The Circle of Knowledge: A Classified, Simplified, Visualized Book of Answers

Part 58

Chapter 583,046 wordsPublic domain

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE RACES OF MANKIND

DISTRIBUTION OF THE CAUCASIAN OR WHITE DIVISION OF MANKIND

ORIGINAL HOME.--North Africa between Sahara and the Mediterranean.

EARLY EXPANSION.--To Europe, the Eurasian Steppes between the Carpathians and the Pamir, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Iran, or Persia, India, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Polynesia.

LATER EXPANSIONS.--The Caucasian race has now spread, through colonization, over the whole world, but its proper region is Europe, western Asia, and the northern strip of Africa Nine-tenths of the people of Europe belong to the Caucasian family, the other tenth consisting of the Turks, the Magyars (in Hungary), the Finns, the Laplanders, and the tribe called Samoieds in the extreme northeast of European Russia. In Asia, the Caucasians include the Arabs, the Persians, the Afghans, and the Hindus. In Africa, the Caucasians are spread over the whole north, from the Mediterranean to the south of the Sahara Desert, and to the farthest border of Abyssinia as well as to the greater portion of South Africa. In North and South America three-fourths of the people are now Caucasian. In Australia and New Zealand the Caucasian colonists have almost extinguished the native races.

RELIGION.--The Caucasian race now supports various forms of Christianity in Europe, America, and their Colonies; Buddhism in India; Mohammedanism in Central Asia, Siberia, Turkey, Arabia, North Africa, Irania, India, Malaysia. Originally nature-worship was more pronounced than the cult of ancestor-worship. The Egyptians did not worship but embalmed the dead. The chief gods of the Semites were those of the sun and moon; and those of the Aryans were Dyaus, Indra, Zeus, Jupiter, Apollo, Saturn, etc., all personified elements of the upper regions which later became the basis of extensive systems of mythology. Later these forces were symbolized in wood or stone, which led to idolatry--that is, the worship of the image itself, which still persists among the uneducated in some parts of Christendom. The belief in magic, demons, witchcraft, omens, ghosts and allied superstitions was also very prevalent.

Out of the general polytheism were slowly evolved various shades of monotheism, whence arose the historical religions of the West, such as Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism, while crass polytheism persisted in the East--Brahmanism in India, degraded forms of Buddhism in Ceylon and elsewhere. Intermediate between monotheism and polytheism was the Persian religion, which refers light and all good to Ormuzd and his host of angels, night and all evil to Ahriman and his host of demons. Although already denounced by Isaiah, whose Jehovah is the one source of all things, this twofold principle no doubt found its way into the early Christian teachings.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE MONGOLIC OR YELLOW DIVISION

ORIGINAL DOMAIN.--Probably the Tibetan tableland.

EARLY EXPANSION.--Mongolia, Siberia, China, Indo-China, Malaysia, Mesopotamia (?). The earlier Mongolians were extremely migratory, but the more settled tribes developed into the later Japanese, Chinese. Burmese, Siamese, and other peoples in the southeast and east of Asia; and the native tribes of the Siberian plains. The wandering tribes developed into the Turks, Magyars (Hungarians), Finns, Laplanders, and Samoeids, of Europe, and the Esquimaux of America.

RELIGION.--Animism in the widest sense is the dominant note of Mongolian religions. The worship of spirits extended both to the disembodied human soul (ancestor-worship, which is now perhaps the most prevalent form) and to the innumerable spirits, bad and good, which people earth, air, water, the celestial and underground regions. Although nominal Buddhists, the Chinese, Indo-Chinese, and Mongols live in terror of malevolent spirits, and the Annamese scrupulously observe “Roast-pig Day,” as they call their All-Souls Day, by littering the graves of the dead with scraps of victuals. Among the Siberians this spirit-cult takes the form of Shamanism, in which the Shaman (wizard or medicine man) is the “paid medium” of communication between his dupes and the invisible good or evil genii. In Tibet demonology still survives beneath the official Lamaism; the Eastern Siberians are Bear-worshipers; and the Polynesians have deified both the living and dead members of their dynasties.

