +destroying their parents and relatives, when old age incapacitates them +for further exertion. I must, however, do them the justice to say, that +the parent himself expresses a wish to depart, otherwise the unnatural +deed would probably never be committed, for they, in general, treat +their old people with much care and tenderness. The son, or nearest +relative, performs the office of executioner--the self-devoted victim +being disposed of by strangulation." + +_b._ _The Aborigines of Newfoundland._--Sebastian Cabot brought three +Newfoundlanders to England. They were clothed in beasts' skin, and ate +raw flesh. This last is an accredited characteristic of the Eskimo; and, +thus far, the evidence is in favour of the savages in question belonging +to that stock. Yet it is more than neutralized by what follows; since +Purchas states that two years after he saw two of them, dressed like +Englishmen, "which, at that time, I could not discover from Englishmen, +till I learned what they were." + +Now as the Bethuck--the aborigines in question--have either been cruelly +exterminated, or exist in such small numbers as not to have been seen +for many years, it has been a matter of doubt whether they were Eskimo +or Micmacs, the present occupants of the island. Reasons against either +of these views are supplied by a hitherto unpublished Bethuck +vocabulary, with which I have been kindly furnished by my friend Dr. +King, of the Ethnological Society. This makes them a _separate section_ +of the Algonkins. Such I believe them to have been, and have placed them +accordingly. + +_c._ _The Fitz-Hugh Sound Numerals._--These are nearly the same as the +Hailtsa. On the other hand, they agree with the Blackfoot in ending in +-_scum_. + +Now if the resemblance go farther, so as really to connect the Blackfoot +with the Hailtsa, it brings the Algonkin class of languages across the +whole breadth of the continent, and as far as the shores of the Pacific. + + * * * * * + +The Moskito Indians are no subjects of England, any more than the +Tahitians are of France, or the Sandwich Islanders of America, France, +and England conjointly. The Moskito coast is a Protectorate: and the +Moskito Indians are the subjects of a native king. + +The present reigning monarch was educated under English auspices at +Jamaica, and, upon attaining his majority, crowned at Grey Town. I +believe that his name is that of the grandfather of our late gracious +majesty. King George, then, king of the Moskitos, has a territory +extending from the neighbourhood of Truxillo to the lower part of the +River San Juan; a territory whereof, inconveniently for Great Britain, +the United States, and the commerce of the world at large, the limits +and definition are far from being universally recognized. Nicaragua has +claims, and the Isthmus canal suffers accordingly. + +The king of the Moskito coast, and the emperor of the Brazil, are the +only resident sovereigns of the New World. + +The subjects of the former are, really, the aborigines of the whole line +of coast between Nicaragua and Honduras--there being no Indians +remaining in the former republic, and but few in the latter. Of these, +too--the Nicaraguans--we have no definite ethnological information. Mr. +Squier speaks of them as occupants of the islands of the lakes of the +interior. Colonel Galindo also mentions them; but I infer, from his +account, that their original language is lost, and that Spanish is their +present tongue; just as it is said to be that of the aborigines of St. +Salvador and Costa Rica. This makes it difficult to fix them. And the +difficulty is increased when we resort to history, tradition, and +archaeology. History makes them Mexicans--Asteks from the kingdom of +Montezuma, and colonists of the Peninsula, just as the Ph[oe]nicians +were of Carthage. Archaeology goes the same way. A detailed description +of Mr. Squier's discoveries, is an accession to ethnology which is +anxiously expected. At any rate, stone ruins and carved decorations have +been found; so that what Mr. Stephenson has written about Yucatan and +Guatemala, may be repeated in the case of Nicaragua. Be it so. The +difficulty will be but increased; since whatever facts makes Nicaragua +Mexican, isolates the