ETHNOLOGY

racial types. asia, including its outlying islands, has become the dwelling-place of all the great families into which the races of men have been divided. by far the largest area is occupied by the mongolian group. these have yellow-brown skins, black eyes and hair, flat noses and oblique eyes. they are short in stature, with little hair on the body and face. in general terms they extend, with modifications of character probably due to admixture with other types and to varying conditions of life, over the whole of northern asia as far south as the plains bordering the caspian sea, including tibet and china, and also over the indo-malayan peninsula and archipelago, excepting papua and some of the more eastern islands. next in numerical importance to the mongolians are the races which have been called by professor huxley _melanochroic_ and _xanthochroic_. the former includes the dark-haired people of southern europe, and extends over north africa, asia minor, syria to south-western asia, and through arabia and persia to india. the latter race includes the fair-haired people of northern europe, and extends over nearly the same area as the melanochroi, with which race it is greatly intermixed. the xanthochroi have fair skins, blue eyes and light hair; and others have dark skins, eyes and hair, and are of a slighter frame. together they constitute what were once called the caucasian races. the melanochroi are not considered by huxley to be one of the primitive modifications of mankind, but rather to be the result of the admixture of the xanthochroi with the australoid type, next to be mentioned. the third group is that of the australoid type. their hair is dark, generally soft, never woolly. the eyes and skin are dark, the beard often well developed, the nose broad and flat, the lips coarse, and jaws heavy. this race is believed to form the basis of the people of the indian peninsula, and of some of the hill tribes of central india, to whom the name dravidian has been given, and by its admixture with the melanochroic group to have given rise to the ordinary population of the indian provinces. it is also probable that the australoid family extends into south arabia and egypt. the last group, the negroid, is represented by the races to which has been given the name of _negrito_, from the small size of some of them. they are closely akin to the negroes of south africa, and possess the characteristic dark skins, woolly but scanty beard and body hair, broad flat noses, and projecting lips of the african; and are diffused over the andaman islands, a part of the malay peninsula, the philippines, papua, and some of the neighbouring islands. the negritos appear to be derived from a mixture of the true negro with the australoid type. mongolians. the distribution of the mongolian group in asia offers no particular difficulty. there is complete present, and probably previous long-existing, geographical continuity in the area over which they are found. there is also considerable similarity of climate and other conditions throughout the northern half of asia which they occupy. the extension of modified forms of the mongolian type over the whole american continent may be mentioned as a remarkable circumstance connected with this branch of the human race. the mongolians of the northern half of asia are almost entirely nomadic, hunters and shepherds or herdsmen. the least advanced of these, but far the most peaceful, are those that occupy siberia. farther south the best-known tribes are the manchus, the mongols proper, the moguls and the turks, all known under the name of tatars, and to the ancients as scythians, occupying from east to west the zone of asia comprised between the 40th and 50th circles of n. lat. the turks are mahommedans; their tribes extend up the oxus to the borders of afghanistan and persia, and to the caspian, and under the name of kirghiz into russia, and their language is spoken over a large part of western asia. their letters are those of persia. the manchus and mongols are chiefly buddhist, with letters derived from the ancient syriac. the manchus are now said to be gradually falling under the influence of chinese civilization, and to be losing their old nomadic habits, and even their peculiar language. the predatory habits of the turkish, mongolian and manchu population of northern asia, and their irruptions into other parts of the continent and into europe, have produced very remarkable results in the history of the world. the chinese branch of the mongolian family are a thoroughly settled people of agriculturists and traders. they are partially buddhist, and have a peculiar monosyllabic, uninflected language, with writing consisting of symbols, which represent words, not letters. the countries lying between india and the mongolian are occupied by populations chiefly of the mongolian and chinese type, having languages fundamentally monosyllabic, but using letters derived from india, and adopting their religion, which is almost everywhere buddhist, from the indians. of these may be named the tibetans, the burmese and the siamese. cochin-china is more nearly chinese in all respects. it is known that to the tibeto-chinese modifications of the pure mongolian type all the eastern burmese tribes--chins, kachins, shans, &c.