Part 12

This insufficiency of development is the weak point of Chinese character, and is strikingly illustrated by the little use they made of important discoveries. They were acquainted as early as 121 A. D. with the power of the magnet to point to the north; but the needle was never used in navigation, but only as a toy. They manufactured powder long before the Europeans, but only to put it in fire-crackers. They invented printing with movable type in the eleventh century, but never adopted it in their printing offices. They have domesticated cattle for thousands of years, but do not milk the cows nor make butter. Paper money has been in circulation for centuries, but the scales and weight still decide the value of gold and silver, coins of these precious metals being unknown. Their technical skill in the arts is astonishing, but the inspiration of the beautiful is wholly absent.

These historic facts disclose the psychical elements of Chinese character. Its fundamental traits are sobriety, industry, common sense, practicality. The Chinaman regards solely what is visibly useful, materially beneficial. His arts and sciences, his poems and dramas, his religions and philosophies, all revolve around the needs and pleasures of his daily life. Such terms as altruism, the ideal, the universal, have for him no sort of meaning, and an explanation of them he would look upon as we do on the emptiest subtleties of the schoolmen--a _chimera bombinans in vacuo_. Such an action as the martyr dying to atone for the sins of others he could understand only as the action of a deranged mind.

Their mental character is well shown in their religions. Originally, the Chinese combined a simple worship of the powers of nature with that of the spirits of their ancestors. The principal deity was Tien, the Heaven or Sky, in union with whom was the Earth, and from this union all nature proceeded. This natural and sexual dualism extended through all things. The affairs of life are governed by countless demons and spirits, whose tempers should be propitiated by offerings and prayers. Days and seasons are auspicious or the reverse, and most of the rites at present in use are divinatory rather than devotional.

The Buddhist religion was introduced into China about two centuries before Christ, and was officially recognized as a state cult by the Emperor Ming-ti in the year 65 A. D. Its spirit is, however, quite different from the Buddhism of Ceylon, as it has degenerated into a polytheism, a worship of the Bodhisattvas, or saints who have reached the highest stage of perfection, and might enter Nirvana, but do not, out of compassion for men. In general, it may be said that the philosophical and moral principles taught in the Buddhistic classics are not known and would not be admitted as representing their faith by Chinese Buddhists.[133]

The teachings of the celebrated philosopher, Confucius (Con-fu-tse), which are a substitute for religion among the most intelligent Chinese, are in reality wholly agnostic. He declined to express himself on any question relating to the gods or the possible after life of the soul, asserting that the practical interests of this life and the duties of a man to his family and the state are numerous enough and clear enough to occupy one’s whole time. When asked for some model or code of such duties, he replied by the sententious expression “When you are chopping out an axe-handle, the model is near you,” meaning that it is in the hand, and that in a similar manner in practical life we always have the rule of right action in our own mind, if we choose to look for it.

The second great philosopher of China was Lao-tse, who lived in the generation following Confucius (about 500 B. C.). His doctrine was pantheistic and obscure, and his writings are considered the most difficult to decipher of all the old Chinese classics. Nor can his doctrine be called a religion. It was rather a mystical speculation on the universe. All-Being, he taught, is born of Not-Being, and existence, therefore, is an illusion.

Practically, all religions are looked upon as equally true. The Confucian will frequent the Buddhist temples, and the Buddhist priest will perform rites in the “house of reason,” as the Confucian holy place is termed; or he will distribute tracts for the Christian missionaries. The government is absolutely neutral in all religious questions, and the persecutions which have been carried on against the Christian missionaries have not been the promptings of fanaticism, but dislike of foreigners and suspicion of their intentions. The official documents of the Chinese government speak with equal contempt of every form of religion, and the rulers would never dream of interfering in any such question.[134]

Many of the Chinese are Mohammedans, Islam having been introduced by sea and land within the first century of the Hegira. The Chinese converts learn to repeat the Koran in Arabic, as it has not been translated into their tongue; but few understand much of it. Their rites and doctrines are learned by the verbal instruction of their religious teachers. The Chinese Mohammedans, however, recognize as their chief ruler the Khalif or Sultan, and not the Emperor at Pekin, and hence the bloody revolutions which have from time to time broken out among them.

