PART I.

ETHNOLOGY.

_Ethnology_ is compounded of two Greek words, the latter of which scarcely requires explanation, because it already forms part of a numerous class of compounds with which the learned reader is well acquainted. The general reader, too, is perhaps equally familiar with them. We have them in such words as Geo-_logy_. Astro-_logy_, Physio-_logy_, and a long list besides. The Greek form of these would be Geo-_logia_, Astro-_logia_, &c. The basis of the term is the substantive _logos_, meaning a _word_. In its modified form, however, and in its application as the element of a compound word, it means the _principles_, or _science_, of the department (whatever it may be) that is denoted by the root which precedes it. In the word before us it means the _principles_ of that department of human knowledge which is denoted by the form _Ethno_.

_Ethnology_ means the science, not exactly of the different _nations of the world_, but of the different _varieties of the human species_.

It is not thought necessary to enlarge upon this further, since, it is hoped, that the groups to which the visitor is directed will sufficiently tell their own tale. The extent to which they differ from each other is manifest. Still more do they differ from such groups of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and other Europeans as may collect around them.

As a general rule the varieties that are especially illustrated are foreign to Europe; it being supposed that the character of most European populations is sufficiently understood. Hence, the Ethnology is that of Asia, Africa, and the New World. Of these, the most remarkable varieties are found under the extremes of heat and cold; under the tropics, and within the arctic circle. The intermediate and more temperate parts of the different continents, though by no means deficient in interesting and important varieties, supply fewer.

Of the populations within the arctic circle, it is only those of America that are illustrated (viz., in the Greenland group). The character, however, of the tribes thus far north, is pretty similar in all three continents--in Asia and Europe for the new, in America for the old, world.

The science of ethnology is, to a great extent, a new one, and this has been our excuse for enlarging upon the meaning, and entering into the origin of the word. Even ethnological museums are rare. The plan, however, of the groups under notice, is different from that of ordinary museums, and, at the same time, one which is, now, for the first time attempted. The trees, plants, animals, and human occupants of the different portions of the earth’s surface are grouped together--so that the allied sciences of botany, zoology, and ethnology illustrate each other. Hence, the arrangement is _geographical_.

The arrangement is so far geographical that, to a certain extent, the visitor is enabled to place himself in respect to the objects before him in the same relation as he would be to a map of the world. Here, the North lies in front of him, the East to his right, the West to his left. In like manner, the groups on his right belong to Europe, Asia, and Africa; those on his left to America. In other words--the Old World is on one side, the New on the other. The relations of North and South, however, are given with less nicety. As a general rule, however, the Southern parts of the two worlds (the old and new), are the parts nearest the entrance--and the Northern parts lie beyond them.

In the Indian Islands the plan of giving the exact botany of the country under notice has been departed from--owing to the difficulties of detail in the case of an inter-tropical vegetation, of which but few specimens are found in European collections.

GROUP I.

TIBETANS. (FOR ZOOLOGY, &C. _See_ p. 82.)

The figures here are Tibetans. The variety to which both belong is usually called the _Mongolian_; by which it is meant that the most remarkable examples of it are to be found in the Chinese province of Mongolia--to the west of the Great Wall. Here it is where the cheek-bones attain a greater breadth than is the case with even the figures before us, where the nose is more flattened, and where the distance between the eyes is greater. Here it is where one of the great conquerors of the world arose, Jinjiz-Khan, in the thirteenth century; under whom, and under whose successors, nearly half the world trembled at the terrible name of _Mongol_. However, at present, their character is a very different one. The Mongolians of the nineteenth century are quiet, peaceable men, subject to China and Russia--chiefly, however, to China.

Thus much has been said concerning the Mongolians, in order to explain the meaning of the term. It has two powers. It is used in a general and in a limited sense. When _limited_, it means the inhabitant of _Mongolia_; when _general_, it denotes any one of the numerous allied populations--allied in respect to their physical organisation.

Of all the Mongol populations, the Chinese are the most civilised; unless we make an exception in favour of the equally Mongolian Japanese.

The Tibetans are subject to the Chinese, similar to a great extent in form, similar to a great extent in creed, but dissimilar in habits.

The Tibetans are a _pastoral_, the Chinese an eminently _agricultural_ population.

As the southern frontier of the Tibetan family comes in contact with the northern provinces of India--as some portion of the Tibetan area is absolutely under either the British or some other Indian government--we may expect to find the Mongolians on _both_ sides of the Himalayan Mountains--in India, as well as in Chinese Tartary.

This prepares us for--

GROUP II.

EAST INDIANS. (_See_ p. 82.)

The Tibetan (the figure on the left) we have seen before. He differs from those of Group I. only in belonging to the southern side of the Himalayas;--to the parts drained by the Sutlej; to the water-system of the Indus.

In India Proper the languages fall into two divisions: those akin to the Tamul, spoken in the Dekhan, or Southern India, and those akin to the Hindúi, spoken along the northern bank of the Ganges; in Oude, &c.

There are also in India Proper two types of physical form; in one the colour is dark, or even black, the skin coarse, the face flattened, the lips thick; in the other the colour is brunette, the nose aquiline, the eyebrows arched, regular, and delicate, the lips of moderate thickness, the face oval, the features intelligent. Each is represented in the present group, though neither in the extreme form.

As a general, but by no means as an invariable, rule, the darker complexions preponderate over the lighter ones as we go southwards, except in the mountains, where the skin becomes fairer.

It is not considered necessary to enlarge upon what is called the system of _caste_ in India. It means that the son follows the business of the father, so that the descendants of (say) a blacksmith will be blacksmiths, and so on. It also means that between individuals of different _castes_ there are certain prejudices; certain points whereon there is a reluctance to intermix. Hence, individuals of a higher, refuse to intermarry with those of a lower _caste_. They refuse also to take their meals with them.

Now, as a general, but by no means as an invariable, rule, the higher the _caste_ the greater the predominance of the second type of form, _i.e._, the finer the features, the clearer the complexion.

* * * * *

India and China, we must remember, are countries that have long been civilised--civilised after their own peculiar fashion. More than this, they are countries from which a civilisation has been diffused over districts more or less barbarous. On the other hand, the Mahometan creed has diffused, and is diffusing itself, over India, at the expense of the original (so-called) Braminical and Buddhist religions.

The extent to which Indian civilisation has (after first spreading itself abroad) been modified by a subsequent diffusion of Mahometanism, will be seen when we move from India to the Islands of the Indian Archipelago--Sumatra, Java, Borneo, &c.

Here the division of the human species to which the populations belong is the _Malay_---just as that to which the Chinese and Tibetans were referred was the Mongolian.

Just, too, as the word _Mongolian_ had a _wider_ and a _narrower_ signification, so has the term _Malay_. A true and proper Malay is a Mahometan, from either certain parts of Sumatra, or certain parts of the Malayan Peninsula--from Sincapore, from Malacca, from Penang, from Bencoolen, &c. On the other hand, a member of the Malay family, in the wider sense of the word, may be a Pagan in religion, an Indian in doctrine, or a native of Java or Borneo, in respect to his locality.

The Malays, in the wider sense of the word, whatever may be the minor differences between them, have the same general physiognomy; being short rather than tall, darker than the generality of Mongolians, though lighter than the southern Indians, and broadfaced, though less so than the more extreme Mongolians. When in contact with the sea, they exhibit decided maritime habits. Many other of their customs in detail deserve notice.

_Bodily disfigurations under the idea of ornament._--The Malay dress is becoming; but the habit of permanently disfiguring parts of the body under the idea of ornament, is of sufficient prominence to take place amongst the characteristics of the branch.

_a._ _Tattooing._--This is sometimes limited, sometimes general: sometimes over the whole body, sometimes confined to the arms only. In Africa the patterns vary with the tribe. In certain Malay districts, an approach to the distinction may be found; for instance, we hear in Borneo of some tribes that always tattoo, of others that partially tattoo, of others that do not tattoo at all. Nay more; the habit of tattooing seems in some cases to go along with certain other habits--by no means naturally connected with it. Thus certain of the Borneo non-tattooed tribes never use the _Sumpitan_, or blow-pipe; whilst others are tattooed, and use it.

So at least Sir J. Brooke was informed; although I think the careful peruser of his journal will find that the coincidence is not always complete.

_b._ _Depilation._--Depilation is effected either by quick-lime or tweezers. Generally, I believe, the parts of the body which are meant to be kept smooth are rubbed with quick-lime; and the isolated hairs that afterwards appear, are plucked out carefully by tweezers in detail.

_c._ _Filing the teeth, dyeing the teeth._ This is a Malay habit, and there are not less than three varieties of this operation.

1. Sometimes the enamel, and no more, is filed off. This enables the tooth to receive and retain its appropriate dye.

2. Sometimes the teeth are merely pointed.

3. Sometimes they are filed down to the gums.

Dyeing may follow filing, or not, as the case may be.

In Sumatra, where a jetty blackness is aimed at, the empyreumatic oil of the cocoa-nut is used. Even, however, if no dyeing follow, the teeth will become black from the simple filing, if the chewing of the betel-nut be habitual.

_d._ _Distension of the ears._--Many of the tribes that file their teeth, also distend their ears. Both are Malay habits. In some parts of Sumatra, when the child is young, the ear is bored, and rings are put in. In other parts, however, the rings are weighted, so as to pull down the lobe; or ornaments, gradually increased in diameter, are inserted; so that the perforation becomes enlarged.

Simple perforation may extend to a mere multiplication of the holes of the ear. In Borneo, the Sakarran tribes wear more earrings than one, and are distinguished accordingly; “when you meet a man with many rings distrust him” being one of their cautions. Mr. Brooke met a Sakarran with twelve rings in his ear.

_e._ _Growth of the nails._--In parts of Borneo, the right thumbnail is encouraged to grow to a great length. So it is in parts of the Philippines.

_Running-a-muck._--A Malay is capable of so far working himself into fury, of so far yielding to some spontaneous impulse, or of so far exciting himself by stimulants, as to become totally regardless of what danger he exposes himself to. Hence, he rushes forth as an infuriated animal, and attacks all who fall in his way, until having expended his morbid fury he falls down exhausted. This is called _running-a-muck_.

_Gambling._--This habit, or rather passion, is shared by the Malays, the Indians, the Chinese, and the Indo-Chinese; quail-fighting and cock-fighting being the forms in which it shows itself. A Malay will lose all his property on a favourite bird; and, having lost that, stake his family; and after the loss of wife and children, his own personal liberty: being prepared to serve as a slave in case of losing.

_Narcotic stimulants and masticatories._--Chewing the betel-nut is almost universal in some of the Malay countries; the use of opiates and tobacco being also common.

The nut of the _Areca catechu_, is wrapped in the leaf of the _piper betel_, the first being astringent, the second pungent. The addition of lime completes the preparation. This stimulates the salivary glands, tinges the saliva red, and discolours the teeth.

Of the chief islands occupied by the Malay family, the first two under notice are

SUMATRA--and

JAVA.--These being taken together, give us

GROUP III. (p. 91.)

A. SUMATRANS. B. JAVANESE (OPIUM SMOKERS).

A. The populations of Sumatra exhibit different degrees of civilisation to an extent found in few areas of equal size: the difference in their religious creeds being proportionately broad. There are the extreme forms of rude paganism; there are traces of the Indian forms of religion; and there is Mahometanism. The least clothed of the figures before us is a _Lubu_, one of the wildest, rudest, and weakest of all the populations. The position of the Lubus in Sumatra is that of the Bushmen of South Africa, for they are a fragmentary population, driven into the more inaccessible districts by tribes stronger than themselves; without arts, and without settled habitations.

The next are _Battas_, whose civilisation is some degrees above that of the Lubus. A great part of their present area belonged to this last named population, who are, probably, Battas in the very lowest stage of development. These require further notice. They belong to the northern half of Sumatra, though without reaching the northern extremity of the island.

At the very northern end we have the kingdom of Atshin, Achin, or Acheen, where the religion is Mahometan, and where the alphabet is the Arabic; Atshin being the part of Sumatra where the influence of the Arabian trade, Arabian religion, and Arabian language, have been the greatest.

South of Atshin is the Batta country. Here there is only an imperfect Mahometanism, with no use of the Arabic alphabet, and but little tincture of Arab cultivation.

The rivers in the Batta country are inconsiderable, so are the forests; for the country is an elevated platform--dry, exposed, and parched. The luxuriant vegetation of so many regions in this part of the world, finds no place here; and instead of it, we have sand, hardened clay, bare rocks swept by strong currents of wind and exposed to an equatorial sun.

The Battas are cannibals; they are also a lettered population. It is believed that this combination of rudeness and civilisation occurs nowhere else, a combination which, however, is beyond doubt.

In the Batta alphabet we have books, almanacks, &c.

On the Batta cannibalism, hear so competent an authority as Marsden. “They,” the Battas, “do not eat human flesh as the means of satisfying the cravings of nature, for there can be no want of sustenance to the inhabitants of such a country and climate, who reject no animal food of any kind; nor is it sought after as a gluttonous delicacy.

“The _Battas_ eat it as a species of ceremony, as a mode of showing their detestation of certain crimes by an ignominious punishment, and as a savage display of revenge and insult to their unfortunate enemies. The objects of this barbarous repast are prisoners taken in war, especially if badly wounded, the bodies of the slain, and offenders condemned for certain capital crimes, especially for adultery. Prisoners unwounded (but they are not much disposed to give quarter) may be ransomed or sold as slaves, where the quarrel is not too inveterate; and the convicts, there is reason to believe, rarely suffer when their friends are in circumstances to redeem them by the customary equivalent of twenty _binchangs_, or eighty dollars. These are tried by the people of the tribe where the offence was committed, but cannot be executed until their own particular _raja_ has been made acquainted with the sentence, who, when he acknowledges the justice of the intended punishment, sends a cloth to cover the head of the delinquent, together with a large dish of salt and lemons. The unhappy victim is then delivered into the hands of the injured party (if it be a private wrong, or, in the case of a prisoner to the warriors) by whom he is tied to a stake; lances are thrown at him from a certain distance by this person, his relatives, and friends; and when mortally wounded, they run up to him, as if in a transport of passion, cut pieces from the body with their knives, dip them in the dish of salt, lemon-juice, and red pepper, slightly broil them over a fire prepared for the purpose, and swallow the morsels with a degree of savage enthusiasm. Sometimes (I presume according to the degree of their animosity and resentment) the whole is devoured by the bystanders; and instances have been known where, with barbarity still more aggravated, they tear the flesh from the carcase with their teeth. To such a depth of depravity may man be plunged, when neither religion nor philosophy enlighten his steps! All that can be said in extenuation of the horror of this diabolical ceremony is, that no view appears to be entertained of torturing the sufferers, of increasing or lengthening out the pangs of death; the whole fury is directed against the corpse, warm, indeed, with the remains of life, but past the sensation of pain. A difference of opinion has existed with respect to the practice of eating the bodies of their enemies actually slain in war; but subsequent enquiry has satisfied me of its being done, especially in the case of distinguished persons, or those who have been accessories to the quarrel. It should be observed that their campaigns (which may be aptly compared to the predatory excursions of our Borderers) often terminate with the loss of not more than half-a-dozen men on both sides. The skulls of the victims are hung up as trophies in the open buildings in front of their houses, and are occasionally ransomed by their surviving relations for a sum of money.”--_Marsden’s Sumatra_, pp. 391-2.