Moskitos. They are now in contact with Spaniards +and Englishmen--populations whose civilization differs from their own; +and populations who are evidently intrusive and of recent origin. +Precisely the same would be the case, if the Nicaraguans were made +Mexican. The civilization would be of another sort; the population which +introduced it would be equally intrusive; and the only difference would +be a difference of stage and degree--a little earlier in the way of +time, and a little less contrast in the way of skill and industry. + +But the evidence in favour of the Mexican origin of the Nicaraguans, is +doubtful; and so is the fact of their having wholly lost their native +tongue; and until one of these two opinions be proved, it will be well +to suspend our judgment as to the isolation of the Moskitos. If, indeed, +either of them be true, their ethnological position will be a difficult +question. With nothing in Honduras to compare them with--with nothing +tangible, or with an apparently incompatible affinity in Nicaragua--with +only very general miscellaneous affinities in Guatemala--their +ethnological affinities are as peculiar as their political +constitution. Nevertheless, isolated as their language is, it has +undoubted _general affinities with those of America at large_; and this +is all that it is safe to say at present. But it is safe to say _this_. +We have plenty of data for their tongue, in a grammar of Mr. +Henderson's, published at New York, 1846. + +The chief fact in the history of the Moskitos, is that they were never +subject to the Spaniards. Each continent affords a specimen of this +isolated freedom--the independence of some exceptional and impracticable +tribes, as compared with the universal empire of some encroaching +European power. The Circassians in Caucasus, the Tshuktshi Koriaks in +North-eastern Asia, and the Kaffres in Africa, show this. Their +relations with the buccaneers were, probably, of an amicable +description. So they were with the Negroes--maroon and imported. And +this, perhaps, has determined their _differentiae_. They are +intertropical American aborigines, who have become partially European, +without becoming Spanish. + +Their physical conformation is that of the South rather than the North +American; and, here it must be remembered, that we are passing from one +moiety of the new hemisphere to the other. With a skin which is +olive-coloured rather than red, they have small limbs and undersized +frames; whilst their habits are, _mutatis mutandis_, those of the +intertropical African. This means, that the exuberance of soil, and the +heat of the climate, makes them agriculturists rather than shepherds, +and idlers rather than agriculturists; since the least possible amount +of exertion gives them roots and fruits; whilst it is only those wants +which are compatible with indolence that they care to satisfy. They +presume rather than improve upon the warmth of their suns, and the +fertility of the soil. When they get liquor, they get drunk; when they +work hardest, they cut mahogany. Canoes and harpoons represent the +native industry. _Wulasha_ is the name of their Evil Spirit, and +_Liwaia_ that of a water-god. + +I cannot but think that there is much intermixture amongst them. At the +same time, the _data_ for ascertaining the amount are wanting. Their +greatest intercourse has, probably, been with the Negro; their next +greatest with the Englishman. Of the population of the interior, we know +next to nothing. Here their neighbours are Spaniards. + +They are frontagers to the river San Juan. This gives them their value +in politics. + +They are the only well-known extant Indians between Guatemala and +Veragua. This gives them their value in ethnology. + +The populations to which they were most immediately allied, have +disappeared from history. This isolates them; so that there is no class +to which they can be subordinated. At the same time, they are quite as +like the nearest known tribes as the _American_ ethnologist is prepared +to expect. + +What they were in their truly natural state, when, unmodified by either +Englishman or Spaniard, Black or Indian, they represented the indigenous +civilization (such as it was) of their coast, is