Christianity was introduced by the Nestorians in the eighth century, and now may be freely taught in any part of the realm. It has, however, had little success. There are perhaps half a million Roman Catholic and Protestant members. They belong to the lowest classes, and can occupy no official position, owing to the conflict of their dogmas with the teachings of Confucius and the agnostic principles of the government.

Within the last generation or two the Chinese have displayed an unwonted desire for emigration. They have swept down in hundreds of thousands on the islands of Malasia, Australia, the Sandwich Islands, Mexico, and the United States. We have as a nation felt so impotent before them that, in open contradiction to the principles of our government we have closed our ports to them, and warned them from our shores. This feeble and ignoble policy is a disgrace to us. Far better to admit them, and to train earnest men among us in the Chinese language and customs, so that these foreigners could be brought to a knowledge of the superiority of our religions and institutions, and thus be united with us in the advancement of mankind.

_2. The Thibetan Group._

The mountain-ringed land of Thibet is an arid region from 10,000 to 20,000 feet in height, thickly inhabited by a people whose principal interests in life are religious. It is the centre of northern Buddhism, and at the holy city of Lhasa the living incarnation of the founder of that cult is supposed to live. In the numerous monasteries, some on almost inaccessible mountain sides, tens of thousands of monks pass their lives in religious exercises. They are vowed to celibacy, and throughout the land it is looked upon as a distinct degradation to marry. The natural result is that the relations of the sexes are relaxed, and their morals debased. Polygamy is not uncommon, and in Thibet, more than anywhere else, we find the peculiar institution of polyandry, where a woman has two, three or four recognized husbands. It is usual for several brothers thus to have the same wife.

The women are small but well made, and exercise an unusual control in the affairs of life. The physical traits of both sexes are Mongolian, though the eyes are rarely oblique. The culture is rather low, the Thibetan not being an ardent agriculturist, but preferring the pastoral life. He milks his cows and makes butter, which with hides and fleece, leather and some local fabrics, are his principal articles of trade.

In the Himalayan valleys to the south are several nations in which the Asian blood dominates, such as the Ladakis of Cashmere, the Nepalese, the inhabitants of Bhotan and numerous others. They are generally mixed with Dravidian or Aryac blood, but speak dialects of the Sinitic type.

_3. The Indo-Chinese Group._

The regions we call Farther India and Cochin China are at present inhabited by peoples speaking tonic, monosyllabic languages, who are, however, generally of mixed descent. Some of them have crimpled hair and a dark complexion, suggesting the presence of some Nigritic blood; others have features more Aryac than Mongolian, hinting at an ancient fusion of Hindoostanee strains. These form the modern nations of Birma, Siam, Annam, Cambodia, Tonkin, and Cochin China.

The Birmans have a well marked round head (about 83°), oblique eyes, prominent cheek bones, and are of medium stature and sturdy. Their color is a brownish yellow or olive. In religion they are Buddhists, but they are by no means celebrated for honesty and morality. By a curious freak of fashion, the dress of the women is open in front, but it is the height of immodesty to show the naked foot.

The Siamese call themselves “Thai,” under which designation come also the Laos. They are a mild mannered people, without much energy, but willing to be taught.

The Annamese and Tonkinese are somewhat superior in culture to their neighbors, and of well marked Asiatic physiognomy. The Cambodians, called Khmers, are a mixed people, descended partly from Mongolian ancestry, partly from Dravidian and Aryac conquerors who occupied their country about the third century, and left behind remarkable vestiges of their presence in ruins of vast temples and stone-built palaces.