The Battas have, probably, been more civilised than they are now--India being the source of their civilisation. This is shown in the following imperfect sketch of their creed--which is Indian, corrupted and degenerate.

“The inhabitants of this country have many fabulous stories, which shall be briefly mentioned. They acknowledge three deities as riders of the world, who are respectively named, _Batara-guru_, _Sori-pada_, and _Mangallah-bulang_. The first, say they, bears rule in heaven, is the father of all mankind, and partly, under the following circumstances, creator of the earth; which from the beginning of time had been supported on the head of _Naga-padoha_; but growing weary at length, he shook his head, which occasioned the earth to sink, and nothing remained in the world excepting water. They do not pretend to a knowledge of the creation of this original earth and water; but say that at the period when the latter covered every thing, the chief deity, _Batara-guru_, had a daughter named _Puti-orla-bulan_, who requested permission to descend to these lower regions, and accordingly came down on a white owl, accompanied by a dog; but not being able, by reason of the waters, to continue there, her father let fall from heaven a lofty mountain, named _Bakarra_, now situated in the _Batta_ country, as a dwelling for his child; and from this mountain all other land gradually proceeded. The earth was once more supported on the three horns of _Naga-padoha_; and that he might never again suffer it to fall off, _Batara-guhu_ sent his son, named, _Layang-layang-mandi_ (literally ‘the dipping swallow’), to bind him hand and foot. But to his occasionally shaking his head they ascribe the effect of earthquakes. _Puti-orla-bulan_ had afterwards, during her residence on earth, three sons and three daughters, from whom sprang the whole human race.

“The second of their deities has the rule of the air, betwixt earth and heaven; and the third that of the earth; but these two are considered as subordinate to the first. Besides these, they have as many inferior deities as there are sensible objects on earth, or circumstances in human society; of which some preside over the sea, others over rivers, over woods, over war, and the like. They believe, likewise, in four evil spirits, dwelling in four separate mountains; and whatever ill befalls them they attribute to the agency of one of these demons. On such occasions they apply to one of their cunning men, who has recourse to his art; and by cutting a lemon ascertains which of these has been the author of the mischief, and by what means the evil spirit may be propitiated; which always proves to be the sacrificing a buffalo, hog, goat, or whatever animal the wizard happens on that day to be most inclined to eat. When the address is made to any of the superior and beneficent deities for assistance, and the priest directs an offering of a horse, cow, dog, hog, or fowl, care must be taken that the animal to be sacrificed is entirely white.

“They have also a vague and confused idea of the immortality of the human soul, and of a future state of happiness or misery. They say that the soul of a dying person makes its escape through the nostrils, and is borne away by the wind; to heaven, if of a person who has led a good life; but if of an evil-doer, to a great cauldron, where it shall be exposed to fire until such time as _Batara-guru_ shall judge it to have suffered punishment proportioned to its sins; and feeling compassion shall take it to himself in heaven: that finally the time shall come when the chains and bands of _Naga-padoha_ shall be worn away, and he shall once more allow the earth to sink; that the sun will be then no more than a cubit’s distance from it, and that the souls of those who, having lived well, shall remain alive at the last day, shall in like manner go to heaven, and those of the wicked be consigned to the before-mentioned cauldron, intensely heated by the near approach of the sun’s rays, to be there tormented by a minister of _Batara-guru_, named _Suraya-guru_, until, having expiated their offences, they shall be thought worthy of reception into the heavenly regions.”

The remaining male figures represent two warriors from Pulo Nias, a small island on the Western coast of Sumatra; the cap and coat of one being made of the fibres from the leaf-stalk of the _gumuti_ palm.

“The Nias people are remarkable for their docility and expertness in handy-craft work, and become excellent house-carpenters and joiners; and, as an instance of their skill in the arts, they practise that of letting blood by cupping, in a mode nearly similar to ours. They are industrious and frugal, temperate and regular in their habits, but, at the same time, avaricious, sullen, obstinate, vindictive, and sanguinary. Although much employed as domestic slaves (particularly by the Dutch) they are always esteemed dangerous in that capacity; a defect in their character which philosophers will not hesitate to excuse in an independent people torn by violence from their country and connexions. They frequently kill themselves when disgusted with their situation, or unhappy in their families, and often their wives at the same time, who appeared, from the circumstances under which they were found, to have been consenting to the desperate act. They were both dressed in their bed apparel (the remainder being previously destroyed), and the female, in more than one instance, that came under notice, had struggled so little, as not to discompose her hair, or remove her head from the pillow. It is said that in their own country they expose their children, by suspending them in a bag from a tree, when they despair of being able to bring them up. The mode seems to be adopted with the view of preserving them from animals of prey, and giving them a chance of being saved by persons in more easy circumstances.”--_Marsden’s Sumatra_, p. 476.

B. The three opium-smokers are Javanese of the lower orders.

Java differs from Sumatra in its higher standard of civilisation, and in the greater extent to which it has been acted upon by Indian influences. At one time, these were generally diffused over the island; not, perhaps, to the utter and absolute extinction of the original Paganism, but, still, largely and generally. At present, however, the prevailing influences are Arab, _i.e._, Mahometan; and Mahometanism has superseded Hindúism in all parts of the island, except one interesting locality--the range of the Tenggher Mountains.

“To the eastward of _Surabáya_, and on the range of hills connected with _Gúnung Dasar_, and lying partly in the district of _Pasúruan_, and partly in that of _Probolingo_, known by the name of the _Teng’ger_ mountain, we find the remnant of a people still following the Hindu worship, who merit attention, not only on account of their being the sole depositaries of the rites and doctrines of that religion existing at this day on Java, but as exhibiting an interesting singularity and simplicity of character.

“These people occupy about forty villages, scattered along this range of hills, in the neighbourhood of what is termed the Sandy Sea. The site of their villages, as well as the construction of their houses, is peculiar, and differ entirely from what is elsewhere observed on Java. They are not shaded by trees but built on spacious open terraces, rising one above the other, each house occupying a terrace, and being in length from thirty to seventy, and even eighty feet. The door is invariably in one corner, at the end of the building opposite to that in which the fire-place is built. The building appears to be constructed with the ordinary roof, having along the front an enclosed veranda or gallery, about eight feet broad. The fire-place is built of brick, and is so highly venerated that it is considered a sacrilege for any stranger to touch it. Across the upper part of the building rafters are run, so as to form a kind of attic story, in which are deposited the most valuable property and implements of husbandry.

“The head of the village takes the title of _Peting’ gi_, as in the low-lands, and is generally assisted by a _Kabâyan_, both elected by the people from their own village. There are four priests who are here termed _Dùkuns_ (a term elsewhere only applied to doctors and midwives), having charge of the state records and the sacred books.

“These _Dùkuns_, who are in general intelligent men, can give no account of the era when they were first established on these hills; they can produce no traditional history of their origin, whence they came, or who entrusted them with the sacred books, to the faith contained in which they still adhere. These, they concur in stating, were handed down to them by their fathers, to whose hereditary office of preserving them they have succeeded. The sole duty required of them is again to hand them down in safety to their children, and to perform the _púja_ (praisegiving), according to the directions they contain. These records consist of three compositions, written on the _lontar_-leaf, detailing the origin of the world, disclosing the attributes of the Deity, and prescribing the forms of worship to be observed on different occasions. When a woman is delivered of her first child, the _Dúkun_ takes a leaf of the _alang_ grass, and scraping the skin of the hands of the mother and her infant, as well as the ground, pronounces a short benediction.

“When a marriage is agreed upon, the bride and bridegroom being brought before the _Dúkun_ within the house, in the first place bow with respect towards the south, then to the fire-place, then to the earth, and lastly, on looking up, to the upper story of the house where the implements of husbandry are placed. The parties then, submissively bowing to the _Dúkun_, he repeats a prayer, while the bride washes the feet of the bridegroom. At the conclusion of this ceremony, the friends and family of the parties make presents to each of krises, buffaloes, implements of husbandry, &c.; in return for which the bride and bridegroom respectfully present them with betel-leaf.

“At the marriage-feast which ensues, the _Dúkun_ repeats two _púja_. The marriage is not, however, consummated till the fifth day after the above ceremony. This interval between the solemnities and consummation of marriage is termed by them _úndang mántu_; and is in some cases still observed by the Javans in other parts of the island, under the name, _únduh mántu_.

“At the interment of an inhabitant of _Teng’ger_, the corpse is lowered into the grave with the head placed towards the south (contrary to the direction observed by the Mahometans), and is guarded from the immediate contact of the earth by a covering of bambus and planks. When the grave is closed, two posts are planted over the body: one erected perpendicularly on the breast, the other on the lower part of the belly; and between them is placed a hollowed bambu in an inverted position, into which, during successive days, they daily pour a vessel of pure water, laying beside the bambu two dishes, also daily replenished with eatables. At the expiration of the seventh day, the feast of the dead is announced, and the relations and friends of the deceased assemble to be present at the ceremony, and to partake of entertainments conducted in the following manner:

“A figure of about half a cubit high, representing the human form, made of leaves and ornamented with variegated flowers, is prepared and placed in a conspicuous situation, supported round the body by the clothes of the deceased. The _Dúkun_ then places in front of the garland an incense-pot with burning ashes, together with a vessel containing water, and repeats the two _púja_ to fire and water.

“The clothes of the deceased are then divided among the relatives and friends; the garland is burned; another _púja_ is repeated; while the remains of the sacred water are sprinkled over the feast. The parties now sit down to the enjoyment of it, invoking a blessing from the Almighty on themselves, their houses, and their lands. No more solemnities are observed till the expiration of a thousand days; when, if the memory of the deceased is beloved and cherished, the ceremony and feast are repeated; if otherwise, no further notice is taken of him: and having thus obtained what the Romans call his _justa_, he is allowed to be forgotten.

“Being questioned regarding the tenets of their religion, they replied that they believed in a _Déwa_, who was all-powerful; that the name by which the _Déwa_ was designated was _Búmi Trúka Sáng’yáng Dewáta Bátur_, and that the particulars of their worship were contained in a book called _Pángláwu_, which they presented to me.

“On being questioned regarding the _ádat_ against adultery, theft, and other crimes, their reply was unanimous and ready--that crimes of this kind were unknown to them, and that consequently no punishment was fixed, either by law or custom; that if a man did wrong, the head of the village chid him for it, the reproach of which was always sufficient punishment for a man of _Teng’ger_. This account of their moral character is fully confirmed by the Regents of the districts, under whose authority they are placed, and also by the residents. They, in fact, seem to be almost without crime, and are universally peaceable, orderly, honest, industrious, and happy. They are unacquainted with the vice of gambling and the use of opium.

“The aggregate population is about twelve hundred souls; and they occupy, without exception, the most beautifully rich and romantic spots on Java; a region in which the thermometer is frequently as low as forty-two. The summits and slopes of the hills are covered with Alpine firs, and plants common to an European climate flourish in luxuriance.

“Their language does not differ much from the Javan of the present day, though more gutturally pronounced. Upon a comparison of about a hundred words with the Javan vernacular, two only were found to differ. They do not marry or intermix with the people of the lowlands, priding themselves on their independence and purity in this respect.”--_Raffles’s History of Java._

GROUP IV.

DYAKS OF BORNEO, A. MALES; B. FEMALES.

The native, and aboriginal tribes of Borneo, have no general name by which they designate themselves, neither have they a general name for their island; and this is a fact which occurs pretty generally throughout the Indian Archipelago. A mere islet, a piece of land visibly and palpably surrounded by water--takes the name of _pulo_ (_island_); but the _larger_ masses like Celebes, Borneo, Sumatra, and (as Mr. Craufurd writes) each and all of the islands with the single exception of Borneo, are treated as continents,--so narrow is the knowledge of the inhabitants and so limited their powers of comprehension and generalisation. Hence, _Borneo_ is an European rather than a native term; taken from the name of a particular portion of the island and extended to the whole. It was first used by Pigafetta, a companion of Magalhan, during his voyage round the world in 1521. This gave it a currency in Europe which it has maintained ever since.

As to the different divisions of the population, they generally take their designation from the name of the stream on which they reside; so that when we hear of such tribes as the Sarebas, the Lundu, the Sakarran, &c., we may safely conclude that rivers so called form their several occupancies.

The natives, then, have no general name by which they designate themselves collectively. But _we_ have. _We_--_i.e._, the Europeans--call them _Dyaks_. _Dyak_ is a Malay word--much such a word as _Savage_, or _Barbarian_--so that expressions like _Dyak_, _Sarebas_ (the _savages of the Sarebas_), &c., are only partially native--partially native and partially Malay.

The Malay origin of the word indicates the existence of a Malay population in, or in the neighbourhood of, the island; a Malay population as well as a native. And such is the case. Over and above the proper aborigines, we find in Borneo, Chinese from China, Bugis from the Island of Celebes, and (as aforesaid) Malays from the Malayan Peninsula and Sumatra.

It is the aborigines, however, who alone are represented in the group before us--the Dyaks as opposed to the Malays. And the particular Dyak division is _not_ the one with which an Englishman is the most familiar. The Sarebas Dyaks, the Lundu Dyaks, the Sakarran Dyaks, &c., are the best known to us, inasmuch as it is those who come in contact with the Rajahship of Sarawak, and the parts under the influence of Sir James Brooke. But the Dyaks before us come from the south and the south-east, rather than from the north-west and west, and from the Dutch parts of the island rather than from the English.

The aborigines of Borneo belong to the great Malay family, so that they are essentially the same as the aborigines of Sumatra and Java, &c. But they have this important characteristic; they have been the least touched by either Indian or Arabic influences. They are the least Hindu, the least Mahometan, the most Pagan. Neither have they any alphabet; at the same time, some vestiges of Indian culture undoubtedly exist.