uncertain. + + * * * * * + +That the difference between the North and South American aborigines has +been over-rated, is beyond doubt. The tendency, however, to do so, +decreases. An observer like Sir R. Schomburgk, who is at once minute in +taking notice, and quick at finding parallels, adds his suffrage to that +of Cicca de Leon and others, who enlarge upon the extent to which the +Indians of the New World in general look "like children of one family." +On the other hand, however, there are writers like D'Orbigny. These +expatiate upon the difference between members of the same class, so as +to separate, not only Caribs from Algonkins, or Peruvians from +Athabaskans, but Peruvians from Caribs, and Patagonians from Brazilians. + +Now it is no paradox to assert that these two views, instead of +contradicting, support each other. A writer exhibits clear and +undeniable differences between two American tribes in geographical +juxtaposition to one another. But does this prove a difference of +origin, stock, or race? Not necessarily. Such differences may be, and +often are, partial. More than this--they may be more than neutralized by +undeniable marks of affinity. In such a case, all that they prove is the +extent to which really allied populations may be contrasted in respect +to certain particular characters. + +Stature is the chief point in which the North American has the advantage +of the Southern, _e.g._, the Algonkin over the Carib. Such is Sir R. +Schomburgk's remark; and such is the general rule. Yet a vast number of +the Indians of the Oregon, are shorter than the South American +Patagonian and Pampa tribes. The head is large as compared with the +trunk, and the trunk with the limbs; the hands small; the foot large; +the skin soft, though with larger pores than in Europe. + +_Indians of British Guiana._--These are distributed amongst four +divisions, of very unequal magnitude and importance.--1. The Carib. 2. +The Warow. 3. The Wapisiana. 4. The Taruma. + +The number of vocabularies collected by Sir R. Schomburgk was eighteen. + +1. The great _Carib_ group falls into three divisions:-- + +_a._ The Caribs Proper. + +_b._ The Tamanaks. + +_c._ The Arawaks. + +Of these, it is only members of the first and last that occupy British +Guiana. + +_The Arawaks._--The Arawaks are our nearest neighbours, and, +consequently, the most Europeanized. Sir R. Schomburgk says, that they +and the Warows amount to about three thousand, and from Bernau we infer, +that this number is nearly equally divided between the two; since he +reckons the Arawaks at about fifteen hundred. Each family has its +distinctive tattoo, and these families are twenty-seven in number. + +The children may marry into their father's family, but not into that of +their mother. Now as the caste is derived from their mother, this is an +analogue of the North American _totem_. Polygamy is chiefly the +privilege of the chiefs. The _Pe-i-man_ is the Arawak _Shaman_. He it is +who names the children--_for a consideration_. Failing this, the progeny +goes nameless; and to go nameless is to be obnoxious to all sorts of +misfortunes. + +Imposture is hereditary; and as soon as the son of a conjuror enters his +twentieth year, his right ear is pierced, he is required to wear a ring, +and he is trusted with the secrets of the craft. + +In imitating what they see, and remembering what they hear, the Arawak +has, at least, an average capacity. Neither is he destitute of +ingenuity. Notation he has none; and the numeration is of the rudest +kind. + + Aba-da-kabo = once my hand = _five_. + Biama-da-kabo = twice my hand = _ten_. + Aba-olake = one man = _twenty_. + +Perfect nudity is rare amongst the women; and some neatness in the +dressing of their hair is perceptible. It is tied up on the crown of the +head. + +The nearer the coast the darker the skin; the lightest coloured families +being as fair as Spaniards. This is on the evidence of Bernau, who adds, +that, as children grow in knowledge and receive instruction, the +forehead rises, and the physiognomy improves. + +The other Guiana Indians, so far as they are Carib at all, are Caribs +Proper, rather than Arawaks. Of these, the chief are-- + +_The Accaways_,--occupants of the rivers Mazaruni and Putara, with