II. THE SIBIRIC BRANCH.

The branch of the Asian race which I have called the Sibiric, as geographically designating its pre-historic home, has also been called the Turanian, the Ural-Altaic, the Finno-Ugric, the Mongolic, etc. Its geographical location is north of the Altai range, and the Caspian and Black seas, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The languages of all its members are polysyllabic and agglutinative, contrasting as much with the Sinitic stock on the one hand as with the Aryac on the other. In physical appearance individuals of reasonably pure descent present good specimens of the Asian type, the skull brachycephalic, the face round, the nose flat at the root, the eye small and black, the hair straight and coarse, the color yellowish. They are divided into many tribes, most of whom were until recently addicted to a wandering pastoral life, and though on the lower levels of culture and without coherent social bonds, they have at times loomed up as the most powerful and pretentious figures in the history of the world.

Furthest to the east is

_1. The Tungusic Group_,

Which occupies the coast from the northern boundary of China to Kamschatka, and westward to the Yenissei river. It embraces the Manchus and the Tungus. The former, a bold hardy people, possessed themselves of the throne of China early in the seventeenth century, and continue to rule it by a military despotism, adapted with consummate skill to the peculiarities of Chinese character. This has led to an extensive fusion of Sinitic blood among the Manchus, and also an improvement in their social status. They have become Buddhists, and their language is losing ground before the Chinese.

The Tungus to the north of them, inhabiting a vast district of forest, swamp and mountain, east of the Yenissei river, are of ruder life. They depend for subsistence on the chase and on their large herds of reindeer. In religion they adhere to the worship of the powers of nature, and are under the control of their priests or “shamans.” They present a well marked Asiatic type, a brachycephalic skull (81°), round face and oblique eyes, the hair coarse and straight, the beard scanty. In stature they are of medium height, strongly built, and the senses of sight and hearing unusually keen.

Like most nations dwelling in or near the Arctic zone, the disposition of the Tungus is decidedly cheerful and affable. He is hospitable to strangers, and honorable in his dealings. In habits, however, he has no notion of cleanliness, and the Tatar name applied to him--_tongus_, hog--expresses what his not over-nice neighbors think of his mode of life.

The tribes were subjected to the Russian domination about 1650, and have been gradually improving their condition. A portion of them called Lamuts reside on the sea of Ochotsk, and have fixed villages with houses built in the Russian style.[135]

_2. The Mongolic Group_

had their original home in Mongolia, a vast arid country south of the Altai range, and west of Manchuria. Before the Christian era they had extended north beyond the mountains and occupied the land around Lake Baikal, whence they proceeded easterly, and under the name of Kalmucks have settled quite to the river Volga. Few of them are agriculturists, it being their preference to wander over the pastures with their flocks. Their religion is a debased form of Buddhism grafted on their ancient fetichism. In physical type they are true Asiatics, and are of a restless, warlike disposition.

In the extended region which they inhabit, stretching over seventy degrees of longitude, they have had space to multiply until their numbers once became a menace to all other nations of the Eurasian continent. Under Genghis Khan, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, they poured down in countless hordes on the cultivated nations of Asia and Europe, and in a few years established a monarchy, the then greatest in the world. About a century later his descendant, the sanguinary Tamerlane, swept Asia from the Indian Ocean to the Arctic circle; and at the close of yet another century Baber, of the same redoubted lineage, founded the empire of the Great Mogul (Mongol) in India, extending from the Indus to the Ganges. Based, however, on despotism, barbarism and fanaticism, these gigantic states disappeared in a few generations, leaving scarcely a trace of their existence except the ruins of the higher civilizations which they had destroyed.

_3. The Tataric Group._

Derived its name from the Chinese word _ta-ta_, and is incorrectly written _Tartar_. Another Chinese name applied to them was _Tu-kiu_, from which is derived our word “Turk.”

The earliest home of the Tatars or Turks was in Turkestan, north of the Plateau of Pamir and in the immediate vicinity of the Persian Aryans. Long before the beginning of the Christian era their predatory bands had repeatedly invaded the territory of the Aryans and the Semites, and quite down to two centuries ago the states which they had founded were looked upon with dread by the mightiest potentates of Europe. The Chinese annals speak of their inroads into that empire more than 200 years before our era.