The Dyak of Borneo is the Malay in his most unmodified and primitive condition, and it is amongst the Dyaks of Borneo that the characteristic customs are to be found. They are divided into, probably, 100 different tribes, with, probably, 100 dialects; so far are they from the organisation of a concentrated political power. As some tribes, however, are more powerful than others, and as such tribes encroach and conquer, the tendency towards consolidation exists.

Of such tribes, the most important are the Kayans, occupants of the central part of the island, cultivators of the soil, domesticators of animals, forgers of iron. They are a dominant and encroaching population; the Kanawit, and the other tribes more immediately allied, being their tributaries. The names which they give to both the other Dyaks and the Malays, are derisive and insulting; and other circumstances besides this show the extent to which they are a proud, self-respecting population. Their dignity of manner and deportment is favourably contrasted with the comparative servility of the Malays. As to their morals, the accounts are conflicting. The utter absence of female chastity, affirmed by Mr. Law, is denied by Mr. Burns, whose opportunities for acquiring knowledge seem to have been the better, but who writes somewhat in the spirit of an advocate and admirer. The same author considers that their taste for head-hunting has been exaggerated; at any rate, the custom of handing down heads from generation to generation, as honourable heirlooms, wants confirmation, and besides this, has certain positive facts against it. When two of their chiefs changed their residence, an accumulation of 400 skulls was thrown away, instead of being removed with care and honour. Human sacrifices, on the other hand, are admitted by Mr. Burns to exist; with the reservation that the practice decreases, and that the victim is a member of some other tribe.

It was from the parts about the Kayan river that they began their conquests. Successful in holding their own, they suffer from disease rather than war. At intervals of twelve or fifteen years, the small-pox rages as an epidemic; whilst fever, ague, dysentery, and rheumatism, are endemic. To tattoo the body, to bore and stretch the ears, to wear pendant ear-rings of twenty ounces, so that the ears and breasts meet, are the more characteristic elements of the Kayan cosmesis. In the first of these operations the performer pricks the pattern with a needle, and then engrains the smoke of a dammer torch; so that the process is partially that of the simple tattoo, and partially that of inustion. Mutual friendships or brotherhoods, are ratified by the not unusual ceremony of mixing blood. This Mr. Burns considers as peculiar to the Kayan amongst the populations of Borneo. That of drawing omens from the flight of birds is common to them and the other tribes.

After death, the body is kept in the house from four to eight days. Torches are kept burning beside the coffin which contains it; and if one of them go out, bad luck is augured from its extinction. For four or five days, too, after the removal of the corpse, they are still kept alight. Previous, however, to the removal, a feast is prepared; some of the food being placed beside the coffin, whilst the remainder regales the relatives of the deceased. The mourning of the women is loud, passionate, and full of gesticulation. They hug the decomposing body; they inhale its odours, and finally, they attend it to the place of its ultimate disposal, which is the loft of a small wooden house, built on pillars, about twelve feet high.

The burial ceremonies are more elaborate than those which accompany the birth or naming of children; those of marriage are the simplest. To swim, to wrestle, to blow the sumpitan, to use the sword, and to throw the spear, are the chief elements in the training of the Kayan youth.[33]

[33] Burns, in “Journal of the Indian Archipelago.”

This notice has contained some remarkable suggestions. What means the allusion to the head-hunting? No trophy is more honourable among the Dyaks of Borneo, than a human head; the head of a conquered enemy. These are preserved in the houses as tokens; so that the number of skulls is a measure of the prowess of the possessor. In tribes, where this feeling becomes morbid, no young man can marry before he has presented his future bride with a human head, cut off by himself. Hence, for a marriage to take place, an enemy must be either found or made.

It may easily be imagined that this engenders a chronic state of warfare between tribe and tribe; to which, we may add, as another of the scourges of the Dyak population, the piracy that is practised along the whole of the sea-coasts, and on the lower courses of the numerous rivers.

Cannibalism in Sumatra; head-hunting in Borneo--such are the characteristics of two of the more important branches of the Malay family, and they are practices which are manifestly condemnatory to the moral character of the nations in which they occur. We must, however, take the evidence to their existence as we find it. On the other hand, it is a good rule to receive with caution all accounts that violate the common feelings of human nature, and to allow ourselves to believe that causes, as yet imperfectly understood, modify and diminish practices so horrible. That it should be so general as the theory demands is incompatible with the proportions between the male and female populations, which are much the same in Borneo as elsewhere. So it is, also, with the express statement of Sir J. Brooke, who says, that the passion for heads has much diminished amongst certain of the Sarawak tribes. In one case, an offer of some was refused; the reason alleged being that it would revive fresh sorrows. The parties who thus declined, gave a favourable account of some of the customs by which the horrors of a Dyak war were abated:--

“If one tribe claimed a debt of another, it was always demanded, and the claim discussed. If payment was refused, the claimants departed, telling the others to listen to their birds, as they might expect an attack. Even after this, it was often the case, that a tribe friendly to each mediated between them, and endeavoured to make a settlement of their contending claims. If they failed, the tribes were then at war. Recently, however, more places than one have been attacked without due notice, and often by treachery. The old custom likewise was, that no house should be set on fire, no paddy destroyed, and that _a naked woman_ could not be killed, nor a woman with child. These laudable and praiseworthy customs have fallen into disuse, yet they give a pleasing picture of Dyak character, and relieve, by a touch of humanity, the otherwise barbarous nature of their warfare. Then there is what is called the _Babukid, bubukkid, or mode of defiance_, which is appealed to as a final judgment in disputes about property, and usually occurs in families when the right to land and fruit-trees comes to be discussed. Each party then sallies forth in search of a _head_; if only one succeed, his claim is acknowledged; if both succeed, the property continues common to both. It is on these occasions that the Dyaks are dangerous; and perhaps an European, whose inheritance depended on the issue, would not be very scrupulous as to the means of success. It must be understood, however, that the individuals do not go alone, but a party accompanies each, or they may send a party without being present. The loss of life is not heavy from this cause, and it is chiefly resorted to by the Singé and Sows, and is about as rational as our trials by combat. This babukid must be a check of a permanent sort.

_Houses._--“With certain of the Dyak tribes the houses are not huts, nor yet mere dwelling-houses of ordinary dimensions. They hold from one hundred to two hundred persons each; and are raised above the ground on piles.

_Religion._--“The notions of the Dyaks respecting the spiritual world are in general much confused, and at variance with each other. They agree, however, in the belief in good and evil spirits. The good spirits are divided into two classes, viz., spirits of the world above, or of the higher regions, who come under the collective denomination of ‘Sengiang;’ and spirits of the lower regions, or more properly, such as have their dominion in the waters, in great rivers, and these are called ‘Jata.’ The collective name of the evil spirits is ‘Talopapa’ which word signifies, in general, all bad things.

“It is to be observed here that the Dyaks describe the aspect of the regions above as similar to the terrestrial world. Mountains, valleys, streams, lakes, &c. &c., are found there, as well as here beneath; and the dominions of various spirits are bounded by the different streams and branches of the rivers.”--_From the Rev. T. F. Barker’s “Mythology of the Dyaks,” Journ. Ind. Archip._, vol. iii. p. 162.

“In the interior, men are still occasionally sacrificed, principally on the death of chiefs, and other considerable persons. In Sirat, the furthest inhabited point of the Kapus River, where I some years ago made a journey of investigation, they had a short time before our arrival, sacrificed two women. An acquaintance who had been present, gave me the following account of the horrible event:--One morning at Sirat, there gathered a great number of people, who streamed in on all sides to celebrate a great feast. There was firing of guns--the open plain before the Kotta (fort) was prepared for the occasion, and adorned with branches, flowers, and cloths; a number of hogs were killed; and when, finally, by midday, everything had been arranged according to use and wont, the real objects of the festival were brought forward--two women, still young, who had been purchased for the purpose from another race. They had to seat themselves on the side of the ready-dug graves, and contemplate for some time the noisy rejoicings of the feasters. A lance of about thirty feet in length was then brought and laid on one of the victims. All now hurried to take a part in the impending detestable deed. A hundred hands seized the long lance, and the instant the customary sign was given, they threw themselves, amidst the loud acclamations of the multitude, on the unfortunate wretch, and pierced her through and through, even transfixing her to the ground. They then cut off the head of the fallen victim, and carried it during the rest of the day, dancing and singing round it. The same fate also befel her unfortunate companion. Those who are thus offered become, in their belief, in the other world, slaves of the deceased friend to whose memory they are offered.”--_From “Some Remarks on the Dyaks of Banjarmassing,” in the Journ. of the Ind. Archip._, vol. i., p. 30.

The blow-pipe, with which so many of the figures before us are furnished, is called, in the native language, _sumpitan_. It is made of the wood of the palm, bored with the greatest possible nicety. The arrows, which are from four to six inches long, fit the bore, and are poisoned--at least with some of the tribes. At twenty yards the _sumpitan_ is sure to hit; at one hundred it attains its longest range. Since the ones before us have been in England, more than one _amateur_ has tried them--both with the Dyak arrows, and with little pellets of clay. They have succeeded in bringing down sparrows from the house-tops with the latter. The aim is sure, and a little practice accomplishes it.

The male in the sailor’s dress is a Philippine Islander, who spoke the Iloco language. The female is a half-blood Spanish and Manilla-Indian.

GROUP V.

A.--ISLANDERS OF THE LOUISIADE ARCHIPELAGO--PAPUANS. (_p._ 91)

A. THE PAPUANS. B. AUSTRALIANS.

When we move eastwards from the more eastern of the Moluccas we reach New Guinea, of which the very name suggests the likelihood of a change in the character of the population. How did it arise? Much in the same way that such a term as _West Indies_ did. There was something in the new country which reminded the discoverers of an old one. Now the large island under notice reminded the early voyagers of the coast of _Guinea_ on the western side of Africa. Why? Because they found there a population of _Blacks_; a population that reminded them of the negro; a population unlike the Malay tribes of islands westward.

A. _New Guinea._ This is anything but a native name; indeed, it is a name that no New Guinea men know anything about.

Just what occurred in Borneo, occurs here. There is no _general_ name at all; neither one for the island itself, nor one for the population of it--no _native_ name at least.

There is, however, a Malay one. The word _Papua_ means _frizzly-haired_. Originally and, more properly, applied to occupants of the north-west coast, it has since been extended--for the purposes of Ethnology at least--to a whole family. Hence, the Papuan stock contains, not only the inhabitants of New Guinea, but those of the islands to the east, and south thereof--the Louisiade Archipelago, New Britain, New Ireland, New Hanover, Solomon’s Isles, New Hebrides, Loyalty Isles, and New Caledonia.

No part of the world is less known than these Papuan islands--the interior of New Guinea being as much a mystery as the interior of Africa. There are certain points, however, on which attention has been concentrated. Thus--

_a._ The western coast of New Guinea itself has been described, more or less incompletely, by the Dutch.

_b._ The south-eastern part, along with the islands of Torres Straits, has been surveyed by H.M.S. the Fly.

_c._ The Louisiade Archipelago, &c., by H.M.S. Rattlesnake.

_d._ The parts about Tanna, Mallicollo, and New Caledonia, by Captain Erskine.

The figures before us are from drawings made on the spot by Mr. Huxley, naturalist to the Rattlesnake, and as they were from the pencil of an anatomist as well as an artist they may be relied on as characteristic. The chief notices are from Mr. M‛Gillivray’s “Voyage of the Rattlesnake.”

The Louisiade houses (or huts) in their simplest form consist of a roof of palm-leaves on four wooden uprights, each of which pierces a round piece of wood. This prevents rats and vermin from finding their way upwards and into the dwelling.

The larger and more elaborate contain several families--the following being a section of the part occupied. In parts subject to inundation they stand upon high props--upon _piles_ as it were. This mode of building is common in New Guinea, on certain islands of the Indian Archipelago, the more swampy parts of inter-tropical America; like adaptations occurring in like localities.

Next to the domestic architecture that of their canoes deserves attention. These, always, or almost always, are built without riggers--sometimes with a sort of stage or platform projecting from the sides, the structure of a raft being superadded to that of a boat. The sailing vessels take the following form. Less nautical than the Malays--the Papuan family is more so than the Australian.

With some varieties the hair is far more elaborately dressed than with those of the present group; being twisted into long curls, likened to the thrums of a mop, stiffened with oil, and washed in alkaline leys, which give a red tinge. When this kind of ornamentation attains its fullest development, the frizzled mass of strong and stiffened hair makes the owner unable to lie down without disarranging his head-dress. In this case a neck-pillow becomes necessary; just as it does with certain tribes of Africa, with whom the care of these head-gear is one of the primary employments of life.

The chief weapons are the bow and arrow, their political organisation of the lowest and simplest kind; that of small tribes living in a state of chronic hostility with each other. Woven cloth they have none. On the other hand they show some skill in the art of pottery. In New Guinea, at least, they defend their soil with tenacity and resolution, eschewing European intercourse. In the more southern and smaller islands, however, this is less the case than in the more northern and larger ones. They contrast more favourably with the Australians than with the Malays.

But little is known of their languages.

The islands of Torres Strait, even when they lie nearest to the coast of Australia, are not Australian, but Papuan, so that the following extracts from the “Voyage of the Fly” apply to a population allied to one under notice--allied, but not identical.

In _Darnley Island_ the natives “were fine, active, well-made fellows, rather above the middle height, of a dark brown or chocolate colour. They had frequently almost handsome faces, aquiline noses, rather broad about the nostril, well-shaped heads, and many had a singularly Jewish cast of features. The hair was frizzled, and dressed into long pipe-like ringlets, smeared sometimes with ochre, sometimes left of its natural black colour; others had wigs not to be distinguished from the natural hair, till closely examined. The septum narium was bored, but there was seldom anything worn in it. Most of their ears were pierced all round with small holes, in which pieces of grass were stuck, and in many the lobe was torn and hanging down to the shoulder. Their only scars were the faint oval marks on the shoulder. The hair of their bodies and limbs grew in small tufts, giving the skin a slightly woolly appearance. They were entirely naked, but frequently wore ornaments made of mother-of-pearl shells, either circular or crescent-shaped, hanging round their necks. Occasionally, also, we saw a part of a large shell, apparently a cassis, cut into a projecting shield-shape, worn in front of the groin. The women wore a petticoat round the waist, reaching nearly to the knees, formed of strips of leaves sewn on to a girdle. These formed a very efficient covering, as one or two were worn over each other. The grown-up woman’s petticoat, or nessoor, was formed, we afterwards found, of the inside part of the large leaves of a bulbous-rooted plant, called by them teggaer, of which, each strip was an inch broad. The girl’s nessoor was made of much narrower strips from the inside of the leaf of the plantain, which they called cabbow.