--belong (as indeed do the burmese themselves), and that a cognate race occupies the himalaya to the eastern limits of kashmir. some light has been thrown on the connexion between the tibetan race and certain tribes of central india, the bhils and kols; and it seems more probable that these tribes are the remnants of a mongolian race which first displaced a yet earlier negroid population, and was then itself shouldered out by a caucasian irruption, than that they entered india by any of the northern passages within historic times. mongolian settlements have lately been found very much farther extended into the border countries of north-west india than has been hitherto recognized. the mingals, who, conjointly with the brahuis, occupy the hills south of kalat to the limits of the rajput province of las bela, claim mongolian descent, and traces of a mongolian colony have been found in makran. malays. the malays, who occupy the peninsula and most of the islands of the archipelago called after them, are mongols apparently modified by their very different climate, and by the maritime life forced upon them by the physical conditions of the region they inhabit. as they are now known to us, they have undergone a process of partial civilization, first at the hands of the brahminical indians, from whom they borrowed a religion, and to some extent literature and an alphabet, and subsequently from intercourse with the arabs, which has led to the adoption of mahommedanism by most of them. aryans. the name of aryan has been given to the races speaking languages derived from, or akin to, the ancient form of sanskrit, who now occupy the temperate zone extending from the mediterranean, across the highlands of asia minor, persia and afghanistan, to india. the races speaking the languages akin to the ancient assyrian, which are now mainly represented by arabic, have been called semitic, and occupy the countries south-west of persia, including syria and arabia, besides extending into north africa. though the languages of these races are very different they cannot be regarded as physically distinct, and they are both without doubt branches of the melanochroi, modified by admixture with the neighbouring races, the mongols, the australoids and the xanthochroi. the aryans of india are probably the most settled and civilized of all asiatic races. this type is found in its purest form in the north and north-west, while the mixed races and the population referred to the australoid type predominate in the peninsula and southern india. the spoken languages of northern india are very various, differing one from another in the sort of degree that english differs from german, though all are thoroughly sanskritic in their vocables, but with an absence of sanskrit grammar that has given rise to considerable discussion. the languages of the south are dravidian, not sanskritic. the letters of both classes of languages, which also vary considerably, are all modifications of the ancient pali, and probably derived from the dravidians, not from the aryans. they are written from left to right, exception being made of urdu or hindostani, the mixed language of the mahommedan conquerors of northern india, the character used for writing which is the persian. from the river sutlej and the borders of the sind desert, as far as burma and to ceylon, the religion of the great bulk of the people of india is hindu or brahminical, though the mahommedans are often numerous, and in some places even in a majority. west of the sutlej the population of asia may be said to be wholly mahommedan with the exception of certain relatively small areas in asia minor and syria, where christians predominate. the language of the punjab does not differ very materially from that of upper india. west of the indus the dialects approach more to persian, which language meets arabic and turki west of the tigris, and along the turkoman desert and the caspian. through the whole of this tract the letters are used which are common to persian, arabic and turkish, written from right to left. racial distribution. considerable progress has been made in the classification of the various races which occupy the continent to the west of the great mongolian region. the ancient sacae, or scyths, are recognized in the aryan population, who may be found in great numbers and in their purest form in the more inaccessible mountains and glens of the central highlands. these tajiks (as they are usually called) form the underlying population of persia, baluchistan, afghanistan and badakshan, and their language (in the central districts of asia) is found to contain words of aryan or sanskrit derivation which are not known in persian. they have been for the most part dispossessed of their country by turkish immigration and conquests, but they still retain their original intellectual superiority over the turkish and other mixed tribes by which they are surrounded. uzbegs and kirghiz have but small affinity with the mongol element of asia. they are the representatives of those countless turkish irruptions which have taken place through all history. of the two divisions (kara kirghiz and kassak kirghiz) into which the kirghiz tribes are divided by russian authorities, the kassak kirghiz is the more closely allied to the mongol type; the kara kirghiz, who are found principally in the valleys of the tian-shan and altai mountains, being unmistakably turkish. the kipchaks are only a kirghiz clan. the language of the kirghiz is turki and their religion that of mahomet. as a nomadic people they have great contempt for the sarts, who represent the town dwellers of the tribe. the kalmucks are a buddhist and mongolian people who originated in a confederacy of tribes dwelling in dzungaria, migrated to siberia, and