Part 10

In the early historic period there stretched a line of kindred agricultural and nomadic tribes from the Baltic to the Black and Caspian seas, forming the northern outposts of the Aryac stock, in immediate contiguity with the Mongolian race. They were the Scythians, Sarmatians, Massagetes, etc. Their languages belonged to what is called the Slavonic group, and had a marked family likeness; but the physical traits of the various tribes were then, as now, very various, and the most that can be said is that the majority were blondes, with flaxen hair, full beards and a tendency to dolichocephaly.[108]

These tribes were the ancestors of the numerous Slavonic peoples of the present day, the Russians, Ruthenians, Poles, the Wends in Prussia, the Czechs of Bohemia, the Bulgarians and Servians, the Montenegrins, Dalmatians and Croatians. All these, and some smaller communities, speak to-day Slavic dialects, though they are by no means all of pure Slavic descent. There has been a constant intermingling with the Mongolians, easily recognizable in physical traits and mental character. Though early brought into contact with civilization, the Slavonic peoples have been the last of all the Aryans to appreciate its greatest benefits. Within a century, however, their progress has been phenomenal, and, except the English people, no other nation within that period has extended so widely the domain of enlightened governmental control over half-savage tribes. The conquests of the Russians in northern and central Asia have always been attended with beneficent results for the conquered people, and nothing but the selfish jealousy of other European governments has prevented these conquests from being far more extensive and far more fruitful of good to mankind.

The Russian is laborious, submissive, dreamy, unpractical. The individual is lost in the community, the _mir_, a communistic village association of great antiquity. His religion is the merest formality, relieved by outbreaks of fanaticism. Russian literature, which has lately become the vogue in other nations, is introspective and unhealthful, oriental in its spirit, occidental in its cravings.

The ancient Slavonic tribes had close relations with the Eranic peoples, the Medes and Persians. The connecting link seems to have been the Sigyni and Agathyrsi tribes, who dwelt south of the Carpathians, in what is now Transylvania. Both of these claimed relationship to the Medes, and when they were conquered by the Celtic Dacians, many of them followed their cousin in Asia. They were not without culture, and Herodotus speaks of them as loving luxury, and decorating themselves with gold. Ornaments of this metal, worked with creditable skill, are found in their graves, along with polished stone, implements and fragments of pottery.[109]

_8. The Indo-Eranic Peoples._

The colony of the Aryans which pushed its way furthest to the east was the Indo-Eranic. Its various dialects prove conclusively that its ancestral tribe, when on European soil, occupied a position between the Slavonic and Hellenic peoples, probably between the Danube and the Egean Sea. Its latest contingent, the Armenian people, was a branch of the Thracian Briges, and occupied their territory in Asia Minor about 700 B. C. The main migration preceded them at least two thousand years, and divided into two branches, one establishing its chief power between the Caspian Sea and the Indian Ocean, the other crossing the Hindu-Kusch range and gradually obtaining the chief control of Hindostan. The former includes the Eranic, the latter the Indic groups of the Aryac stock.

The ancient representatives of the Eranic peoples were the old Bastrians and Persians. In the language of the former, sometimes called _Zend_, their sacred book, the _Zend-avesta_, was written probably about 500 B. C., and in the latter many cuneiform inscriptions are preserved, dating somewhat later.

Their modern descendants are the Persians and Parsees, the tribes of Afghanistan, Beluchistan, Kurdistan, and Luristan, and the Ossetes, who dwell in the vales of the central Caucasus.[110] Most of these are Mohammedans in religion, and in a backward condition of civilization. Their physical appearance speaks of frequent intermixtures with Mongolic and Semitic elements.

The ordinary rural population of Persia are called the Tadchiks. They are diligent agriculturists, and devoted likewise to commercial pursuits. In the latter capacity they are often met from Constantinople to China. Their language is usually the modern Persian, an Aryac dialect which has departed from the original inflectional standard almost as much as the modern English. Those who live in Kaschgar, however, speak Turkish, while retaining the physical traits of their Aryac ancestry.