“The younger women were often gracefully formed, with pleasing expressions of countenance, though not what we should consider handsome features. The girls had their hair rather long, but the women had almost all their hair cut short, with a bushy ridge over the top, to which they, singularly enough, gave the same name as to pieces of tortoise-shells, namely, kaisu. Many of the elder women had their heads shaved quite smoothly, and we never saw a woman wearing a wig, or with the long ringlets of the men. At our first landing, all the younger women and girls kept in the back-ground, or hid themselves in the bush. On strolling to the back of the huts, we found a small native path, along which we went a short distance till we came to a rude fence in front of a plantain-ground, where the men objected to our going further, and we heard the voices of the women among the trees beyond.

“There were four huts at this spot, all bee-hive shaped, sixteen feet in diameter, and as much in height. They stood in small court-yards, partially surrounded by fences formed of poles of bamboo, stuck upright in the ground, close together, and connected by horizontal rails, to which they were tied by withies. Inside the huts were small platforms covered with mats, apparently bed-places; and over head were hung up bows and arrows, clubs, calabashes, rolls of matting, and bundles apparently containing bones, which they did not like our examining. Outside the huts were one or two small open sheds, consisting merely of a raised flat roof, to sit under in the shade, and a grove of very fine cocoa-nut trees surrounded the houses.”

The arms of the natives were the bow and arrow, and in holding the former, especial care was taken that the part of the wood which was uppermost as the tree grew, should be uppermost when used as a weapon. Rough imitations of the human figure were common; but whether they served as idols or not was uncertain. The use of tobacco was general. On the part of the females, the reserve and decorum of manner formed a striking contrast with the very different habits of the Polynesians.

B. _The Australians._--These are taken from life; two natives of the parts about Cape York having been taken up in an English vessel and brought with it to England. They passed a fortnight under the same roof with Mr. Thomson, and were well observed by both the artists engaged on the figures, and the present writer. The thinness of the legs is by no means exaggerated. It is just what the plates of Dr. Prichard’s “Varieties of Man” make it. On the other hand, the chest was well developed, and the arms comparatively--though only comparatively--strong. They told the story of their being on board the ship that brought them over, in dumb show, but they told it in a way that the most consummate professional actor might admire. But this was about all the talent they showed.

They ran neither faster nor slower than the Englishman they came in contact with; but swam as adepts. By no means insensible to such kindnesses as they received, they evinced quite as much kindness to their English house-mates as they did to one another. So silent, indeed, were they, that until we took a vocabulary of their language, we thought that they belonged to two different tribes who had carried their hostility with them across the Pacific, and nourished it in Sydenham. Smoking, or rather swallowing smoke, was their chief delight.

Tom, the livelier and less saturnine of the two, has a throwing-stick in his hand, which he is about to project.

In the group of two he re-appears. When Dick, the gloomier, had a headache, Tom could scarcely be withheld from scarifying his temples with such pieces of glass or flint as he could pick up.

Dick and Tom are Northern Australians--Northern Australians from the parts about Cape York.

Observe the points of difference and likeness between them and the Louisiade Papuans. As both are dark-skinned, they have been dealt with as branches of one and the same family; for which a name (or rather a pair of names) derived from the Greek has been applied--_Melanesian_ and _Kelnonesian_. _Nesos_ means _island_; _kelnos, dark_; _melas (melan-os), black_. The latter compound is the better. They are certainly dark coloured; and it is equally certain that both New Guinea and Australia are islands. The exact relationship, however, is less certain. Nevertheless, the name _Kelnonesian_ is adopted.

It has been said that the Papuan contrasts favourably with the Australian; the latter being the better known of the two.

The differences between the different Australian languages have long been known and definitely insisted upon.

Less marked differences in frame and physiognomy between the different Australian tribes, have also been long known and definitely insisted upon.

Differences of customs and manners have been similarly noticed and considered. Notwithstanding all this, however, there is no opinion more generally admitted than the fundamental unity of the Australian population from Swan River to Botany Bay, from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Bass’s Straits. Captain Grey, Schurman, Teichelman, and all who have devoted average attention to the language, have given their evidence to this; and they have supplied facts of various kinds, of their own collection, towards the proof of it. No man is less inclined to disturb this view than the present writer.

As to the physical conformation of the Australians, I believe that it is so uniform throughout the island, that it has never been made the basis of a division;--indeed I am inclined to believe that the _similarity_ of external appearance has been over-rated; nevertheless, it is certain that there are deviations from the general slim and underfed condition of the body; and (which is of more importance), from the usual straight character of the hair. Such is the case, according to Mr. Earl, with the trepang fishers of Arnhem Bay. Then as to the hair--with the Jaako, or Croker Island tribe, it is coarse and bushy (the whiskers being thick, and curly) and so short, crisp, and abundant about the breast and shoulders as to conceal the skin; whereas, on the other hand, the Oitbo, or Bidjenelumbo, have straight silky hair, arched eyebrows, fair complexion, and occasionally the oblique eye.

The lowest form of humanity has been sought for in Australia, whilst the physical condition of the country and the absence of those animals and herbs that supply human food, have made it a likely quarter to exhibit it. Whether, however, so low a rank in the scale of human development be, upon the whole, a fact or exaggeration, it is certain that, upon several points, there has been considerable over-statement. One sample of this sort is the accredited opinion as to the absolute incapacity of the Australian of forming even the rudest elements of a mythology--an opinion which engenders the notion that their intellects are too sluggish for even the evolution of a superstition.

That this was not the case was indicated some years back by Captain Grey, and that there is _some_ exponent of the religious feeling in the shape of a rude form of shamanism, has been shown in the account of the American Exploring Expedition; where the first published details of the Australian mythology, if so it may be called, are to be found:--“It is not true, however, as has been frequently asserted, that the natives have no idea of a Supreme Being, although they do not allow this idea to influence their actions. The Wellington tribes, at least, believe in the existence of a Deity called _Baiamai_, who lives on an island beyond the great sea to the East. His food is fish, which come up to him from the water when he calls them. Some of the natives consider him the maker of all things, while others attribute the creation of the world to his son _Burambin_. They say of him, that _Baiamai_ spoke, and _Burambin_ came into existence. When the missionaries first came to Wellington, the natives used to assemble once a year, in the month of February, to dance and sing a song in honour of _Baiamai_. This song was brought there from a distance by strange natives, who went about teaching it. Those who refused to join in the ceremony were supposed to incur the displeasure of the god. For the last three years the custom has been discontinued. In the tribe on Hunter’s River, there was a native famous for the composition of these songs or hymns; which, according to Mr. Threlkeld, were passed from tribe to tribe, to a great distance, till many of the words became at last unintelligible to those who sang them.

“_Dararwirgal_, a brother of _Baiamai_, lives in the far west. It was he who lately sent the small-pox among the natives, for no better reason than that he was vexed for want of a tomahawk. But now he is supposed to have obtained one, and the disease will come no more. The _Bálumbal_ are a sort of angels, who are said to be of a white colour, and to live on a mountain at a great distance to the south-east: their food is honey, and their employment is to do good ‘like the Missionaries.’

“It is possible that some of these stories owe their origin to intercourse with the whites, though the great unwillingness which the natives always evince to adopt any customs or opinions from them, militates against such a supposition. But a being who is, beyond question, entirely the creation of Australian imagination, is one who is called in the Wellington dialect, _Wandong_; though the natives have learned from the whites to apply to him the name of devil. He is an object not of worship, but merely of superstitious dread. They describe him as going about under the form of a black man of superhuman stature and strength. He prowls at night through the woods around the encampments of the natives, seeking to entrap some unwary wanderer, whom he will seize upon; and, having dragged him to his fire, will there roast and devour him. They attribute all their afflictions to his malevolence. If they are ill, they say _Wandong_ has bitten them. No one can see this being but the _nújargir_, or conjurors, who assert that they can kill him, but that he always returns to life. He may, however, be frightened away by throwing fire at him (though this statement seems inconsistent with that respecting his invisibility), and no native will go out at night without a firebrand to protect him from the demon.

“There is some difference in the accounts given of this character. By the tribe of Hunter’s River he is called _Koin_ or _Koen_. Sometimes, when the Blacks are asleep, he makes his appearance, seizes upon one of them and carries him off. The person seized endeavours in vain to cry out, being almost strangled. At daylight, however, _Koin_ disappears, and the man finds himself conveyed safely to his own fireside. From this it would appear that the demon is here a sort of personification of the nightmare,--a visitation to which the natives, from their habits of gorging themselves to the utmost when they obtain a supply of food, must be very subject.

“At the _Muruya_ River the devil is called _Túlugal_. He was described to us, by a native, as a black man of great stature, grizzled with age, who has very long legs, so that he soon overtakes a man; but very short arms, which brings the contest nearer an equality. This goblin has a wife who is much like himself; but still more feared, being of a cruel disposition, with a cannibal appetite, especially for young children. It would hardly be worth while to dwell upon these superstitions, but they seem to characterise so distinctly the people, at once timid, ferocious, and stupid, who have invented them.

“Their opinions with regard to the soul vary: some assert that the whole man dies at once, and nothing is left of him; others are of opinion that his spirit still survives, but upon this earth, either as a wandering ghost, or in a state of _metempsychosis_, animating a bird or other inferior creature. But the most singular belief is one which is found at both Port Stephens and Swan River, places separated by the whole breadth of the Australian continent. This is, that white people are merely blacks who have died, passed to a distant country, and having there undergone a transformation, have returned to their original homes. When the natives see a white man who strongly resembles one of their deceased friends, they give him the name of the dead person, and consider him to be actually the same being.”

It is difficult to take an exact measure of the extent to which one superstition is grosser than another;--hence, all that can be said respecting the Pantheon, of which _Baiamai_ and _Wandong_ are portions, is that it is as low in the scale of mythologies as any that has fallen under the notice of the writer.

_Incomplete Numeration of the Australians._--The import of an Australian having no more than the three, four, or five first numerals, and being thereby as unable to count the number of the fingers of his hands, as that of the hair of his head, is less equivocal. It speaks, at once, to a _minimum_ amount of intellectual power. Nevertheless, the same inability occurs elsewhere; especially in certain languages of South America. The only vocabulary of Australia where the numerals run beyond five, is that of King George’s Sound, as given in Mitchell’s Australia.

The political constitution (if so it may be called) of the Australians is preeminently simple, exhibiting a society of families rather than of tribes; and of the facts connected with the evidence in favour of the unity of the Australian division of mankind is the remarkable distribution of families bearing the same name. The principal of these are the Ballaroke, the Tdondarup, the Ngotok, the Nagarnook, the Nogonyuk, the Mongalung, and the Narrangar. Now, persons bearing one or other of these names, may be found in parts of the country five hundred miles apart. Nor does this appear to be the effect of migration, since each tribe is limited by the jealousy of its neighbours to its own hunting-ground, beyond which it seldom passes.

Polygamy in Australia is what we find, and expect to find. The practice of circumcision is what we find, perhaps, without expecting it. The habit of the children taking the name of the mother, will occur again in the south of India. The rule that a man cannot marry a woman of his own family-name will also re-appear, and that amongst the Indians of North America.

_The Kobong._--“Each family among the Australians adopts some animal or plant, as a kind of badge or armorial emblem, or, as they call it, its _kobong_. A certain mysterious connection exists between a family and its kobong, so that a member of the family will not kill an animal, or pluck any plant of the species to which his kobong belongs, except under particular circumstances. This institution again, which in some respects resembles the Polynesian _tabú_, though founded on a different principle, has its counterpart in the customs of the native Americans. Captain Gray observes, citing Mr. Gallatin, that among the Hurons, the first tribe is that of the bear; the two others, those of the wolf and turtle. The Iroquois have the same divisions, and the turtle family is divided into the great and little turtle. The Sioux are named on a similar principle. According to Major Long, one part of the superstitions of these savages consists in each man having some totem, or favourite spirit, which he believes to watch over him. The totem assumes the shape of some beast, and therefore they never kill or eat the animal whose form they suppose their totem to bear.”

_The ceremony of initiation._--“When the boys arrive at the age of puberty (or about fourteen), the elders of a tribe prepare to initiate them into the duties and privileges of manhood. Suddenly, at night, a dismal cry is heard in the woods, which the boys are told is the _Bubu_ calling for them. Thereupon all the men of the tribe (or rather of the neighbourhood) set off for some secluded spot previously fixed upon, taking with them the youths who are to undergo the ceremony. The exact nature of this is not known, except that it consists of superstitious rites, of dances representing the various pursuits in which men are engaged, of sham fights, and trials designed to prove the self-possession, courage, and endurance of the neophytes. It is certain, however, that there is some variation in the details of the ceremony, in different places; for among the coast tribes, one of these is the knocking out of an upper front tooth, which is not done at Wellington, and farther in the interior. But the nature and object of the institution appear to be everywhere the same. Its design unquestionably is, to imprint upon the mind of the young man the rules by which his future life is to be regulated; and some of these are so striking, and, under the circumstances, so admirable, that one is inclined to ascribe them to some higher state of mental cultivation than now prevails among the natives. Thus, the young men, from the time they are initiated, till they are married, are forbidden to approach or speak to a female. They must encamp at a distance from them at night, and if they see one in the way, must make a long detour to avoid her. Mr. Watson told me that he had often been put to great inconvenience in travelling through the woods, with a young man for his guide, as such a one could never be induced to approach an encampment where there were any women. The moral intent of this regulation is evident.

“Another rule requires the young men to pay implicit obedience to their elders. As there is no distinction of rank among them, it is evident that some authority of this kind is required, to preserve the order and harmony of social intercourse.

“A third regulation restricts the youth to certain articles of diet. They are not allowed to eat fish, or eggs, or the _emu_, or any of the finer kinds of opossum and kangaroo. In short, their fare is required to be of the coarsest and most meagre description. As they grow older, the restrictions are removed, one after another; but it is not till they have passed the period of middle age that they are entirely unrestrained in the choice of food. Whether one purpose of this law be to accustom the young men to a hardy and simple style of living may be doubted; but its prime objects and its result certainly are to prevent the young men from possessing themselves, by their superior strength and agility, of all the more desirable articles of food, and leaving only the refuse to the elders.