The historical religions are largely a question of race, the Mongols proper, Manchus, Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Indo-Chinese, and Tibetans being at least nominal Buddhists. The Turks, Tartars, and most Malays are Mohammedans; and the Finns, Lapps, and Magyars now Christians. Other so-called state religions--Confucianism and Taoism in China, Shintoism and Bushidoism in Japan are other ethical codes fostered and upheld for political purposes.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE NEGRO, OR BLACK RACE

ORIGINAL DOMAIN.--The Eastern, or Oceanic, Section had its home in Malaysia, Andamans, Philippines, New Guinea, Melanesia, Australia, Tasmania; with no later expansion. The Western, or African, Section lived in Africa south of the Sahara.

LATER EXPANSION.--Subsequently the Africans spread, either voluntarily or were taken as slaves to Madagascar, north Africa, southern United States, West Indies, and Latin America.

_Religion._--Spirit-worship very prevalent among native Negro races, and totemism in Australia. The Melanesian system is distinctly animistic, distinguishing between pure spirits, that is, supernatural beings that never were in a human body, and ghosts--that is, men’s disembodied spirits revisiting their former abodes. There are prayer, sacrifice, divination, omens, death and burial rites, a Hades too, with trees and houses, as on earth, also a ghostly ruler, but no supreme being. There is little or nothing of all this in Australia or New Guinea, where the religious sentiment is so little developed that many close observers have failed to detect it.

Among African tribes, though religion is animistic, ancestor-worship seems much more prevalent than nature-worship. There is no supreme being anywhere. The chief deities are _Munkulunkulu_, with many variants along the eastern seaboard, and _Nzambi_, also with many variants on the west side, both intermingling in the interior. Witchcraft, omens, and ordeals are very prevalent; pure fetishism and human sacrifices prevail in Upper Guinea, in Uganda and other parts.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE AMERICAN, OR RED DIVISION

_Original Domain._--The New World. The chief sub-divisions were as follows:

(1) NORTH AMERICAN: _Eskimo_, _Athabascan_ (Chippewaian, Taculli, Hupa, Apache, Navajo); _Algonquian_ (Cree, Chippewa, Mohican, Delaware, Shawnee, Cheyenne, Illinois, etc.); _Iroquoian_ (Erie, Huron, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cherokee, etc.); _Siouan_ (Dakota, Assinaboin, Missouri, Iowa, Winnebago, Mandan, Tutelo, Catawba); _Muskhogean_ (Seminole, Choktaw, Creek, Chickasaw, Alibamu, Apalachi); _Salish_; _Shoshone_; _Pawnee_; _Pueblo_ (Zuñi, Hopi, Tegua).

(2) CENTRAL AMERICAN: _Opata-Pima_ (Yuma, Cora, Tarahumara, Tepeguana); _Nahuan_ (Aztec, Huichol, Pipil, Niquiran); _Maya-Quiché_ (Huaxtec, Maya, Lacandon, Quiché, Pocoman, Zendal, Chol, Zotzil, Cachiquel, Mamé); _Zapotec_; _Mixtec_ (Mixé); _Lencan_ (Chontal, Wulwa, Rama, Guatusa); _Bribri_; _Cuna_.

(3) SOUTH AMERICAN: _Chibcha_; _Choco_; _Quichua_ (Inca, Chanca); _Aymara_ (Colla, Calchaqui); _Antisuyu_; _Jivaro_; _Zaparo_; _Pano_; _Ticuna_; _Chuncho_; _Carib_ (Macusi, Akawai, Bakairi, Arecuna); _Arawak_; (Atorai, Wapisiana, Naypure, Parexi); _Warrau_; _Chiquito_; _Bororo_; _Botocudo_; _Tupi-Guarani_ (Chiriguana, Caribuna, Goajira, Omogua, Mundrucu); _Payagua_; _Mataco_; _Toba_; _Araucan_; _Puelche_, _Tehuelche_ (Patagonian); _Fuegian_ (Ona, Yahgan, Alakaluf.)

PRESENT RESTRICTED DOMAIN.--The Arctic seaboard, Greenland, Alaska; numerous reservations and some unsettled parts of the United States and Canada; most tribes of Mexico, Central and South America are partly intermingled with the whites and blacks and still partly in the tribal state. By far the greater part of the native tribes never progressed beyond the savage state, except in the United States and Canada, where during the past quarter century, and particularly during the last decade, the Indians have rapidly advanced in civilization.