Modern Persian has developed an interesting literature, consisting chiefly of poetry and works of imagination.

The Afghans and Beluchis are the nearest related to the Indian stock. Their dialects are derived from the Sanscrit, and in appearance they resemble the Indo-Aryans rather than the Persian. The assertion of some ethnographers that they are of Semitic affinities has been disproved. They are, however, mixed with Semitic and Dravidian blood. Although historically established about their present locality since the days of Alexander the Great, they retain faint traditions that their ancestors came from the west, which has led some to suppose them of Syrian extraction.[111] In religion they are generally fanatical Mohammedans, and their nationality is a loose federation of independent clans.

The Indic branch of this colony entered Hindostan as late as 2000-1500 B. C. Its language was then as closely akin to the Bactrian as, say, Italian and French are to-day. Its members were roving herdsmen, and first occupied the valleys of the Punjaub, driving before them the Dravidas, a non-Aryac folk, who had occupied the land. The priestly class of these colonists were called Brahmans, their dialect Sanscrit, and in this we have preserved from that remote epoch many religious chants called the Rig Veda, committed to writing probably about 500 B. C. The original tongue soon split up into many dialects, as the Pali, the Prakrit and the modern Hindoostantee.

The population of the Indian peninsula to-day, who speak these dialects and are more or less of Aryac blood, numbers nearly a hundred million. They include the Rajpoots, the Djats, the Hindoos, the Hunzas, and numerous other tribes and castes. The ubiquitous gipsies or Romany are a wandering branch of these who left India as late as the twelfth or thirteenth century, and have been roving over Europe ever since.

The earliest Indo-Aryans had undoubtedly retained many pure Aryac traits. They were of medium height, oval faces, handsome regular features, symmetrical in body, the skull dolichocephalic (about 77), the complexion brunette but not brown, the eyes hazel, the hair wavy. This is the type of the highest Brahmans to-day, and throughout all their history they have exercised the utmost care to preserve it intact. The institution of castes was undoubtedly established with this object in view, the word for “caste,” _varna_, in Sanscrit meaning “color.”

The mental aptitudes of the Indic immigrants are seen to advantage in their rapid conquest of Hindostan, in the civilization they developed, and in the vast literature which they created.[112] While in art and philosophy inferior to the Greeks, they succeeded in one point far beyond any other Aryac people, that is, in the formation of two of the most successful religions of the world, Brahmanism and Buddhism. The former, a pure pantheism, has been established nearly 4000 years, and still can claim votaries; the latter, theoretically an atheism, to-day has more believers than any other cult.

III. THE CAUCASIC STOCK.

The defiles and fastnesses of the Caucasus have been time out of mind harbors of refuge for the defeated tribes of the neighboring regions. Isolated in their secluded homes, in ceaseless warfare with their neighbors, an astonishing diversity of type and language arose. When the Romans undertook to explore these mountains, they had to call in the aid of seventy interpreters! It is not surprising, therefore, that we find communities there to-day, tribes apparently of Aryac lineage, speaking agglutinative languages, and others, of Mongolic appearance, quite unconnected with any Mongolic tongue. Divided as far as possible by linguistic resemblances, the Caucasian peoples may be placed under four groups:

1. The Lesghic, which includes the Avars, and people of Daghestan.

2. The Circassic, in which fall the Circasians proper, and others.

3. The Kistic, and

4. The Georgic, the principal members of which are the Georgians and Mingrelians.

The physical types vary greatly, but it is well known that the brunette beauties of Georgia have long been accounted among the handsomest women of the race, and many of the men are remarkably noble in feature. Intellectually, however, they have never taken a high rank.

Of them all, the Georgian tribes have the oldest culture, the traditions reaching as far back as 1200 B. C., and some trustworthy data as far as 700 B. C. They were among the early converts to Christianity, and about the beginning of this century voluntarily accepted the sovereignty of Russia.[113]

The Georgian girls have long been celebrated for their beauty, and merit their renown; but they age very rapidly. The Circassian women are also celebrated, but are less perfect beauties. Both have black eyes and dark hair, the complexion a brunette sometimes to brownness. The Circassian girls were those who principally supplied the harems of Constantinople. They went willingly, and their families saw nothing shameful in such a transaction.