“The ceremony of marriage, which, amongst most nations, is considered so important and interesting, is with this people one of the least regarded. The woman is looked upon as an article of property, and is sold or given away by her relatives without the slightest consideration of her own pleasure. In some cases she is betrothed, or rather promised, to her future husband in the childhood of both; and in this case, as soon as they arrive at a proper age, the young man claims and receives her. Some of them have four or five wives, and in such a case, they will give one to a friend who may happen to be destitute. Notwithstanding this apparent laxity, they are very jealous, and resent any freedom taken with their wives. Most of their quarrels relate to women. In some cases, the husband who suspects another native of seducing his wife either kills or severely injures one or both of them. Sometimes the affair is taken up by the tribe, who inflict punishment after their own fashion. The manner of this is another of the singularities of their social system.

“When a native, for any transgression, incurs the displeasure of his tribe, their custom obliges him to ‘stand punishment,’ as it is called; that is, he stands with a shield, at a fair distance, while the whole tribe, either simultaneously or in rapid succession, cast their spears at him. Their expertness generally enables those who are exposed to this trial to escape without serious injury, though instances occasionally happen of a fatal result. There is a certain propriety even in this extraordinary punishment, as it is very evident that the accuracy and force with which the weapons are thrown will depend very much upon the opinion entertained of the enormity of the offence.

“When the quarrel is between two persons only, and the tribe declines to interfere, it is sometimes settled by a singular kind of _duello_. The parties meet in presence of their kindred and friends, who form a circle round them as witnesses and umpires. They stand up opposite one another, armed each with a club about two feet long. The injured person has the right of striking the first blow, to receive which the other is obliged to extend his head forward, with the side turned partially upwards. The blow is inflicted with a force commensurate with the vindictive feeling of the avenger. A white man, with an ordinary cranium, would be killed outright, but, owing to the great thickness of their skulls, this seldom happens with the natives. The challenged party now takes his turn to strike, and the other is obliged to place himself in the same posture of convenience. In this way the combat is continued; with alternate buffets, until one of them is stunned, or the expiation is considered satisfactory.

“What are called wars among them may more properly be considered duels (if this word may be so applied) between two parties of men. One or more natives of a certain part of the country, considering themselves aggrieved by the acts of others in another part, assemble their neighbours to consult with them concerning the proper course to be pursued. The general opinion having been declared for war, a messenger or ambassador is sent to announce their intention to the opposite party. These immediately assemble their friends and neighbours, and all prepare for the approaching contest. In some cases, the day is fixed by the messenger, in others not; but, at all events, the time is well understood.

“The two armies (usually from fifty to two hundred each) meet, and after a great deal of mutual vituperation, the combat commences. From their singular dexterity in avoiding or parrying the missiles of their adversaries, the engagement usually continues a long time without any fatal result. When a man is killed (and sometimes before), a cessation takes place; another scene of recrimination, abuse, and explanation ensues, and the affair commonly terminates. All hostility is at an end, and the two parties mix amicably together, bury the dead, and join in a general dance.

“One cause of hostility among them, both public and private, is the absurd idea which they entertain, that no person dies a natural death. If a man perishes of disease, at a distance from his friends, his death is supposed to have been caused by some sorcerer of another tribe, whose life must be taken for satisfaction. If, on the other hand, he dies among his kindred, the nearest relative is held responsible. A native of the tribe at Hunter’s River, who served me as a guide, had not long before beaten his own mother nearly to death, in revenge for the loss of his brother, who died while under her care. This was not because he had any suspicions of her conduct, but merely in obedience to the requirements of a senseless custom.”

Another fact connected with the decease of an Australian deserves notice. When one of them dies, those words which are identical with his name, or, in the case of compounds, with any part of it, cease to be used; and some synonym is adopted instead; just as if, in England, whenever a Mr. _Smith_ departed this life, the parish to which he belonged should cease to talk of _blacksmiths_, and say _forgemen_, _forgers_, or something equally respectful to the deceased, instead. This custom reappears in Polynesia, and in South America; Dobrizhoffer’s account of the Apibonian custom being as follows:--“The Abiponian language is involved in new difficulties by a ridiculous custom which the savages have of continually abolishing words common to the whole nation, and substituting new ones in their stead. Funeral rites are the origin of this custom. The Abipones do not like that anything should remain to remind them of the dead. Hence appellative words bearing any affinity with the names of the deceased are presently abolished. During the first years that I spent among the Abipones, it was usual to say _Hegmalkam kahamátek_, when will there be a slaughtering of oxen? On account of the death of some Abipon, the word _Kahamátek_ was interdicted, and, in its stead, they were all commanded by the voice of a crier to say, _Hemalkam négerkatà_? The word _Nihirenak_, a tiger, was exchanged for _Apanigehak_; _Peú_, a crocodile, for _Kaeprhak_, and _Kaáma_, Spaniards, for _Rikil_, because these words bore some resemblance to the names of Abipones lately deceased. Hence it is that our vocabularies are so full of blots occasioned by our having such frequent occasions to obliterate interdicted words, and insert new ones.”

GROUP VI.

DANAKIL AND NEGRO OF THE EASTERN COAST OF AFRICA (THE DANAKIL LIGHT-COLOURED); FROM THE PARTS BETWEEN THE ENTRANCE TO THE RED SEA AND THE HIGHLANDS OF SOUTHERN ABYSSINIA.

Attention is directed to the Danakil figures. They are African; but they are not negro. They are Africans from one of the very hottest parts. They are other than negro, nevertheless. Their hair is longer than the negro’s; their lips thinner; their colour lighter; their nose more aquiline. Travellers who have been struck by their appearance have called them _Caucasians_, by which they mean that they approach the European type. Others have compared them with the Arabs--others with the Jews; and this has led them further. The coasts of Arabia are not far off; so why should there not be Arab blood amongst them? This has more than once been assumed. The assumption, however, is unnecessary--nay, it is incorrect. The negro of the next group--the negro from the Delta of the Niger, the negro in his most extreme form--is not more truly indigenous and aboriginal to the soil of Africa than are these Danakil; who are not only Africans, in the strictest sense of the term, but also members of a large family, falling into divisions and subdivisions. So far are they from being exceptional, or in any respect peculiar.

The other members of this family are (_a_) the Somauli, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, about Cape Guardafui and (_b_) the Gallas, or Ilmorma, a pastoral people spread over a vast area to the south of Abyssinia, and who so encroach upon that country that they are in a fair way of reducing it altogether.

The Gallas, like the Danakil, and the Danakil, like the Somauli and Gallas, are a pastoral people--pastoral, locomotive, wild, and intractable--with manners that remind us of the Arab of Asia, the Kaffre of Southern Africa, or of the Berber of the Desert of Sahara; and it is these whom they resemble, more or less closely, in their forms--more or less closely in their social constitution. Like all such populations, they fall into numerous tribes, each under the influence of their chief; with the spirit of blood, or pedigree, running strong amongst them. Every man belongs to his tribe, or class, and is proud of being attached to it. Of the Danakil alone, more than fifty of these tribual divisions are known by name.

In respect to creed the Danakil are what the neighbourhood of Arabia leads us to expect, Mahometans, more or less incompletely converted; and this is the general rule for the eastern coast of Africa--the _coast_, but not the interior. In the interior we get amongst pagans. On the other hand, Abyssinia and some of the parts about it are Christian. Dr. Beke considered that he found traces of a corrupt and displaced Christianity among the Gallas.

The fact of the neighbourhood of Arabia having determined a large portion of the eastern coast of Africa to Mahometanism explains the meaning of the words _Kaffre_, and _Caffraria_, or _Kafferland_. _Kaffre_, in the mouth of an Arab, means _Infidel_. It means _Infidel_ not only in the mouth of an Arab, but in that of any Mahometan. In different languages it takes different forms, and is applied to different populations. In Persia it expressed the old _Fire-worshippers_, since _Guebre_ is but another form of it. In Cabul it denotes the occupants of a district to the north of Peshawur, wherein the natives still reject Mahometanism, and, so doing, are _Kafirs_, their country being _Kaferistan_. In Turkey it generally means a Christian--since _Giaour_ is neither more nor less than _Kafir_ in the mouth of a Turk.

But to return to Eastern Africa. Where the Arab influence ceases, the land of the _Kaffres_ begins.

Of these Kaffres more may be seen in group VII.

The black figure (modelled from life) is evidently more negro than aught else. The hair is crisp, to say the least of it, and the skin black; the open and patulous character of the nostrils, and their lateral position, claim attention. They are by no means exaggerated.

The youth from whom the figure was taken belonged to the Msegurra tribe; of which I can only state that it is an occupant of some part of the back of the coast of Zanzibar, or Mozambique.

The present group prepares us for a Kaffre; let it also prepare us for a negro one. That all Africans are not negroes may be seen from the figures before us. The negro form is by no means universal--not even in the hottest parts of Africa--not even between the tropics: it is only in the lower levels that the true negro is to be found. Look for him amongst the high pastures of the mountains, look for him even on the hot but arid plateaus of the desert, and you search in vain. Tribes with dark skins you may find, tribes with hair more or less wavy, or frizzly, tribes with features heavy, massive, and coarse--but the true and typical negro, with his short woolly hair, and his thick projecting lips you will not find. Wherever he is the occupant, the soil is alluvial, and the heat of the atmosphere is combined with moisture. Wherever the land gets high and dry, the inhabitant is brown rather than black, and long-haired rather than frizzly headed. His features, too, become more prominent.

GROUP VII.

NEGROES,--2. LIGHT-COLOURED. FROM THE LOWER NIGER.

In the Delta of the Niger we find the best opportunity for contrasting the negro with the European, the black man with the white; inasmuch as it is in the Delta of the Niger where the points wherein the African differs from the rest of the world are found in the most marked form. The climate is tropical (well nigh equatorial), the soil swampy and alluvial, the atmosphere surcharged with damp warm vapours. Under these conditions the negro is found in his most extreme form. Let us ask what it is. In the true and typical negro (the negro from whom the current notions of the black man are derived), over and above the colour of the skin, there is a woolly, cottony, or frizzy head of hair, there is a yellow tinge over the white of the eye (the sclerotica), and there are thick lips, with a projecting mouth--a muzzle rather than a mouth, in its more exaggerated form. This is because the teeth are set obliquely, _i. e._ they slant somewhat forward. Then there is the forehead, which is described as being narrow, and retiring, and receding, or sloping backwards. There is some exaggeration in this, though upon the whole the negro character is well marked; the hair, the skin, and the lips, being the chief points. To the notice of these it should be added that the nose is generally flat and depressed, with the nostrils _thrown out_, so to say, sideways. Rarely, very rarely indeed, is the bridge sufficiently curved to give what is called the _Roman_ or _aquiline_ nose; whilst it is almost as rare to find a Grecian one, _i. e._ one where the nasal bones are raised but straight. Then there is the proportion which the different parts of the face bear to each other. A [34]German writer of eminence as a naturalist, has lately been taking measurements from amongst the negroes of Brazil, and states that instead of the parts between the chin and nose (the nasal portion of the face), and the forehead forming a third, each, of the whole physiognomy, the forehead forms _less_ than a third, the nasal part more than the forehead, and the chin, &c. more than the nasal; in other words, the lower we go the greater the mass of the several parts of the face, and the nearer we approach the brain, the smaller. I can neither verify nor deny this statement.

[34] Burmeister--_The Black Man_, a pamphlet.

Other points, more or less characteristic, real or supposed, are to be found in the relations of the limbs to the trunk--the former being longer in proportion to the latter than is usual with Europeans.

It is more important, however, to investigate the amount of difference indicated by the difference of colour, and to do this we must look to the structure of the skin. The structure of the negro’s skin differs from that of the white man in degree only, the one containing much, the other but little colouring matter; this colouring matter being deposited in a particular layer, called the _mucous layer_, the _stratum Malpighii_, or the _rete mucosum_. The character of this _mucous layer_, or _rete mucosum_, is well given in the forthcoming plates, which, along with the description, is taken from [35]Kölliker’s Manual. It differs in some degree from the one which occurs in the ordinary works on Ethnology.

[35] Translated by Messrs. Busk and Huxley for the Sydenham Society.

The external integument of all men alike consists of the _cutis_ or true skin, and the _epidermis_, or scarf-skin, the latter consisting of cells only, the former of cells, vessels and nerves.

As far as the _cutis_ is concerned, the blackest and whitest of mankind are alike; so that it is in the scarf-skin or _epidermis_ that the difference lies. This consists of two layers, an external and an internal.

The internal layer is the _rete mucosum_. It lies immediately upon the true skin, and consists solely and wholly of cells, being equally destitute of vessels and nerves. Here begin the first discrepancies in the opinion of writers. Some deny that it belongs to the epidermis, looking upon it as a separate substantive tissue, neither skin nor scarf-skin, but intermediate to the two. Others find it only in the coloured families of mankind. It occurs, however, universally; being of a yellowish-white colour in Europeans, and dark brown or black in negroes, Indians, and the so-called dark races. Hence, the real difference is not in the existence of an additional tissue, but in a greater amount of colouring matter. Similar in respect to the two layers of their cutis, similar in respect to the two layers of their epidermis, the black man and the white differ in the extent to which the second layer of the scarf-skin is charged with a black deposit.

The accompanying figure represents a section through the skin and scarf-skin of the ball of the thumb; wherein _a_ is the outer layer of the epidermis; _b_, the inner, or _rete mucosum_; _c_, and _d_, the cutis; _e_, glands, ducts, &c.

The next gives us the epidermis only--_a_, being the outer; _b_, the inner layer (_rete mucosum_;) _c_, the cutis, to the outline of which the _rete mucosum_ adapts itself.

It is in the deepest parts of the inner layer, in the parts more immediately in contact with the true skin, that the most colouring matter is accumulated. Hence, the horny, or outer part of the epidermis is white or yellowish, all the world over. A blister, in popular language, _raises the skin_; in reality, it only raises the outer layer of the epidermis. Now blisters rise equally _white_ with the African and with the European.

It is not until after birth that the colouring matter of the second layer of the scarf-skin becomes deposited. A negro child is born of somewhat deeper red colour than an European, but he is not born black. The edges of the nails and the nipple of the breast darken first; the body having darkened by the third day, there or thereabouts.

As the hue of the skin attains its deepest tinge with the groupe before us, the structure that exhibits it has been enlarged upon.