settled on the lower volga. from thence they returned late in the 18th century to the reoccupation of their old ground in kulja under the chinese. the turkoman is the purest form of the turk element, and his language is the purest form of the turkish tongue, which is represented at constantinople by a comparatively mongrel, or mixed, dialect. ethnographers have traced a connexion between the turkoman of central asia and the teutonic races of europe, based on a similarity of national customs and immemorial usage. evidence of an original affinity between turkoman and rajput has also been found in the mutual possession by these races of a ruddy skin, so that as ethnographical inquiry advances the turk appears to recede from his mongolian affinities and to approach the caucasian. turks and mongols alike were doubtless included under the term scyth by the ancients, and as tatars by more modern writers, insomuch that the turkish dynasty at delhi, founded by baber, is usually termed the mogul dynasty, although there can be no distinction traced between the terms mogul and mongol. the general results of recent inquiry into the ethnography of afghanistan is to support the general correctness of bellew's theories of the origin of the afghan races. the claim of the durani afghan to be a true ben-i-israel is certainly in no way weakened by any recent investigation. the influence of greek culture in northern india is fully recognized, and the distribution of greek colonies previous to alexander's time is attested by practical knowledge of the districts they were said to occupy. the _habitat_ of the nysaeana, and the identity of certain tribes of kafiristan with the descendants of these pre-alexandrian colonists from the west, are also well established. to this day hymns are unwittingly sung to bacchus in the dales and glens of kafiristan. the ethnographical status of the mixed tribes of the mountains that lie between chitral and the peshawar plains has been fairly well fixed by john biddulph, and much patient inquiry in the vast fields of baluchistan by major mockler, g.p. tate and others has resulted in quite a new appreciation of the tribal origin of the great conglomeration of baluch peoples. the result of trans-border surveys to the north and west of india has been to establish the important geographical fact that it is by two gateways only, one on the north-west and one on the west of india, that the central asiatic tides of immigration have flowed into the peninsula. the kabul valley indicates the north-western entrance, and makran indicates that on the west. by the kabul valley route, which includes at its head the group of passes across the hindu kush which extend from the khawak to the kaoshan, all those central asian hordes, be they sacae, yue-chi, jats, goths or huns, who were driven towards the rich plains of the south, entered the punjab. some of them migrated from districts which belong to eastern asia, but none of them penetrated into india by eastern passes. such tides as set towards the himalaya broke against their farther buttresses, leaving an interesting ethnographical flotsam in the northern valleys; but they never overflowed the himalayan barrier. later most of the historic invasions of india from central asia followed the route which leads directly from kabul to peshawar and delhi. by the western gates of makran prehistoric irruptions from mesopotamia broke into the plains of lower sind, and either passed on towards the central provinces of india or were absorbed in the highlands south of kalat. in later centuries the arabs from the west reached the valley of the indus by their western route, and there established a dynasty which lasted for 300 years. the identification of existing peoples with the various scythic, persian and arab races who have passed from high asia into the indian borderland, has opened up a vast field of ethnographical inquiry which has hardly yet found adequate workers for its investigation. to such fields may be added the yet more complicated problems of those reflex waves which flowed backwards from india into the border highlands. (t. h. h.*) history 1. the borders assigned to asia on the west are somewhat arbitrary. the urals indicate no real division of races, and in both greek and turkish times asia minor has been connected with the opposite shores of europe rather than with the lands lying to the east. a juster view of early history is probably obtained by thinking of the countries round the mediterranean as interacting on one another than by separating palestine and asia minor as asiatic. asiatic characteristics. 2. the words "asiatic" and "oriental" are often used as if they denoted a definite and homogeneous type, but russians resemble asiatics in many ways, and turks, hindus, chinese, &c., differ in so many important points that the common substratum is small. it amounts to this, that asiatics stand on a higher level than the natives of africa or america, but do not possess the special material civilization of western europe. as far as any common mental characteristic can be assigned it is also somewhat negative, namely, that asiatics have not the same sentiment of independence and freedom as europeans. individuals are thought of as members of a family, state or religion, rather than as entities with a destiny and rights of their own. this leads to autocracy in politics, fatalism in religion and conservatism in both. hence, too, asiatic history has large and simple outlines. though longer chronologically than the annals of europe, it is less eventful, less diversified and offers fewer personalities of interest. but the same conditions which render individual eminence difficult procure for it when once attained a more ready recognition, and the conquerors and prophets of asia have had more power and authority than their parallels in europe. jenghiz khan and timur covered more ground than napoleon, and no european has had such an effect on the world as mahomet. religion and civilisation. 