Their traits and geographical location have gained for the Caucasians the credit of being the oldest as well as the purest type of the white race, which indeed has been often called the “Caucasian” race. Recent archæological researches, however, have shown that the Caucasus was not inhabited until the close of the neolithic period.[114] An examination of the geological condition of these mountains proves that they were covered with glaciers until a late period, especially on the southern slope, and no vestige of human occupation previous to the neolithic period has been found in this alleged cradle of the human race, and pretended place of origin of some of our domestic animals.[115]

LECTURE VI.

THE AUSTAFRICAN RACE.

CONTENTS.--Former geography of Africa. Area of characterization of the race. Its early extension. Divisions.

I. THE NEGRILLOS. Classical tales of Pygmies. Physical characters. Habits. Relationship to Bushmen. Description of Bushmen and Hottentots.

II. THE NEGROES. Home of the true negroes. 1. The Nilotic Group. 2. The Sudanese Group. 3. The Senegambian Group. 4. The Guinean group.

III. THE NEGROIDS. Physical traits. Early admixtures. 1. The Nubian Group. 2. The Bantu group.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE RACE. Low intellectual position. Origin of negroes in the United States; in Arabia.

We have seen that the African continent at the period of its first occupancy was divided by the sea (now desert) of the Sahara into two unequal portions, the northern being properly an appendix of Europe. The southern portion began at the Mediterranean on the north, where the tertiary plateau of Tripoli rises above the sea, included the valley of the Nile above the Delta, and the remainder of the continent as it now is, together with the island of Madagascar, with which it was then connected by a land bridge. As the Sahara sea evaporated to become a desert, its vast tracts and also the lower Nile valley and the eastern coast nearly to the Equator were occupied by the Hamitic stock of the white race. The remainder of the continent was in the possession of the Austafrican or black race.

_Scheme of the Austafrican Race._

{1. Equatorial Group. {Akkas, Tikkitikkis, Obongos, Dokos, Vouatoans, { { _Kimos_ of Madagascar. I. Negrillo Branch. { {2. South African Group. Bushmen, Hottentots, Namaquas, Quaquas.

{1. Nilotic Group. Shillaks, Dinkas, Bongos, Kiks, Baris, Nuers. {2. Sudanese Group. Haussas, Battas, Bornus, Kanoris, Ngurus, Akras. II. Negro Branch. {3. Senegambian Group. Serrerus, Banyums, Wolofs, Foys. { {4. Guinean Group. {Ashantis, Dahomis, Fantis, Yorubas, { Mandingoes, Veis, Krus.

{1. Nubian Group. {Nubas, Barabras, Dongolowis, Pouls, Tumalis, { { Nyam Nyams, Monbuttus. III. Negroid Branch. { {2. Bantu Group. {Caffirs, Zulus, Bechuanas, Sakalavas, Damas, { Herreros, Suahelis, Ovambos, Bassutos, { Barolongs, Bengas, Duallas, Wagandas.

This race is divisible into three quite different types or branches, resembling each other in possessing a very dark skin, black eyes, woolly hair, a prognathic face, and generally a dolichocephalic skull, but differing widely in many minor traits. These types are the _Negrillos_, the _Negroes_, and the _Negroids_.

The general characteristics of the Austafrican race are the most positively marked of any of the varieties of our species, and as it is certainly the lowest in zoölogical analogies, by some writers it has been considered the oldest of all. This reasoning is erroneous. The black race developed quite locally, under the influence of intense heat and humidity. Its original habitat must have been where alone its purest representatives have always been permanently residing, that is, on the lowlands of western central Africa, between the equator and 12° north latitude, and from lake Tchad to the Atlantic. The hot and moist depression watered by the great river Niger, may be named as the probable “area of characterization” of the distinctive physical type of this race.