What is the moral and social state of these negroes of the Delta of the Niger? what their habits, customs, and creeds?

We cannot follow the account of any observer for these parts, without discovering that, overpowering as is the heat, and swampy as is the ground, unfavourable, in one word, as are the conditions of soil and climate, the whole of the low country represented by the groupe before us teems with human life; neither is there the absence of human industry. We first hear of villages of from twenty to thirty, from thirty to forty, from fifty to seventy huts; to each of which we may give, upon an average, some six occupants. Then there are large towns like Iboh and Iddah, wherein the inhabitants are counted by the thousand; where there are regular market-days, and where there is a king with his court, such as it is. It is with these kings that the treaties have to be made against the slave-trade, these kings who, as in the late case at Lagos, have disputes as to the “succession”; these kings who give licenses to trade, and who make the access to the interior part of the country practicable or the contrary. There are kings and viceroys--viceroys with kings over them, so that there is a sort of feudal chain of vassalage and sovereignty. King Emmery, for instance, was, at the time of the Niger Expedition, the chief of a village on the river Nun, himself being a subject to King Boy of Brass Town. Then there is the kingdom of Iddah, with its subordinate kingships, whilst Kakanda and Egga are the dependencies of a really consolidated monarchy at Sakkatu.

At best, however, the African monarch, except in the Mahometan kingdoms, is but a sorry potentate; a drunken, sensual, slave-dealing polygamist. When Drs. McWilliam and Stanger visited this same King Emmery, his dress was a uniform coatee that had belonged to a drummer[36] in some English regiment, a plain black hat, and a blue cotton handkerchief for the lower man--a blue cotton handkerchief for drawers, trowsers and stockings, collectively; the dress of the ordinary natives being limited to a simple shirt, with a cloth round the middle. In this we get one of the measures of the amount of English influence and trade.

[36] A drummer’s uniform is a favourite dress elsewhere. In the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen, Professor Thompson can show no marriage-garment for a _male_ Esquimaux, although of female wedding-gear, and that a truly native and characteristic kind, he has abundance. But there are no male equivalents. The reason of this lies in the fact of a Danish Drummer’s dress having been left as a sort of general property to the community, to be lent or hired, as the case may be whenever a marriage ceremony takes place, to the utter obliteration of the old costume, and with a great disregard to fit.

The huts are of clay, arranged in squares rather than in rows, and when the soil is low and liable to be flooded, they are raised some feet from the ground on a foundation of wooden pillars, in which case a ladder leads to the principal opening. The King’s palace is an assemblage of such huts; a miniature town; one side of the square which they form being the “women’s quarters.” Here reside the numerous wives, half-wives, and ex-wives of the sovereign, the number of which is always considerable, since the rank of the man regulates it. The following table gives us, in the first column, the names of the different members of the Court of King Obi of Iboh in 1840; in the others, their age, and the numbers of their wives and families--

+----------------------------------+----+-----------+-----------+ | | | WIVES. | CHILDREN. | | | +-----+-----+-----+-----+ | | | Liv-| | Liv-| | | |Age.| ing.|Dead.| ing.|Dead.| | +----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ |1. Ajeh, king’s brother | 40 | 80 | 40 | un- | un- | | | | | | cer-| cer-| | | | | |tain.|tain.| |2. Amorara, judge and king’s mouth| 40 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 6 | |3. Ozama, headman | 35 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 6 | |4. Omenibo, headman | 32 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 6 | |5. Amebak, headman | 28 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 6 | |6. Magog, bugler | 34 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 3 | |7. Ambili, headman | 35 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 11 | |8. Ogrou, headman | 30 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |9. Obi, king | 44 | 110 | uncertain. | +----------------------------------+----+-----+-----------------+

Let us see something more of this female quarter, which, in the negro parts of Africa, presents a social scene, in the way of barbarism, which the harems of Asia--bad as they are--far fall short of. Obi’s establishment was seen to advantage; for his wives were amused at the faces and dresses of the Europeans who visited their lord and master, and they flocked in swarms to laugh at them. Their mirth then “brought[37] out about twenty damsels of more mature age, who were superannuated wives, permitted to live within the precincts of the palace.” What will be the ultimate fate of these old and young, active and superannuate? Even this--that when the king dies, they will be sacrificed to his manes.

[37] Dr. McWilliam--Medical History of the Niger Expedition.

This practice is common throughout the districts under notice. At Old Calabar, the south-eastern angle of the Delta, the death of a well-known chief or caboceer,[38] named Ephraim, caused the death of some hundreds of men, women, and children who were immolated at his burial--decapitation, burning alive, and the administration of the poison-nut, being the methods resorted to for terminating their existence.

[38] From the Portuguese _Cabocero--Captain_.

Again, when King Eyeo, father of the present Chief of Creek Town, died, an eyewitness, who had only arrived just after the completion of the funeral rites, informed me that a large pit had been dug, in which several of the deceased’s wives were bound and thrown in, until a certain number had been procured; the earth was then thrown over them, and so great was the agony of these victims, that the ground for several minutes was agitated with their convulsive throes. So fearful, in former times, was the observance of this barbarous custom, that many towns narrowly escaped depopulation.[39]

[39] Dr. Daniell on the Natives of Old Calabar, “Transactions of the Ethnological Society.”

The savage character of the negro warfare is on a level with such practices as these--the slave trade being the chief incentive to them. When these take place, and when the burial-place of a king is known to the enemy, they rifle his grave for his remains; and having obtained his scull, keep it as a trophy. For this reason the tombs of royalty are kept concealed.

But there is another peculiarity. In more than one part of the western coast, the woman serves as a soldier, or even as a captain. In Akkim, on the Gold Coast, the notice of a female _colonel_, when first made, excited as much incredulity as surprise. The fact, nevertheless, has been confirmed by respectable testimony, by Mr. Duncan, and Captain Forbes, more especially; inasmuch as in the kingdom of Dahomey, there is a whole regiment consisting exclusively of females--a large proportion being the ex-wives of the king. The following song, given on the authority of the last-named author, shows the temper and spirit of the unsexed Amazons:--

1.

“When Yoribah[40] said she could conquer Dahomey; When we meet we’ll change their night into day; Let the rain fall: The season past, the river dries. Yoribah and Dahomey! Can two rams drink from one calabash? The Yoribahs must have been drunk to say Dahomey feared them, They could conquer Dahomey.

2.

“There’s a difference between Gezo and a poor man; There’s a difference between Gezo and a rich man. If a rich man owned all, Gezo would still be king. All guns are not alike; Some are long, some short, some thick, some thin. The Yoribahs must be a drunken nation, And thus we will dance before them.

3.

“Gezo is king of kings! While Gezo lives we have nothing to fear. Under him we are lions, not men. Power emanates from the king.

4.

“Let all eyes behold the king! There are not two but one-- One only, Gezo! All nations have their customs, But none so brilliant or enlightened, As those of Dahomey. People from far countries are here: Behold all nations, white and black, Send their ambassadors.

AMAZONS’ CHORUS.

“With these guns in our hands, And powder in our cartouch-boxes, What has the king to fear? When we go to war, let the king dance, While we bring him prisoners and heads.

GENERAL CHORUS.

“Let the king grant war speedily! Do not let our energies be damped. Fire cannot pass through water. The king feeds us; When we go to war. Remember this! “We are clothed and fed by Gezo; In consequence, our hearts are glad.””

[40] A neighbouring kingdom on the East.

War and slavery engender each other; war leading to slavery, and slavery stimulating to war. And slavery takes three forms, all bad--bad, but one worse than the other two. This is the slavery of the _traders_. An expedition is undertaken against some neighbouring tribe, weak enough, or unprepared enough, to divest the attack of half its danger. Captives are taken, driven to the coast in groups, shut up in barracoons, and then sold for transportation to the new world. It is this form of slavery that engenders the miseries and atrocities of the middle passage.

The second form is that of simple domestic servitude, wherein the slave, although under constant compulsion, forms a part of his master’s family, and is ensured against removal from his native soil.

The third is like that of the _Nexi_ of ancient Rome, and occurs when a negro, in order to raise a particular sum of money, sells himself as a labourer for a certain period--pawns his body, so to say, or borrows money on himself.

The administration of justice is on the same low level as the other institutions; the punishments being cruel, and the rules of evidence barbarous.[41] Two methods, as may be expected, predominate, the ordeal and the torture. The commonest form of the latter is “what is called tying Guinea-fashion. In this the arms are closely drawn together behind the back, by means of a cord tied tightly round them, about midway between the elbows and shoulders. A piece of wood to act as a rack having been previously introduced, is then used so as to tighten the cord, and so intense is the agony, that one application is generally sufficient to occasion the wretch so tortured to confess to anything that is required of him.”

[41] From the United Service Journal, November, 1850.

Another form consists in “tying the head and hands, in such a way that by turning the body backwards, they may be drawn together by the cords employed. Another is securing the wrist or ankle to a block of wood by an iron staple. By means of a hammer any degree of pressure may thus be applied.”

The chief form of ordeal is, what is called on the Gold Coast, the _dhoom_ test, but which appears and reappears all along the intertropical parts of Western Africa. The _dhoom_ is a kind of wood with poisonous and emetic properties. The innocent man drinks and ejects it: the guilty one drinks and dies. In Old Calabar the seeds of an aquatic legume replace the _dhoom_ wood. Unless emetic, they are poisonous.

Partaking of the nature of the ordeal, as a means of investigation in criminal matters, is the application to priest, sorcerer, medicine-man, or _Fetish_-man; but as the principles of belief that this practice involves one illustrated in the Zulu group, we only make a passing allusion to it. The notice, too, of the festivals as connected with religion, will similarly stand over.

What applies to one of the negro populations of the western coast, applies, more or less, to all. There are, of course, differences, nevertheless the general character of the social and political institutions, of their habits and superstitions, is alike; so that the description of one tribe is the description of several others besides; the chief distinctions consist in the creeds. I do not mean by this that the particular form of the native and indigenous superstition is of much importance. They are all low and debasing, and even when an African form of faith aspires to the character of a mythology, it is a mythology of an unpoetical, unimaginative, and poverty-stricken character, never indicating much play of feeling, never any vigour or activity of imagination, never inspiring either art or poetry. Of such things we must not think here.

The difference I allude to, and which is one of practical and of ever increasing importance, is that between the Pagan and the Mahometan population, between those which hold to their original Fetishism, to their snake-worship and the like, and those who, having adopted the creed of Islam, are (whatever else they may be) at least, Monotheists.

The Mahometans of the African states must always be separated from the Pagans.

The negro districts of the western coast begin with the country of the _Wolofs_ or _Jolofs_, as far north as the southern border of the Desert, and the lower course of the river Senegal. There are no better-shaped negroes than these same _Wolofs_, for they are tall, well-made, active, and intelligent men; Pagans, however, according to their original creed, rather than Mahometans.

The _Sereres_ of Cape Verde, and the _Scrawoolli_ in the interior, are in the same predicament.

The _Mandingoes_, like the Wolofs, are negroes but not Pagans. They are amongst the first and foremost of the Mahometan negroes: but this applies only to the Mandingoes in the limited sense of the term--the Mandingoes of the Gambia. In the wider sense of the word, the great Mandingo class comprises more than twenty different populations, some of which are as Pagan as the most grovelling snake-worshippers of Dahomey.

Then come the tribes of the islands between the Gambia and Sierra Leone; as also of the lower part of the rivers Grande, Nuñez, Casamanca, &c. Under the names of _Felups_, _Papels_, _Nalus_, _Sapis_, _&c._, and we have some of the rudest, but at the same time, the least known of the western negroes.

Between Sierra Leone and Cape Palmas, along with several populations more or less akin to the Mandingo, lie the _Krumen_, whom a writer already quoted, calls the Scotchmen of Africa. The Kruman leaves without hesitation or reluctance his own country to push his fortune wherever he can find a wider field. He is ready for any employment which may enable him to increase his means, and ensure a return home in a state of improved prosperity. There the Kruman’s ambition is to purchase one or two head of cattle, and one or two head of wives, and to enjoy the luxuries of rum and tobacco. Half the Africans that we see in Liverpool and London are Krumen, who have left their own country when young, and taken employment on board a ship, where they exhibit a natural aptitude for the sea. Without being nice as to the destination of the vessel in which they engage, they return home as soon as they can; and rarely or never contract matrimony before their return. In Cape Coast Town, as well as in Sierra Leone, they form a bachelor community quiet and orderly; and in that respect stand in strong contrast to the other tribes, around them. Besides which, with all their blackness, and all their typical negro character, they are distinguishable from most other western Africans; having the advantage of them in make, features, and industry. Hence, a Kruman is preëminently the _free labourer_ of Africa; quick of perception and amenable to instruction. His language is the _Grebo_ tongue, and it has been reduced to writing by the American missionaries of Cape Palmas.

The Gold Coast gives as the chief populations the _Fantis_, and the _Ashantis_, pagan and negro; the latter remarkable for the consolidation of one of the more powerful kingdoms of Africa.

In _Dahomey_ we reach the _nadir_ of Negro rudeness; in Dahomey, where the wars are the cruelest, the slave trade the most rife, and the heathenism, at one and the same time eminently debasing in itself, and eminently unmodified by Mahometanism.

In the neighbouring kingdom of _Yoruba_, this is not so much the case, where the influence of the Fellatas has made itself felt.

This brings us to the Delta of the Niger, the chief population of which is the _Ibo_.

South of the Delta come the negroes of the Gaboon, and south of these those of Loango, Angola, and Benguela. Between this last-named country and Walvisch Bay, the type changes to that of the browner-coloured Caffres, and the Hottentots. The _language_ changed long before--in the parts between the Gaboon and the old Calabar rivers.

I do not profess that scientific imperturbability which enables me to write about such abominations as human sacrifice, and such follies as snake-worship, without branding them and the nations that adopt them as barbarous. They belong, however, to the darker side of the picture. The brighter gives us something better; warmth of domestic feeling, aptitude for such commercial dealings as their circumstances develop, adaptation to the habits of the European, susceptibility to the ameliorating influences both of Mahometanism and Christianity, are all negro characteristics.

We have noticed the character of the Kruman, we will now notice a negro tribe wherein an _alphabet_ has been evolved. A man of the _Vey_ country, to the back of Liberia, a truly negro locality, named Doala Bakara, having seen both Arabic and English books, conceived the idea of producing an alphabet for his own tongue. This idea, as he tells the story himself, haunted him in a dream, wherein he was shown a series of signs of letters. These he forgot in the morning; but remembered the impression. So he consulted his friends; and they and he, laying their heads together, coined new ones. The king of the country made its introduction a matter of state, and built a large house as a day-school. The effect of this has been, that a book in the Vey tongue has been deciphered by an English scholar, and that several Vey natives, of both sexes can read and write. The alphabet itself is a _syllabarium_; _i.e._ there is a separate sign or letter, for the different _syllables_ of which a word consists--not for the different elementary sounds.