RELIGION.--Shamanism was widely diffused among the North America aborigines. But still more prevalent is the cult of the aërial gods, who support the four quarters of the heavens, and of animals (bear, wolf, raven, jaguar) which has given rise to strange wehrwolf superstitions, and to totemistic systems similar to those of the Australian natives.

Solar worship prevailed in Peru, while the cultured peoples of Mexico (Aztecs, Mayas, Zapotecs and others) had developed a complete pantheon of ferocious deities, such as _Tezcatlipoca_, _Quetzalcoatl_ and _Tlaloc_, whose thirst for human blood was insatiable. Thus arose an established order of priests, who sacrificed human victims on solemn occasions, and presided over other sanguinary rites often accompanied by unutterable horrors. Aztec women cast their infants into the Mexican lagoons to propitiate the Rain-god _Tlaloc_.

Some modern races, like the Zuñis, have an elaborate and highly mystical ritual, to the exhibitions of which none but the initiated are admissible. The snake-dance of the Moquis of Arizona is a most curious ceremonial and attracts many visitors. The ritual of the Roman Catholic Church has strong attractions for the Indian; and the less elaborate service of the Episcopalians has in several instances helped to win over to Christianity tribes which had long rejected the teachings of missionaries of other denominations.

THE CAUCASIAN THE REAL HISTORIC RACE

Of all these races the only one whose history is important for us is the Caucasian or white race, to which we ourselves belong. This race is “historical” because it displays the most highly civilized type of mankind,--that type whose progress and achievements are the true province of history.

THREE DIVISIONS OF THE CAUCASIAN RACE

This grand stock--the Caucasian race--has been classified into three main branches,--(1) the Aryan or Indo-European; (2) the Semitic; (3) the Hamitic.

The Hamitic branch is named from Ham, the son of Noah, and ancestor of some of its peoples, most notable of which was the ancient empire in Egypt. Accounts of their conquests, under great dynasties of kings, have come down to us in hieroglyphic inscriptions. The Egyptians became highly civilized at a very early time, and exerted a marked influence on the civilization of succeeding ages.

The Semitic branch is so called from Shem, also a son of Noah, described in the Bible as ancestor of some of the nations which it includes. Its chief historical representatives are the Hebrews, Phœnicians, Assyrians, Arabs, and Babylonians. The early Semitic race conquered Chaldea, united Sumer and Accad, and have similarly left us records of their early civilization in cuneiform inscriptions and tablets. It is distinguished in religious history, because from it originated the three faiths whose main doctrine is that there is but one God; namely, the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mohammedan. Apart from this, and with the special exception of the ancient Phœnicians and Carthaginians, the Semitic nations have not been generally distinguished for progress and enterprise, but have mainly kept to their old home between the Mediterranean, the river Tigris, and the Red Sea.

THE SUPREMACY OF THE ARYANS IN HISTORY

The leading part in the history of the world has been, and is still, played by the Aryan nations. The Caucasian presents us with the highest type among the five families of man; the Aryan branch of the Caucasian family presents us with the noblest pattern of that highest type.

The Aryan branch includes nearly all the present and past nations of Europe, the Greeks, Latins, Teutons or Germans, Celts and Slavonians; as well as three Asiatic peoples,--the Hindus, the Persians, and the Afghans and the modern Americans. It is the Aryans that have been the parents of new nations, and that have reached the highest point of intellectual development, as shown in their political freedom, and in their science, literature, and art.

The term Aryan is derived either from one ancient word implying that they were “cultivators of the soil,” or from another meaning “worthy, noble.” There was a time when these ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavonians, the Greeks and Italians, the Persians, the Hindus, and of nearly all the European nations, were living together, separate from the ancestors of the Semitic race. Their earliest known home was the high tableland of central Asia, north and northwest of the Himalaya Mountains, near the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers.

Through pressure of numbers, and spurred on by their own enterprising nature, these Aryan peoples for ages moved mainly westward, from their ancestral seats. A branch went southward across the Himalayas, and peopled Hindustan, Persia, and the intervening lands; another branch at different times and long intervals moved westward into Europe.