about +six hundred fighting men. They are jealous, quarrelsome, and cruel; firm +friends and bitter enemies. When resisted, they kill; when unopposed, +enslave. + +The law of revenge predominates in this tribe; for--like certain +Australians--they attribute all deaths to contrivances of an enemy. +Workers in poison themselves, they suspect it with others. + +Their skin is redder than the Arawaks', but then their nudity is more +complete; inasmuch as, instead of clothing, they paint themselves; +arnotto being their red, lana their blue pigment. They pierce the +_septum_ of the nose, and wear wood in the holes, like the Eskimo, +Loucheux, and others. They paint the face in streaks, and the body +variously--sometimes blue on one side, and red on the other. They rub +their bodies with carapa oil, to keep off insects; and _one_ of the +ingredients of their numerous poisons, is a kind of black ant called +_muneery_. + +Their forehead is depressed. + +They give nicknames to each other and to strangers, irrespective of +rank; and the better their authorities take it the greater their +influence. + +It is the belief of the Accaways that the spirit of the deceased hovers +over the dwelling in which death took place, and that it will not +tolerate disturbance. Hence they bury the corpse _in_ the hammock, and +_under_ the hut in which it became one. This they burn and desert. + +_The Carabisi._--Twenty years ago the Carabisi (_Carabeese_, +_Carabisce_) mustered one thousand fighting men. It would now be +difficult to raise one hundred. But the diminution of their numbers and +importance began earlier still. Beyond the proper Carabisi area, there +are numerous Carabisi names of rivers, islands, and other geographical +objects. Hence, their area has decreased. + +Omnivorous enough to devour greedily tigers, dogs, rats, frogs, insects, +and other sorts of food, unpopular elsewhere, they are distinguished by +their ornaments as well. The under-lip is the part which they perforate, +and wherein they wear their usual pins; besides which they fasten a +large lump of arnotto to the hair of the front of the head. + +In ordinary cases the hammock in which the death took place, serves as a +coffin, the body is buried, and a funeral procession made once or twice +round the grave; but the bodies of persons of importance are watched and +washed by the nearest female relations, and when nothing but the +skeleton remains, the bones are cleaned, painted, packed in a basket and +preserved. When, however, there is a change of habitation they are +_burned_; after which the ashes are collected, and kept. + +Here we have interment and cremation in one and the same tribe; a +circumstance which should guard us against exaggerating their value as +characteristic and distinguishing customs. + +Again. The _Macusi_ is closely akin to the Carabisi; yet the Macusi +buries his dead in a sitting posture without coffins, and with but few +ceremonies. Now the sitting posture is common to the Peruvians, the +Oregon Indians, and numerous tribes of Brazil; indeed, Morton considers +it to be one of the most remarkable characteristics of the Red Man of +America in general. + +The Arawak custom is peculiar. When a man of note dies his relations +plant a field of cassava; just as the Nicobar Islanders plant a +cocoa-nut tree. Then they lament loudly. But when twelve moons are over, +and the cassava is ripe, they re-assemble, feast, dance, and lash each +other cruelly, and severely with whips. The whips are then _hung up_ on +the spot where the person died. Six moons later a second meeting takes +place--and, this time, the whips are _buried_. + +The _Waika_ are a small tribe of the _Accaways_; the _Zapara_ of the +_Macusis_. Besides these, the following Guiana Indians are Carib. + +The _Arecuna_; of which the _Soerikong_ are a section. + +The _Waiyamara_. + +The _Guinau_. + +The _Maiongkong_. + +The _Woyawai_. + +The _Mawakwa_, or Frog Indians--a tribe that flattens the head. + +The _Piano-ghotto_; of which the _Zaramata_ and _Drio_ are sections. + +The _Tiveri-ghotto_. + +2. _The Warow_, _Waraw_, _Warau_, or _Guarauno_.