The darker individuals of the group before us have furnished a text upon which a general sketch of the negro population of Western Africa has been the commentary. Let us now turn to the men of the lighter complexion, and the less prominent lips. They are _Fellatas_, _Fellatahs_, or _Falatiya_. Sometimes they are called _Fellatiya Arabs_; but they have nothing to do with the Arab of Arabia except so far as they are Mahometans in creed, and somewhat light-complexioned in respect to their colour.

The metropolis of the Fellatas is Sakkatu, visited by Clapperton, from whom the following remarkable history is taken:--Towards the end of the last century a vast number of wandering pastoral tribes spread over that part of Central Africa, which is called _Sudania_--underwent a change in respect to the social and political organisation, which Prichard compares with that of the Arabs at the time of Mahomet. Many--but not all--of them embraced Mahometanism, and that with more than ordinary zeal and devotion. They visited the more civilised parts of Barbary, they performed pilgrimages to Mecca, they recognised in one of their sheiks, called Danfodio, a prophet with a mission, to preach, to convert, to conquer. Under his inspiration they attacked the pagan population of the countries around--Guber to the north, and Kubbi to the south, Zamfra, Kashna, and parts of the Houssa country to the east. Their war-cry was _Allah Akbar_; their robes and flags white, emblematic of their purity. Kano was conquered without a blow, so was Yaouri, so was the town of Eyo or Katunga on the Niger, so was part of the Nufi or Tapua country--even the frontier of Bornou was violated.

Danfodio’s death, which took place in 1818, was preceded by fits of religious madness; not, however, before he had consolidated a great Fellatah kingdom, and become the terror to the states around. It was in vain that a portion of his conquests revolted. The present Sultan of Sakkatu, Mohammed Bello, is the most powerful prince of Africa, whether pagan or Mahometan.

Most of these Fellatas are Mahometans, some retaining their original paganism; but whether pagan or Mahometan, they are still the same people. Their features are the same, their pastoral habits the same, their language the same. This is one of the most isolated tongues of Africa; with plenty of miscellaneous, but no very definite or special affinities.

In _Borgho_, _i. e._ in the parts about Boussa, and Wawa, visited by Lander, there are two populations, one speaking a language akin to the _Yoruba_, one akin to the Fellatah; so that there Fellata offsets in Borgho. But here, according to Lander, they have been in the country from time immemorial. Here, too, they hold themselves as a separate people from the Fellatas of Sakkatu, dominant and powerful as that branch is, and respectable as would be the connexion. Such, at least, is Lander’s statement. Their name, too, undergoes a slight modification, and is _Filani_. They have neither idea nor tradition as to the origin--not at least the _Filani_ of Borgho.

All this looks as if Borgho were the original country of the Fellata stock, the starting-point from which they spread themselves abroad, If so, their movement must have been from south to north.

But we have yet to hear the whole of their history. Under the names of _Fula_, _Fulahs_, _Foule_ or _Peule_, they appear elsewhere. Where?--As far north as the Wolof (or Jolof) country--as far north as the parts between the Senegal and the desert--as far north as 17 N. L. Here between Galam and Kayor is a vast Fula district--the district of the Fulas of the Siratik. There on the south bank of the river lie the Fulas of Foutatorro, an elevated tract of land forming the watershed to the Senegal and the Gambia.

Thirdly, far in the interior, on the high ground over which Park passed from the drainage of the Senegal to that of the Niger, is a Fula-_du_, or country of the Fulas, between Bambuk and Bambarra.

Fourthly, there are the Fulas to the south of Bammakoo, in the parts called Wasselah, on the Niger itself.

Fifthly, in 11 N. L., on the head-water of the Rio Grande, is the large kingdom of the Fouta-jallo Fulahs, of which Timbu is the metropolis, surrounded by dry and rocky deserts, and exposed mountain pastures, prolific with sheep, oxen, goats, and horses. Here, although the use of the plough is unknown, the occupants cultivate the soil, and exercise more than one of the mechanical arts. They forge iron and silver, weave, and tan, and support schools and mosques. To the south lies the Sulimana tribe, more or less akin to the Mandingoes. From these, Laing learnt, that the acquisition of the country about Tembu by the Fulas of Futa-jallo was an event of no great antiquity, having taken place about A.D. 1700.

There are other Fula, Fellata, and Filani localities, but an enumeration of the foregoing has been sufficient. It shows the vast space of ground covered by the population so-called. It shows, too, the difficulty of ascertaining the original mother country. Indeed, upon the whole, this is a point upon which good writers are satisfied to suspend their judgment--no one having committed himself very decidedly to a preference for one district over another.

The main facts lie in the superiority of their organisation over the ordinary negro, and their higher civilisation--this being chiefly due to their Mahometanism. There is no doubt as to either. Although, the particular shade of the particular colour which best suits the Fula is not a matter upon which authors write with unanimity; the testimony of all observers goes to the fact that, whether Filani or Fellata, Fellata or Fula, whether pagan or Mahometan, whether Sudanian or Senegambian, whether mountaineer or desert-born, the Fula is something different from the typical Negro. Sometimes his complexion is intermediate to that of the African and the Moor; sometimes he is described as being tawny, with soft hair, and lips by no means prominent: sometimes the skin is of a reddish-black, the countenances being regular. “The tribe of Fulas,” writes Golberry, “which under the name of Foules or Peuls, have peopled the borders of the Senegal between Podhon and Galam, are black with a tinge of red or copper colour; they are in general handsome and well-made; the women are handsome, but proud and indolent.”

To the Fula-jallo Fulas the very definite and suggestive term “Red Peuls” has been applied; to which the name “Black Peuls” stands in opposition, this meaning the Fulas of the north bank of the lower Senegal.

What is our inference from these discrepancies of description--what our inference from the points of agreement? Even this[42]--that the Fula complexion varies with the physical conditions of the Fula locality. In the high and exposed tracts of Fula-jallo it is the least, in the lower levels of the parts about lake Kayor, it is most like that of the negro.

[42] For further details, see Prichard, _Researches, &c._, vol. ii. pp. 66-73, and 121-125.

GROUP VIII.

SOUTHERN AFRICA.--NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE CAPE.--PORT NATAL.

A. ZULUS. (THE TALLER AND DARKER.) B. BUSHMEN. (THE SHORTER AND BROWNER.)

A. The Zulu group is taken from life--from the men lately exhibited at St. George’s Hall. The story told is the search for some lost article. When this is the case, a _Fetish-man_, _medium-man_, _mystery-man_, or _conjuror_ (we may choose our name), is called in, and set upon the suspected parties, who sit round in a circle. The conjuror then works himself, like the Pythoness of the old oracles, into a state of rabid excitement, and keeps it up until he fixes upon the culprit.

Nothing is less peculiar than this practice throughout Africa--throughout, indeed, most savage countries; nor is it without its value. Writing about the same practice on the Gold Coast, an author already quoted, after stating the “superstitious rites employed by the Fetish-men for the detection of crime,” adds, “and whether it is that these people really possess such powerful influence over their wretched dupes, as to frighten into confession of his guilt the perpetrator of crime, or whether it is that they manage by their numerous spies to obtain a clue sufficient in most cases to lead to the detection of the person, is more than I can venture to assert; but, be the means employed what they may, a Fetish-man will assuredly very often bring a crime home to the right person, even after the most patient investigation in the ordinary way has failed to elicit the slightest clue.”

The Zulus come from the part about Port Natal. They are closely allied, in language, at least, to the Kaffres--the Kaffres of the Amakosa, Amaponda, Amatembu, and other tribes, but too well known to the Cape Colonist and the English tax-payer.

They are similarly allied to the Bechuana tribes of the interior. The Bechuanas, however, are browner in colour, as is expected from their locality, which is high and dry.

The Fingoes are also an allied population.

The differences between the Proper Kaffres, the Bechuanas, the Fingoes, and the Zulus, lie within a small compass, so that the general likeness is pretty clear. But neither the differences nor the likenesses between the populations akin to the Kaffres end here.

The word (the derivation of which has been given elsewhere) has two meanings. It means, in its more limited sense, the Kaffres of Caffraria, chiefly of the Amakosa tribe, the men who have given so much trouble to the colonists. But it also has a wider or more general signification, and in this case it serves as the designation of a large family of allied populations--and a very large family--one of the largest in Africa.

The connecting link between its numerous branches is the language, of which the structure has (amongst others) the following characteristic peculiarities. Suppose that in English, instead of saying

_M_an’s _d_og, we said _d_an _d_og, _S_un’s _b_eam--_b_un _b_eam, _F_ather’s _d_aughter--_d_ather _d_aughter, _D_aughter’s father--_f_aughter _f_ather;

in such a case we should accommodate the sound of the word in the possessive case to that with which the word in the nominative case began. And if we did this, we should assuredly do something very remarkable in the way of speech. Now the Kaffre tongues _all_ do this. It is done by the Amakosa, the Zulu, the Fingo, the Bechuana. It is done by the languages on the _western_ coast as far as the Cameroons, _i.e._, to the north of the equator--by the languages of Benguela, Angola, Congo, Loango, and the Gaboon, &c. It is done by the languages on the _eastern_ coast as well; indeed, it was very probably done by the language of the Moegurras. It is done, so far as we know, by all the languages of the interior south of the equator--save and except those of the Hottentot class. It is certainly done by the languages of the Great Lake Ngami.

The Kaffre division, then, is a large one; and it is based, chiefly, on similarity of language. In physical form, the range of difference is great. Some of the Kaffres are truly negro, others brown in colour, and with lips of moderate thickness. The Zulus before us certainly approach the negro.

On the other hand, more than one good writer has enlarged upon the points of contrast; and such there certainly are, if we take the more extreme forms--the typical Kaffre and typical Negro. In the latter, for instance, the skin (as aforesaid) may be brown rather than black. Then the cheek-bones may project outwards; and where the cheek-bones so project beyond a certain limit, the chin appears to taper downwards, and the vertex upwards. When this becomes exaggerated, we hear of _lozenge-shaped_ skulls. Be this as it may, the breadth in the malar portion of the face is often a remarkable feature in the Kaffre physiognomy. This he has in common with the Hottentot. Sometimes, too, the eye is oblique; the opening generally narrow.

An opinion often gives a better picture than a description. Kaffres, that have receded in the greatest degree from the negro type, have been so likened to the more southern Arabs, as to have engendered the hypothesis of an infusion of Arab blood.

The manners of the Kaffres of the Cape are those of pastoral tribes under chieftains; tribes which, from their habits and social relations, are naturally active, locomotive, warlike, and jealous of encroachment.

It would be strange indeed if the Kaffre life and Kaffre physiognomy had no peculiarities. However little in the way of physical influence we may attribute to the geography of a country, no man ignores them altogether. Now Kaffreland has very nearly a latitude of its own; inhabited lands similarly related to the southern tropic being found in South America and Australia only. And it has a soil still more exclusively South-African. We connect the idea of the _desert_ with that of sand; whilst _steppe_ is a term which is limited to the vast tracts of central Asia. Now the Kaffre, and still more the Hottentot, area, dry like the desert, and elevated like the steppe, is called a _karro_. Its soil is often a hard, cracked, and parched clay rather than a waste of sand, and it constitutes an argillaceous table-land.

Their polity and manners, too, are peculiar. The head-man of the village settles disputes, his tribunal being in the open air. From him an appeal lies to a chief of higher power; and from him to some superior, higher still. In this way there is a long chain of feudal or semi-feudal dependency.

The wife is the slave to the husband; and he _buys_ her in order that she should be so. The purchase implies a seller. This is always a member of another tribe. Hence the wish of a Kaffre is to see his wife the mother of many children, girls being more valuable than boys.

Why a man should not sell his offspring to the members of his own tribe is uncertain. It is clear, however, that the practice of doing so makes marriage between even distant relations next to impossible. To guard against the chances of this, a rigid and suspicious system of restraint has been developed in cases of consanguinity; and relations must do all they can to avoid meeting. To sit in the same room, to meet on the same road, is undesirable. To converse is but just allowable, and then all who choose must hear what is said. So thorough, however, has been the isolation in many cases, that persons of different sexes have lived as near neighbours for many years without having conversed with each other; and such communication as there has been, has taken place through the medium of a third person. No gift will induce a Kaffre female to violate this law.

B. The Bushmen, too, are taken from life, the two children being in England at the present time.

Just as the Zulu belongs to the Kaffre, the Bushman belongs to the Hottentot family--the latter family being a large one; not so large, however, as the former. The present Hottentot districts, wholly surrounded by the Kaffre, lie on the _western_ rather than _eastern_ side of South Africa, and extend from the parts about Valvisch Bay to the Cape; the original population of the last-named locality having become well-nigh extinct.

How has this extinction been effected? In two ways. By the European settlers of the colony---Dutch and English, English and Dutch; by the Kaffres, who have ever spread southwards. Before these encroachments had taken effect, there were Hottentot tribes on the eastern as well as the _western_ coast, on _both_ sides of South Africa. Now there are none, either on the side of the Pacific, or in the parts about the Cape itself--except (of course) so far as they are mixed up with the colonial population.

The names (all or some) of the extinct branches of the Hottentot family are as follows:--

1. Gunyeman, nearest the Cape.

2. Kokha_qua_, north of the Gunyeman.

3. Sussa_qua_, Saldanha Bay.

4. Odi_qua_.

5. Khirigri_quas_, on Elephants’ River.

6. Koopmans.

7. Hessa_quas_.

8. Son_quas_, east of the Cape.

9. Dun_quas_.

10. Dama_quas_.

11. Guari_quas_.

12. Honteni_quas_.

13. Khantouers.

14. Heykoms, as far on the north-east as Natal. Now replaced by Amakosah Kaffres.

The chief divisions still existing are the _Gonaquas_, the _Koranas_, the _Namaquas_ (between Valvisch Bay and the Orange River), the _Soun Darmup_, of the Dammara Country (to the back of Valvisch Bay), and the _Saabs_, or Bushmen.

The Koranas are the best-shaped and best-looking of the Hottentots; the Bushmen the worst. The latter, indeed, are the starvelings of the family. They belong to the most miserable part of the _Karroo_, and they have neither flocks nor herds.