3. attention has often been called to the religious character of asia. not only the great religions of the world--buddhism, christianity, islam--but those of secondary importance, such as judaism, parseeism, taoism, are all asiatic. no european race left to itself has developed any thing more than an unsystematic paganism. it is true that greek philosophy advanced far beyond this stage, but it produced nothing sufficiently popular to be called a religion. on the other hand christianity, though asiatic in its origin and essential ideas, has to a large extent taken its present form on european soil, and some of its most important manifestations--notably the roman church--are european reconstructions in which little of the asiatic element remains. christianity has made little way farther east then asia minor. modern missions have made no great conquests there, and in earlier times the nestorians and jacobites who penetrated to central asia, china and india, received respectful hearing, but never had anything like the success which attended buddhism and islam. yet buddhism has never made much impression west of india; and islam is clearly repugnant to europeans, for even when under moslem rule (as in turkey) they refuse to accept it in a far larger proportion than did the hindus in similar circumstances. hence there is clearly a deep-seated difference between the religious feelings of the two continents. since asiatic records go back much farther than those of europe, it is natural that asia should be thought the birthplace of civilization. but this originality cannot be absolute, for, whatever may have been the relations of babylonia and the aryans, the latter brought civilization to india from the west, and it is not always clear whether similarity of government and institutions is the result of borrowing or of parallel development. both in europe and in asia small feudal or aristocratic states tended to consolidate themselves into monarchies, but whereas in europe from the early days of rome onwards royalty has often been driven out and replaced temporarily or permanently by popular government, this change seems not to occur in asia, where revolution means only a change of dynasty. the few cases where the government is not monarchical, as arabia, seem to represent the persistence of very ancient conditions. the contemplation of asia suggests that progress is most rapid when accompanied by the migration of races or the transplantation of ideas and institutions. thus greece excelled the eastern countries from whom she may have derived her civilization, and buddhism had a far more brilliant career outside india than in it. general historical outlines. 4. in many parts of southern asia are found semi-barbarous races representing the earliest known stratum of population, such as the veddahs of ceylon, and various tribes in china and the malay archipelago. some of them offer analogies to the australians. this connexion, if true, must be very ancient, since it apparently goes back to a time when the distribution of land and water was other than at present. in northern asia are found other aborigines, such as the ainus of japan and the so-called hyperborean races (chukchis, &c.), but no materials are at present forthcoming for their history. there is some record of the migrations of the later races superimposed on these aborigines. the chinese came from the west, though how far west is unknown: the hindus and persians from the north-west: the burmese and siamese from the north. we do not know if the mongols, turks, &c., had any earlier home than central asia, but their extensive movements from that region are historical. the antiquity of asiatic history is often exaggerated. with the exception of babylonia and assyria, we can hardly even conjecture what was the condition of this continent much before 1500 b.c. at that period the chinese were advancing along the hwang-ho, and the aryans were entering india from the north-west. both were in conflict with earlier races. the influence of babylonian civilization was probably widespread. some connexion between babylonia and china is generally admitted, and all indian alphabets seem traceable to a semitic original borrowed in the course of commerce from the persian gulf. apart from european conquests, the internal history of asia in the last 2000 years is the result of the interaction of four main influences: (a) chinese, (b) indian, (c) mahommedan, (d) central asian. of these the first three represent different types of civilization: the fourth has little originality, but has been of great importance in affecting the distribution of races and political power. (a) china has moulded the civilization of the eastern mainland and japan, without much affecting the malay archipelago. in the sphere of direct influence fall korea, japan and annam; in the outer sphere are mongolia, tibet, siam, cambodia and burma, where indian and chinese influence are combined, the indian being often the stronger. these countries, except japan, have all been at some time at least nominal