At the period of the migration of nations which accompanied the dismemberment and fall of the Roman Empire, the Tatars appeared frequently in Europe, always as ruthless devastators. Attila, “the scourge of God,” with his bands of Huns, the Avari, and the Bulgari, who followed in his wake, the Turcomans and the Cossacks, and finally the Osmanli Turks whose descendants now govern European and Asiatic Turkey, and whose Sultan is the political head of the Mohammedan world, all belong in this group.

It is needless to say that in these rovings they have undergone much admixture. The modern Turk has more of the blood of the Semite and the Circassian in his veins than of his Tartar ancestors; but his language has maintained a singular purity, and the Tartar hunter, the Jakout, in the delta of the Lena on the frozen ocean, finds no difficulty in understanding its ordinary expressions. The Jakout speaks indeed the purest and most ancient form of the idiom, “The Sanscrit of the Tatar,” as it has been called by Friedrich Müller.

The peculiarity of this language is that it has a law of vocalic harmony, by which the various suffixes added to the root change the vowels they contain in accordance with the vowel of the root. It has not only a pleasing sound, but superior flexibility and an unusual capacity to express fine shades of meaning. It is, however, losing ground both in Europe and Asia, as are all the agglutinative languages.

Next to the Turks, the Cossacks and Kirghis Tatars are prominent members of the stock. They are closely related, being branches of the same dialectic family. The former wander over the steppes between the Sea of Aral and the main chain of the Altai. It is not known when they occupied this region, but it was within historic times, and they drove from it a people of higher civilization, acquainted with the use of bronze and brass, and dwellers in cities.[136] The Kirghis themselves build no houses, but dwell in felt tents called “yourts.” They did not cultivate the soil, deriving their food from their flocks and herds, but of late years have begun a careless agriculture. In religion they profess Mohammedanism, but in reality they cling to their ancient Shamanistic superstitions.

4. _The Finnic Group_

Has lived for certainly two thousand years or more in Northern Europe. It is mentioned by Tacitus, and its traditions as well as its dialects support this antiquity. That it ever extended, as many theorists pretend, into Central or Southern Europe, may now be dismissed as an obsolete hypothesis, disproved by craniological studies and a closer scrutiny of the alleged linguistic resemblances which have been urged. The probability is that the Finns and Lapps had the same ancestors as the Samoyeds of Northern Siberia, who once lived on the upper streams of the Yenissei in the Sajanic mountains and around Lake Baikal. The Laplanders are said still to retain some reminiscence of the migration, and the verbal affinities of the Finnic and Samoyedic demonstrate an early relationship.[137]

The eastern members of the group are the Ugrians in the government of Tobolsk, some tribes on the Volga, and the Permians on the Kama river (an affluent of the Volga). The Magyars of Hungary are a branch of the Ugrians who possessed themselves of the land in the ninth century, and who still retain their language, not remote from the Finnish.

The present Finnland was first occupied by the Lapps or Laplanders, who were driven northward and westward by bands continually arriving from the east. The Finns, who call themselves “Suomi,” which is the same as the initial syllables of “Samo-yed,” are subdivided into the Esthonians and Livonians on the Baltic, south of the Gulf of Finland, the Tavastes, Karelians, and others to the north.