--These are the Indians +of the Delta of the Orinoco, and the parts between that river and the +Pomaroon. Their language is peculiar, but by no means without +miscellaneous affinities. They are the fluviatile boatmen of South +America. Their habit of taking up their residence in trees when the +ground is flooded, has given both early and late writers an opportunity +of enlarging upon their semi-arboreal habits. + +3. _The Wapisianas_ fall into-- + +_a._ The _Wapisianas_ Proper-- + +_b._ The _Atorai_, of which the _Taurai_, or _Dauri_ (the same word +under another form), and the extinct, or nearly extinct, _Amaripas_ are +divisions. + +_c._ The _Parauana_. + +4. The _Tarumas_, on the Upper Essequibo, have their probable affinities +with the uninvestigated tribes of Central South America. + +The Indians of Trinidad are Carib. So are those of St. Vincents. In no +other West Indian islands are there any aborigines extant. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[71] _Dinni_, _tinni_, _din_, _tin_, &c.=_man_ in the Athabaskan +tongues. + +[72] Called also _Carriers_, _Nagail_, and _Chin Indians_; though +whether the last two names are correct is uncertain. + +[73] By no means to be confounded with the _Chepewyans_. + +[74] The Mohawks, Senekas, Onondagos, Cayugas, Oneidas, Tuskaroras, and +Hurons. + +[75] See a paper of Mr. Isbester's in the "Transactions of the British +Association," 1847, p. 121. + +[76] Thirty-eight. + +[77] This requires modification. The Sitkan practices have already been +noticed. + + + + +FINIS. + + + LONDON: + Printed by SAMUEL BENTLEY and CO., + Bangor House, Shoe Lane. + + + + + WORKS BY DR. R. G. LATHAM. + + * * * * * + +MAN AND HIS MIGRATIONS. In foolscap 8vo. Price 5_s._ + +A HAND-BOOK OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE; for the Use of Students preparing +for the University of London, &c. 1 vol. large 12mo. + +THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, &c. Third Edition. 8vo. 15_s._ + +AN ELEMENTARY ENGLISH GRAMMAR FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS. Fifth Edition. +12mo. 4_s._ 6_d._ cloth. + +AN ENGLISH GRAMMAR, FOR THE USE OF LADIES' SCHOOLS. Foolscap 8vo. cloth, +1_s._ 6_d._ + +THE HISTORY AND ETYMOLOGY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FOR THE USE OF +CLASSICAL SCHOOLS. Foolscap 8vo. cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._ + +A GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FOR THE USE OF COMMERCIAL SCHOOLS. +Foolscap 8vo. cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._ + +FIRST OUTLINES OF LOGIC, Applied to Grammar and Etymology. 12mo. cloth, +1_s._ 6_d._ + +THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE VARIETIES OF MAN. In 1 vol. 8vo. illustrated, +price 21_s._ + + "The truly masculine minds of England, of continental Europe, and of + Anglo-Saxon America, will prize it as the best book of its time, on + the best subject of its time."--_Weekly News._ + + + _In the Press._ + +THE GERMANIA OF TACITUS; with Ethnological Notes. + + + + + BOOKS PUBLISHED BY MR. VAN VOORST DURING 1850. + + * * * * * + +THE PORTRAIT OF PROFESSOR HARVEY, due to Purchasers of his "Manual of +British Marine Algae," may now be had in exchange for the "Notice" +prefixed to the volume. + +AN INTRODUCTION TO CONCHOLOGY; or, Elements of the Natural History of +Molluscous Animals. By GEORGE JOHNSTON, M.D., LL.D., Fellow of the Royal +College of Surgeons of Edinburgh; Author of "A History of the British +Zoophytes." 8vo. 102 Illustrations, 21_s._ + +AN ELEMENTARY COURSE OF GEOLOGY, MINERALOGY, AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. By +DAVID T. ANSTED, M.A., F.R.S., &c., Professor of Geology at King's +College, London; Lecturer on Mineralogy and Geology at the H.E.I.C. Mil. +Sem. at Addiscombe; late Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Post 8vo. +illustrated, price 12_s._ + +GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL: their Friends and their Foes. By A. E. KNOX, +M.A., F.L.S. With Illustrations by WOLF. Post 8vo. price 9_s._ + + MR. KNOX'S ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES IN SUSSEX. Second Edition, with + Four Illustrations. Post 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._ + +AN ARCTIC VOYAGE TO BAFFIN'S BAY AND LANCASTER SOUND, in search of +Friends with Sir John Franklin. By ROBERT A. GOODSIR, late President of +the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. Post 8vo., with a Frontispiece +and Map, price 5_s._ 6_d._ + +EVERY-DAY WONDERS; or, Facts in Physiology which all should know. With +Woodcuts. 