tributaries of china. where chinese influence had full play it introduced confucianism, a special style in art and the chinese system of writing. after the christian era it was accompanied by chinese buddhism. the cumbrous chinese script maintains itself in the far east, but has not advanced west of china proper and annam. (b) indian influence may be defined as buddhism, if it is understood that buddhism is not at all periods clearly distinguishable from hinduism. its sphere includes indo-china, much of the malay archipelago, tibet and mongolia, moreover, china and japan themselves may be said to fall within this sphere, in view of the part which buddhism has played in their development. the buddhist influence is not merely religious, for it is always accompanied by indian art and literature, and often by an indian alphabet. much of this art is greek in origin, being derived from the perso-greek states on the north-west frontiers of india. indian alphabets have spread to tibet, cambodia, java and korea. the history of indian civilization in indo-china and the archipelago is still obscure, in spite of the existence of gigantic ruins, but it would appear that in some parts at least two periods must be distinguished, first the introduction of hinduism (or mixed hinduism and buddhism), perhaps under indian princes, and secondly a later and more purely ecclesiastical introduction of sinhalese buddhism, with its literature and art. (c) mahommedanism or islam is perhaps the greatest transforming force which the world has seen. it has profoundly affected and to a large extent subjugated all western asia including india, all eastern and northern africa as well as spain, and all eastern europe. its open advocacy of force attracts warlike races, and the intensity of its influence is increased by the fusion of secular and religious power, so that the moslem church is a moslem state characterized by slavery, polygamy, and, subject to the autocracy of the ruler, by the theoretical equality of moslems, who in political status are superior to non-moslems. thus, whenever the population of a moslem country is of mixed belief, a ruling caste of moslems is formed, as in turkey at the present day and india under the moguls. islam is paramount in turkey, persia, arabia and afghanistan. india is the dividing line: islam is strong in northern and central india, weaker in the south. but only one-fifth of the whole population is moslem. beyond india it has spread to malacca and the malay archipelago, where it overwhelmed hindu civilization, and reached the southern philippines. but it made no progress in indo-china or japan; and though there is a large moslem population in china the chinese influence has been stronger, for alone of all asiatics the chinese have succeeded in forcing islam to accept the ordinary limitations of a religion and to take its place as a creed parallel to buddhism or any other. even more than buddhism islam has carried with it a special style of art and civilization. it is usually accompanied by the use of the arabic alphabet, and in the languages of moslem nations (notably turkish, persian, hindustani and malay) a large proportion of the vocabulary is borrowed from arabic. hindi and hindustani, two forms of the same language as spoken by hindus and mahommedans respectively, are a curious example of how deeply religion may affect culture. (d) the great part which central asian tribes have played in history is obscured by the absence of any common name for them. linguistically they can be divided into several groups such as turks, mongols and huns, but they were from time to time united into states representing more than one group, and their armies were recruited, like the janissaries, from all the military races in the neighbourhood. soon after the christian era central asia began to boil over, and at least seven great invasions and more or less complete conquests can be ascribed to these tribes without counting minor movements, (i.) the early invasions of europe by the avars, huns and bulgarians. (ii.) the invasion and temporary subjection of russia by the mongols, who penetrated as far west as silesia, (iii.) the conquests of timur. (iv.) the conquest of asia minor and eastern europe by the turks. (v.) the conquest of india by the moguls. (vi.) the conquest of china by the mongols under kublai. (vii.) the later conquest of china by the manchus. to these may be added numerous lesser invasions of india, china and persia. these tribes have a genius for warfare rather than for government, art or literature, and with few exceptions (e.g. the moguls in india) have proved poor administrators. apart from conquest their most important function has been to keep up communications in central asia, and to transport religions and civilizations from one region to another. thus they are mainly responsible for the introduction of islam with its arabic or persian civilization into india and europe, and in earlier times their movements facilitated the infiltration of graeco-bactrian civilization into india, besides maintaining communication between china and the west. 5. _babylonia and assyria._--the movements mentioned above have been the chief factors of relatively modern asiatic history, but in early times the centre of activity and culture lay farther west, in babylonia and assyria. these ancient states began to decline in the 7th century b.c., and on their ruins rose the persian empire, which with various political metamorphoses continued to be an important power till the 7th century