The physical type of the members of the Finnic group has given rise to much discussion. Many individuals are blondes, with light hair and eyes, and with dolichocephalic skulls. Such are especially numerous among the Esthonians, Karelians, and Tavastes. But it must be remembered that for two or three thousand years these tribes have been in contact with the blonde and dolichocephalic type of the Aryans, represented by the ancient Teutonic and Slavonic groups (see Lect. V). It is not in the least surprising therefore to find the Finnic group everywhere deeply infused with Aryac blood. Even the remote Lapps are no exception. Nominally there are 25,000 or more of them. But Prince Roland Bonaparte says as the result of his recent observations among them, “Pure Lapps no longer exist;”[138] and when this is true of that isolated people, how much more is it of the tribes in closer proximity to the Eurafrican race? We may conclude with Professor Keane that the genuine traits of the Finnic group are “fundamentally and typically Mongolic,” _i. e._, Sibiric.[139]

There is no reason to suppose that any of the Sibiric peoples extended southerly in Asia or Europe much beyond their present boundaries. It has been a mania with many ethnographers, especially linguistic ethnographers, to discover “Turanian” peoples and dialects in numerous parts of southern and central Europe. They would have it that the Basques, the Etruscans, the Ligurians, the Pelasgians, were “Turanian;” that the prehistoric inhabitants of Palestine, the Hittites, and the Shepherd Kings of Egypt, were also of this ilk. They are like those other ethnographers who find “Mongoloid” indications everywhere, in America, in Polynesia, even among the Bushmen of South Africa. As Friedrich Müller says of these writers, “Mongolian” is a sack into which everything is crammed by them. There is no true science in catching at superficial resemblances or exalting remote analogies while fixed distinctions are disregarded.

_5. The Arctic Group._

In northeastern Siberia, close to the Arctic circle, and occupying the territory between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, dwell a number of tribes in a condition of barbarism. Their languages are in general form of the Sibiric type; their physical traits vary, indicating frequent admixture. In color they are rather dark, and the skull is generally slightly dolichocephalic.

Of these the Chukchis occupy the extreme northeast of the continent. Nordenskjold, who saw much of them, considers them the mixed descendants of various tribes, driven from more hospitable regions to the south.[140] Some of them have a marked Mongolic aspect, but the majority differ from that type. They are yellowish-brown in color, prominent nose, tall in stature, and well built. They are active hunters and fishermen. The Namollos are a sedentary branch of the Chukchis, and both are related to the Koraks and Kamschatkans. The Namollos live along the Arctic coast, near East Cape, while the Koraks live to the south. “Kora” means “reindeer,” and they are essentially the reindeer people, that useful animal being their chief wealth. Close to East Cape, and southward along the coast of Behring sea, are Eskimo tribes. They have lived there from the first discovery of the coast, and doubtless long before. Indeed, as far as tradition goes, the movements of the Eskimos have been from America into Asia, and not the reverse, until they were driven back by the advancing Chukchis.[141]

The Kamschatkans to the south are of small stature, but strongly formed. They live upon fish, and are skillful in the use of dogs for sleds. They number only about 2000 souls, and are disappearing.

The Ghiliaks live near the mouth of the Amoor river and on the Saghalin islands. They are a mixed people, the cephalic index varying from 74 to 85; some of them have abundant beards, which is very rare among the pure Asiatics.[142]

The Aleutians, who occupy the long chain of islands reaching from Kamschatka to Alaska, are of medium height, flat nose, black eyes and hair, and mesocephalic. They belong to the American, not to the Asian race.

Most of these peoples speak tongues differing widely among themselves, but of the agglutinative type. They are in no way related to the American languages, and are equally remote from the Mongolian.

_6. The Japanese Group._

The Japanese cannot claim purity of descent. Their complexion and frequent crisp or wavy hair indicate that their Asian origin has been modified by other blood. They were not the earliest inhabitants of the archipelago they occupy, but moved into it probably about a thousand years before the Christian era.[143] The immigrants seem from some linguistic evidence to have come from Manchuria or Mongolia, and to have found upon the islands a different people, the Ainos (properly Ainu) remarkable for their heavy beards and hairy persons. These have now been driven to the northernmost portion of the archipelago, where about 1200 of them still reside. It was long thought that the languages of the Ainos and Japanese have some affinities, but except in loan words and a general phonetic resemblance, this has now been disproved. The Ainos seem physically related to the Ghiliaks, and came from the north and west. They are supposed to have been the first occupants of the Kurile islands.