How far from this center was its maximum extension has been variously estimated. There is no evidence that the blacks ever occupied the lower Nile valley, the area of ancient Egypt. On the oldest monuments they are represented as slaves, and the Egyptian type discloses no sign of admixture with Negro blood. They occupied at one time the southern oases of the Sahara, but their dominion never extended as far north as Fezzan. The presence of Negro colonies and mixed breeds which is visible in the northern oases, is owing to the importation of the Soudanese as slaves, and also to the extensive migrations they are still in the habit of making. I learned when visiting some of these oases, that many black families are constantly moving from one to another in pursuit of their various callings.

It is an historical fact that from the beginning of the Christian era at least, and probably much longer, the whole of the southern Sahara and the northern portion of the Niger valley have been under the absolute control of the Berbers, members of the Eurafrican race. They founded in those lands the extensive monarchies of Ghanata and Melle, which maintained their supremacy through many centuries.

On the east it is not likely that the Negroes ever gained prolonged control east of the White Nile. That portion of the continent between this river and the Arabian gulf has been held by the same peoples since the time the ancient Egyptians sent their trading ships to “the land Punt,” the name under which they knew it; and these peoples were not of the Austafrican type or race.

The general tendency of migration in central as in southern Africa, so far as it can be traced in historic times, has been westerly and southwesterly. The densest population has been near the Atlantic coast, as if the various tribes had been crowded to the impassable barrier of the ocean.

Whether the basin of the Congo was ever held by the true Negro race, is an undecided question. If so, they were completely driven thence in proto-historic times. South of that region they certainly never penetrated, as the Hottentot and Bushman type cannot be considered as a derivative from the true Negro, but only as a descendant from a common ancestor, unlike either, and is perhaps a much older member of the family. Hence I shall begin the description of the race with

I. THE NEGRILLOS.

This diminutive form of the Spanish word _negro_, black, is applied to an unusually small variety of the race, which by several careful writers is believed to be the oldest of all the African varieties, and at one time to have occupied the most of the continent. Herodotus and other classical authors speak of the Pygmies of Ethiopia, and there is sufficient evidence to show that in his day they dwelt in localities as far north as the 18th degree of latitude.[116]

For a long time modern skepticism assigned these statements to the realms of fable, but the rapid exploration of Central Africa in this century proves their general correctness. Many travellers, especially Du Chaillu, Schweinfurth, Stanley, and Emin Bey, have seen and described these dwarfs, and a few of them have been brought to Europe.

At present they are not found more than two degrees north of the equator, whence they extend southward into the territory of the Congo. Their various tribes are known by different names, as Akkas, Tikkitikkis, Batuas, Dokos, Obongos, Vouatouas, etc.

The height of the male is four feet six to eight inches, the body is symmetrical and remarkably agile, the facial angle is exceedingly low (about 60°-65°), the face markedly prognathic, the chin retreating, the lips protruding, and the ears large and ugly. The color is not black, but a dark reddish brown, and the skull has a tendency to a globular form. The nose is flat (about 55°), and there is a strong odor to the skin. The hair is woolly, and in tufts, and the body is covered with coarse short hairs, “so that the surface feels like a piece of felt.”[117]

These extraordinary people have no settled abodes, build no towns, cultivate nothing. They depend entirely on hunting and fishing, and the barter of the products of the chase to agricultural tribes. They are skilful in the use of the bow, employing small poisoned arrows, and also manufacture spears. Voracious cannibals and unerring marksmen, they are looked on with dread by the negroes around them.

Of their religion we have no knowledge further than that they have an extreme dread of strange objects, lest some malignant influence lurk in them.