16mo. 2_s._ 6_d._ And, by the same Author, + + DOMESTIC SCENES IN GREENLAND AND ICELAND. With Woodcuts. Second + Edition. 16mo. 2_s._ + +INSTRUMENTA ECCLESIASTICA. Edited by the Ecclesiological, late Cambridge +Camden, Society. Second Series. Parts 1 to 3, each 2_s._ 6_d._ + +THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE VARIETIES OF MAN. By ROBERT GORDON LATHAM, +M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of King's College, Cambridge; Vice-President of the +Ethnological Society of London; Corresponding Member of the Ethnological +Society of New York. 8vo. illustrated, price 21_s._ + +A HISTORY OF BRITISH MOLLUSCA AND THEIR SHELLS. By PROFESSOR EDWARD +FORBES, F.R.S., and SYLVANUS HANLEY, B.A., F.L.S. Parts 25 to 34. 8vo. +2_s._ 6_d._ plain, or royal 8vo. coloured, 5_s._ each. + + This Work is in continuation of the series of "British Histories," + of which the Quadrupeds and Reptiles, by Professor Bell; the Birds + and Fishes, by Mr. Yarrell; the Birds' Eggs, by Mr. Hewitson; the + Starfishes, by Professor Forbes; the Zoophytes, by Dr. Johnston; the + Trees, by Mr. Selby; and the Fossil Mammals and Birds, by Professor + Owen, are already published. Each Work is sold separately, and is + perfectly distinct and complete in itself. + + * * * * * + + JOHN VAN VOORST, 1, PATERNOSTER ROW. + + + + +Transcriber's Amendments: + + p. 30, fn. 10, 'Fallermayer' amended to _Fallmerayer_. + + p. 31, 'Britany' amended to _Brittany_. + + p. 32, 'Notitiae ...' amended to _Notitia Utriusque Imperii_. + + p. 34, 'Caffres' amended to _Kaffres_. + + p. 35, 'Woloffs' amended to _Wolofs_; + 'Cabyles' amended to _Kabyles_. + + p. 39, 'Avekoom' amended to _Avekvom_; + 'Woloff' amended to _Wolof_; + 'Bambarra' amended to _Bambara_. + + p. 40, 'Woloffs' amended to _Wolofs_. + + p. 65, 'languge' amended to _language_. + + p. 67, 'Yorriba' amended to _Yarriba_; + 'Callabar' amended to _Calabar_; + 'Mosketo' amended to _Mosquito_. + + p. 75, 'Amokosa' amended to _Amakosa_: '_The Amakosa._--This'. + + p. 84, 'Caffraria' amended to _Kaffraria_. + + p. 86, 'Crawford' amended to _Crawfurd_. + + p. 94, 'Trangangetic' amended to _Transgangetic_. + + p. 98, 'Crawford's Embassy' amended to _Crawfurd's Embassy_. + + p. 107, 'Kamti' amended to _Khamti_. + + p. 121, 'ecstacy' amended to _ecstasy_. + + p. 137, 'Pottaing' amended to _Potteang_. + + p. 140, 'Kuttak' amended to _Cuttack_; + 'Penna' amended to _Pennu_ (twice). + + p. 141, 'Cicacole' amended to _Chicacole_. + + p. 146, 'jackall' amended to _jackal_. + + p. 148, 'Rajaship' amended to _Rajahship_. + + p. 177, 'Levitican' amended to _Levitical_. + + p. 181, 'Peshawer' amended to _Peshawar_. + + p. 192, 'Maha-Sodon' amended to _Maha-Sohon_. + + p. 193, 'Singalese' amended to _Singhalese_. + + p. 197, 'Binjarri' amended to _Brinjarri_; + 'Telagu' amended to _Telugu_. + + p. 198, 'Taremuki' amended to _Tarremuki_. + + p. 199, 'Bowri' amended to _Bhowri_. + + p. 201, 'Guzerat' amended to _Gujerat_. + + p. 228, 'Skofi' amended to _Skoffi_. + + p. 233, 'tatooing' amended to _tattooing_. + + p. 237, 'tatooings' amended to _tattooings_. + + p. 243, 'Saskachewan' amended to _Saskatchewan_. + + p. 259, 'tatoo' amended to _tattoo_. + + p. 262, 'Caribis' amended to _Carabisi_. + + +Further Notes: + + p. 113, Brown's Table: Horizontal rows 'Aka' and 'Abor' repositioned + to match data; the value for 'Koreng' (row) and 'S. Tangkhul' + (column), which originally read '--', has been amended to '11'. + + p. 172-175, corrections to extracts taken from _A History of the Sikhs_, + by J. D. Cunningham, 2nd Ed., London, 1853. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ethnology of the British Colonies +and Dependencies, by Robert Gordon Latham + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ETHNOLOGY OF THE BRITISH COLONIES *** + +***** This file should be named 31296.txt or 31296.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/2/9/31296/ + +Produced by Colin Bell, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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