The Celts were the first European emigrants and spread themselves over a great part of the continent; as a distinct people they are now only found in parts of the British Isles and France. Later came the Italic (_Latin_) tribes who possessed the peninsula now known as Italy; the Hellenic (or _Grecian_) tribes, who occupied the peninsula of Greece; the Teutonic tribes, who replaced the Celts in central Europe, and finally also occupied Denmark and the Scandinavian peninsula (Sweden and Norway). The last of the Aryans were the Slavonians, now spread over Russia, Poland, and Bohemia, and the Lithuanians, settled on the Baltic coast, partly in Prussia, partly in Russia. Thus was Europe gradually overspread by successive waves of Aryan settlement.

ARYAN CIVILIZATION BEFORE THE MIGRATION

The study of the early Aryan languages tells us what progress had been made by this race, before the time arrived for starting south and west, to possess the Western world. Whatever words are alike in these Aryan tongues must be the names of implements, or institutions, or ideas, used or conceived before the first wave of migration made its way. We thus learn that, at that far distant time, the Aryans had houses, plowed the earth, and ground their corn in mills. The family life was settled--basis as it is of all society and law--and had risen far above the savage state. The Aryans had sheep, cattle, horses, dogs, goats, and bees; drank a beverage made of honey; could work in copper, silver, gold; fought with the sword and bow; and had the beginnings of kingly rule which subsequently became the central element of the state.

DICTIONARY OF THE HISTORICAL RACE GROUPS

=Albanian= (_al-bā´ni-an_).--The native and aboriginal race or people of Albania, unlike most of the so-called European “races,” is a distinct race physically and not merely in language. It resembles most the Celtic race, but the type is taller: the northern Albanians, like the Montenegrins, rival the Scotch and the Norwegians in stature.

The Albanians are today a mixed race, as is every European people. They are brave, but turbulent in spirit--warriors rather than workers. Even their own tribes are at enmity among themselves and tribal and family feuds are common. It is the most backward in cultivation of all; and therefore not surprising that the rate of illiteracy is one of the highest in Europe.

In religion the Albanians are about equally divided among the Mohammedan, the Catholic, and the Greek faiths.

The Albanians go under many different names. Skipetar and Arnaut are equivalents of Albanian. All mean “highlander.” Until about the fifteenth century they were called Illyrians, or Macedonians. From them came the name of the ancient Roman province of Illyricum, embracing Epirus and parts of Macedonia. All the Slavs of the Balkan Peninsula made their settlements during the middle ages. The Albanians, or Illyrians proper, previously occupied the entire country north to the Danube.

=Arabian= (_a-rā´bi-än_).--One of the three great groups of the Semitic branch of the Caucasian race. The Arabians are related to the Hebrews and include Arabs proper and the wandering Bedouin tribes of the desert. They have long since spread out from the country that bears their name and settled in distant portions of Africa and Asia, as well as penetrated into Europe. They have given their language, through the Koran, to the vaster populations of Mohammedan faith. They are not to be confounded with the Turks who are Mongolian, Tartar, in origin and speech, rather than Caucasian. Neither are they closely related to the Syrians who are Christians and Aryans, not Semites; nor even to the Berbers and the modern Moors of north Africa, who are Hamitic rather than Semitic in origin. Yet Syrians and Moors alike have long used the Arabic tongue.

=Armenian= (_är-mē´ni-an_) or =Haik=.--The Aryan race, or people of Armenia, in Asiatic Turkey. In language they are more European than are the Magyars, the Finns, or the Basques of Europe. The nearest relatives of the Armenic tongue are the Persian, the Hindu, and the Gypsy. In religion the Armenians differ from all the above-named peoples excepting the Syrians in that they are Christian. They boast a church as old as that of Rome.

Only a fraction of the Armenians are found in their own country, Armenia; perhaps one-eighth. Over 1,000,000 live in Russia; 400,000 in European Turkey; 100,000 in Persia; about 15,000 in or near Hungary; and 6000 in India and Africa. About half their number still live in different parts of the Turkish dominions. Large numbers have migrated because of the persecutions of the Turks and Kurds directed against them.