In the south of Africa we find another group of tribes, the Bushmen and Hottentots, also of small stature, and in many respects resembling the Akkas. They are equally far removed from the true negroes, and it is the opinion of some very competent observers, notably the German travelers, Schweinfurth and Fritsch, that all these dwarf tribes belong to the same stock.[118] The objection to this chiefly is that the Bushmen are often dolichocephalic, but so also are some of the Akkas, and at any rate this consideration is not alone of sufficient weight to be decisive. There is little doubt but that this dwarf stock extended over Madagascar, where they were known as Quimos or Kimos, and are believed still to exist in the southern part of the island.[119]

The Bushmen are much better known than the Akkas. They dwell in and around the great Kalihari desert, usually in a half-famished condition, and on the lowest social scale. They are wandering hunters, making use of the bow and arrow, and are not cannibals.

The Hottentots are a mixture of the Bushmen and the Negroid-Bantu tribes in their vicinity. They are taller than the Bushmen, better nourished, and lead a pastoral life, possessing herds of cows and fixed habitations. Their language is remarkable for the number of its “inspirates,” or “click” sounds, to form which one must draw in the breath, similar to some we use in urging horses. In form it is agglutinative. In these respects and in others, it resembles the dialects of the Bushmen, and those who are competent to speak on the subject believe that both can be traced to a common source.[120]

The Hottentot is rather a hopeless case for civilizing efforts. He hates profoundly work, either physical or mental, and is passionately fond of rum and tobacco, or failing the latter, he will stupefy himself by smoking the wild hemp. He is too indolent to attempt agriculture, and is content to live on milk, raw roots, and the product of the chase.

Some of the English travellers, on the other hand, say the Hottentots have as much wit as their neighbors, the Dutch boors! Certain it is that before they were oppressed by the whites, they possessed herds of cows, goats and sheep, dressed hides, dug wells, manufactured pottery, in some places tilled the ground and built fixed villages or kraals.

The oft-repeated assertion that they are destitute of religion is, like all such, utterly false. On the contrary, they have quite a developed mythology, perform rites and say prayers. Their principal deity is Tsunigoam, to whom they appeal as “the father of all things” and “our master.” At the rise of certain stars they hold festivals in honor of the gods of light, and they believe the spirits of the dead wander about and should be placated.[121] Their cult, indeed, compares favorably with that of classic Greece.

II. THE NEGROES.

The true Negroes of Africa are confined to what the Arabs call _Beled es Sudan_, the Land of the Blacks, the Sudan, and adjacent parts. It is therefore an error to look on that continent as mainly inhabited by negroes. At least a third of it has always been principally peopled by the whites, and another third by tribes not of pure negro stock. The true negro type, such as I have described it in my first lecture (see page 48), is scarcely seen in resident tribes south of the Equator or north of the tropic of Cancer. Within that limit they may be divided for purposes of study into four groups, the Nilotic, the Sudanese, the Senegambian and the Guinean.

_1. The Nilotic Group._

These begin with the Changallas, east of Sennaar, in the Egyptian Sudan, between the 10th and 15th degree of north latitude. To the south of them along the White Nile are the Dinkas, the Chilluks, the Nuers, Kiks, Baris, and other tribes. These are wholly black and in a rudimentary stage of culture, depending chiefly on hunting and fishing. They go naked, the women at most wearing little aprons. Some of them are cannibals, and all are of savage dispositions. As a rule they are tall and powerful, and brave in war.

The Nuers are spoken of as of fine physical traits, and building handsome and durable houses. Their bows and arrows, and the helmets of their warriors, resemble those depicted on ancient Egyptian monuments. It is probable that they are of mixed blood, their hair being less woolly than that of their neighbors. The Baris, who live on the White Nile, are described as an intelligent people. They cultivate millet and tobacco, understand the reduction of iron and copper from the ores found in their country, and are skilful merchants, making long voyages to exchange their wares.

_2. The Sudanese Group._

The Central Sudan is the site of the most important negro states, the monarchies of Bornu, Bagirmi and Wadai. The two former are in the fruitful depressions which surround Lake Tchad, a large fresh water sea in the center of one of the most delightful tropical basins in the world. The natives are known as Kanoris, Kanembus, Marghis, Haussas, Biddumas, etc. They are true negroes, very black, and of strong body.