The Laplander of Lapland is not more strongly contrasted with his strong and sturdy neighbour of the Duchy of Finland than are the Korana and the Saab. The former are well-grown men, though of the Hottentot family. The Saabs are described as having constitutions “so much enfeebled by the dissolute life they lead, and the constant smoking of _dacha_, that nearly all, including the young people, look old and wrinkled; nevertheless, they are remarkable for vanity, and decorate their ears, legs, and arms with beads, and iron, copper, or brass rings. The women likewise stain their faces red, or paint them, either wholly or in part. Their clothing consists of a few sheepskins, which hang about their bodies, and thus form the mantle or covering, commonly called a _kaross_. This is their only clothing by day or night. The men wear old hats, which they obtain from the farmers, or else caps of their own manufacture. The women wear caps of skins, which they stiffen and finish with a high peak, and adorn with beads and metal rings. The dwelling of the Bushman is either a low wretched hut, or a circular cavity, on the open plain, into which, at night, he creeps with his wife and children, and which, though it shelters him from the wind, leaves him exposed to the rain. In this neighbourhood, in which rocks abound, they had formerly their habitations in them, as is proved by the many rude figures of oxen, horses, serpents, &c. still existing. It is not a little interesting to see these poor degraded people, who formerly were considered and treated as little better than wild beasts in their rocky retreats. Many of those who have forsaken us live in such cavities not far from our settlement, and we have thus an opportunity of observing them in their natural condition. Several who, when they came to us from the farmers, were decently clothed and possessed a flock of sheep, which they had earned, in a short time returned to their fastnesses in a state of nakedness and indigence, rejoicing that they had got free from the farmers, and could live as they pleased in the indulgence of their sensual appetites. Such fugitives from civilised life, I have never seen otherwise occupied than with their bows and arrows. The bows are small, but made of good elastic wood; the arrows are formed of small reeds, the points furnished with a well-wrought piece of bone, and a double barb, which is steeped in a potent poison of a resiny appearance. This poison is distilled from the leaves of an indigenous tree. Many prefer these arrows to fire-arms, under the idea that they can kill more game by means of a weapon that makes no report. On their return from the chase, they feast till they are tired and drowsy, and hunger alone rouses them to renewed exertion. In seasons of scarcity they devour all kinds of wild roots, ants, ants’ eggs, locusts, snakes, and even roasted skins. Three women of this singular tribe were not long since met with, several days’ journey from this place, who had forsaken their husbands, and lived very contentedly on wild honey and locusts. As enemies, the Bushmen are not to be despised. They are adepts in stealing cattle and sheep; and the wounds they inflict when pursued, are ordinarily fatal if the wounded part is not immediately cut out. The animals they are unable to carry off, they kill or mutilate.

“To our great comfort, even some of these poor outcasts have shown eagerness to become acquainted with the way of salvation. The children of such as are inhabitants of the settlement, attend the school diligently, and of them we have the best hopes.

“The language of the Bushman has not one pleasing feature; it seems to consist of a collection of snapping, hissing, grunting, sounds, all more or less nasal. It is this language that shows that the Saab and Hottentot belong to the same family.”

We now move to the parts on the _left_ of the entrance, and begin with the parts opposite the Zulus and Bushmen. These give us the southern parts of South America--not, however, the extreme south.

GROUP IX.

BOTOCUDOS AND PAMPA GIRL.

The word _Botocudo_ means _plugged_; and it belongs to the Portuguese language. It is applied by the Brazilians to the populations of this group, from the fact of their perforating their lips and ears, and inserting pieces of wood in the openings. In their quarrels, these are torn out, and shreds of the lip or ear to which they belong left hanging. One of these quarrels described and sketched in the Travels of Prince Maximilian of Neuwied, is here represented, the faces being taken from casts in the possession of Professor Retzius, and the drawings in the Travels of Spix and Von Martius. The native name--the name by which the Botocudos designate themselves--is _Engraecknung_.

Their country lies to the north of Rio Janiero--between eighteen and twenty degrees N.L. It never touches the sea-coast now, whatever it may have once done. On the contrary, it lies inland, and is limited to the mountain-range called _Tierra dos Aymores_; wherein lie the sources of the rivers Doce and Pardo.

On each of these we find Botocudos; those of the latter having been induced to abandon, along with some of their more barbarous habits, their inveterate hostility to the Portuguese. The other still retain their original and notorious barbarism. They have ceased, however, to be formidable; though, in the sixteenth century, they carried on a destructive warfare against the settlers in the Government of Porto Seguro. They have the credit of being cannibals.

The language is peculiar, and different from the other Indians of the same range. Of these the Machacaris, the Patachos, the Camacans, the Malali, are the chief.

The girl in the bullock’s hide is one of the Pampa Indians; the face being taken from a cast of Professor Retzius.

The Pampas are vast plains to the south of the Rio Plata, destitute of trees, free from hills, and without rivers. They are traversed by innumerable herds of oxen and horses, in every stage of domestication or of wildness. The Indians, whose habits are determined by these physical conditions of the soil, are rude, ferocious, and independent; hardy even for Indians; and very Centaurs for their skill in horsemanship. They range over the whole district between the frontier of Buenos Ayres and the western foot of the Andes of Chili.

GROUP X.

INDIANS OF THE AMAZONS.

The tribes of so vast a river as the Amazons are numerous, even if we go no further than the main stream--much more so if we look to those on its feeders.

At the same time they are fragmentary, and most imperfectly known. Neither are they free from intermixture--Spanish intermixture on the western, and Portuguese on the eastern.

All the tribes, however, illustrated by the figures before us, belong to Brazil, _i.e._, to _Portuguese_ America.

Their history is that of aborigines in general; there is their period of independence, their period of oppression, their period of mitigated persecution--of reaction.

Let us look at the history of the parts about the rivers Negro and Madeira--the one joining the Amazons from the north, the others from the south.

In 1671, a company of soldiers was stationed to protect the Portuguese trade, and the foundation of the Villa da Barra de Rio Negro was laid by Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho. This was the area of the Juripixunas, or Juruuna--Indians--the _Blackfaces_, so called because they tattooed themselves black. These also were numerous, and not intractable; handy with their canoes, and active on the water. As many as 1000 at a time found their way to the slave-market at Pera. Sometimes they were stolen without the disguise of a quarrel--stolen, because the man-stealer was the stronger. But, at times, there was a clever piece of villany put in practice. The slave-hunter would get a cross, the symbol of his religion, lay it somewhere in the track of the Indians, look for it some days afterwards, miss it, and then make a charge of sacrilege against the Indians of the locality. Out of practices like these rose regular slave-hunting settlements, with barracoons, after the fashion of the negro slave-trade. There was the usual practice, with the usual incentives, the usual organisation, the usual wars to follow, violence, unscrupulousness, cruelty, blood. The enemy to the Indian was the trader; his best friend the priest.

When King John IV., in 1652, wished to enact a favourable code for the aborigines, the governors of Maranham and Para instigated the population of their respective governments to uproarious manifestations.

In A.D. 1661, the Jesuits were expelled; in A.D. 1679 reinstated. The interval was a time of sorrow to the Indians; the restoration a time of joy. The establishment of missions now began.

A settlement or village, _Aldea_, was founded in some favourable situation, and the Indians of the neighbourhood induced to put themselves under the tutelage of the resident and directorial father. They were then taught to cultivate the soil or to weave--taught as children, and, when the temper was not that of the wilder and more independent tribes, this training answered. They were also instructed in the Christian creed, the medium being the Tupi language. Their own dialects were numerous--too numerous to make the cultivation of them in detail practicable; and in each _aldea_ the variety of such dialects was considerable, each being spoken by but a few individuals. To learn a difficult language for the sake of so few, was an unnecessary expenditure of time for the Jesuits; whilst Portuguese was a difficult language for the Indians. The surer plan, then, of taking the most prevalent Indian tongue and making it into a kind of common medium, a lingua franca, was devised. This prevalent tongue was the Tupi, and the name it took was the Portuguese one of _Lingoa Geral_--_general language_. Until A.D. 1757, the _Lingoa Geral_ was used in the law-courts of Gram Parà. This state of things lasted till A.D. 1759, when the Jesuits were expelled; from Parà and Maranham as many as 112.

In 1718, the number of _aldeas_ was as follows:--

Jesuits 19 Capuchins 15 Carmelites 5

Officers called Directors took the places of the Jesuits. In many respects their orders were those of their predecessors. They were to teach and convert; but they were also to get some work out of the Indians in the way of public service, _e. g._, in the arsenals as pilots, as a kind of police in the case of Indian warfare and bush-ranging. And beside these points of difference, the Tupi, or _Lingoa Geral_, was to be replaced by the Portuguese. In the localities where the intercourse with the whites was important, judges were appointed to settle disputes. Kidnapping however continued, and things went ill with the Indians until the separation of Brazil from Portugal; and they have gone ill since. The Indians and the negroes form the lowest part of the not elevated population of Parà, the half-blood between them (the Indians) and the whites being called Cafusos. Both the Cafusos and the full-blooded Indians are free, but they are not flourishing. They drink and live lives of idleness. They live, in short, much as all the coloured races when the whites are in contact with them.

This prepares us for the necessity of seeking the Indian in his unmodified state on the feeders of the Amazons, rather than the main stream. Mr. Wallace has described those of the Uaupés--which falls into the Rio Negro from the west, and lie just under the equator.

He remarks upon the extent to which they are a truly unsophisticated population, and also upon the extent to which they differ from the Indians lower down, _i.e._, between Barra and Para, the junction of the Rio Negro and Amazons, and the mouth of that latter river. His description (founded on personal observation) is one of the best we have. I quote it freely:--“All the tribes of the Uaupés,” he writes, “construct their dwellings after one plan, which is peculiar to them. Their houses are the abode of numerous families, sometimes of a whole tribe. The plan is a parallelogram, with a semicircle at one end. The dimensions of one at Jauarité were one hundred and fifteen feet in length, by seventy-five broad, and about thirty high. This house would hold about a dozen families, consisting of near a hundred individuals. In times of feasts and dances, three or four hundred are accommodated in them. The roof is supported on fine cylindrical columns, formed of the trunks of trees, and beautifully straight and smooth. In the centre a clear opening is left, twenty feet wide, and on the sides are little partitions of palm-leaf thatch, dividing off rooms for the separate families: here are kept the private household utensils, weapons, and ornaments; while the rest of the space contains, on each side, the large ovens and gigantic pans for making caxirí, and, in the centre, a place for the children to play, and for their dances to take place. These houses are built with much labour and skill; the main supporters, beams, rafters, and other parts, are straight, well proportioned to the strength required, and bound together with split creepers, in a manner that a sailor would admire. The thatch is of the leaf of some one of the numerous palms so well adapted to the purpose, and is laid on with great compactness and regularity. The walls, which are very low, are formed also of palm thatch, but so thick and so well bound together, that neither arrow nor bullet will penetrate it. At the gable-end is a large doorway, about six feet wide and eight or ten high: the door is a large palm-mat, hung from the top, supported by a pole during the day, and let down at night. At the semicircular end is a smaller door, which is the private entrance of the Tushaúa, or chief, to whom this part of the house exclusively belongs. The lower part of the gable-end, on each side of the entrance, is covered with the thick bark of a tree unrolled, and standing vertically. Above this is a loose hanging of palm-leaves, between the fissures of which the smoke from the numerous fires within finds an exit. In some cases this gable-end is much ornamented with symmetrical figures painted in colours.

“The furniture consists principally of maqueiras, or hammocks, made of string, twisted from the fibres of the leaves of the _Mauritia flexuosa_: they are merely an open network of parallel threads, crossed by others at intervals of a foot; the loops at each end have a cord passed through them, by which they are hung up. The Uaupés make great quantities of string of this and other fibres, twisting it on their breasts or thighs, with great rapidity.

“They have always in their houses a large supply of earthen pots, pans, pitchers, and cooking utensils, of various sizes, which they make of clay from the river and brooks, mixed with the ashes of the caripé bark, and baked in a temporary furnace. They have also great quantities of small saucer-shaped baskets, called ‘Balaios,’ which are much esteemed down the river, and are the subject of a considerable trade.

“Two tribes in the lower part of the river, the Tariános and Tucános, make a curious little stool, cut out of a solid block of wood, and neatly painted and varnished; these, which take many days to finish, are sold for about a pennyworth of fish-hooks.

“Their canoes are all made out of a single tree, hollowed and forced open by the cross-benches; they are very thick in the middle, to resist the wear and tear they are exposed to among the rocks and rapids; they are often forty feet long, but smaller ones are generally preferred. The paddles are about three feet long, with an oval blade, and are each cut out of one piece of wood.

“These people are as free from the encumbrances of dress as it is possible to conceive. The men wear only a small piece of tururf passed between the legs, and twisted on to a string round the loins. Even such a costume as this is dispensed with by the women: they have no dress or covering whatever, but are entirely naked. This is the universal custom among the Uaupés Indians, from which, in a state of nature, they never depart. Paint, with these people, seems to be looked upon as a sufficient clothing; they are never without it on some parts of their bodies, but it is at their festivals that they exhibit all their art in thus decorating their persons: the colours they use are red, yellow, and black, and they dispose them generally in regular patterns, similar to those with which they ornament their stools, their canoes, and other articles of furniture.

“They pour the juice of a tree, which stains a deep blue-black, on their heads, and let it run in streams all down their backs; and the red and yellow are often disposed in large round spots upon the cheeks and forehead.

“The use of ornaments and trinkets of various kinds is almost confined to the men. The women wear a bracelet on the wrists, but none on the neck, and no comb in the hair; they have a garter below the knee, worn tight from infancy, for the purpose of swelling out the calf, which they consider a great beauty. While dancing in their festivals, the women wear a small tanga, or apron, made of beads, prettily arranged: it is only about six inches square, but is never worn at any other time, and immediately the dance is over, it is taken off.

“The men, on the other hand, have the hair carefully parted and combed on each side, and tied in a queue behind. In the young men, it hangs in long locks down their necks, and, with the comb, which is invariably carried stuck in the top of the head, gives to them a most feminine appearance: this is increased by the large necklaces and bracelets of beads, and the careful extirpation of every symptom of beard. Taking these circumstances into consideration, I am strongly of opinion that the story of the Amazons has arisen from these feminine-looking warriors encountered by the early voyager. I am inclined to this opinion, from the effect they first produced on myself, when it was only by close examination I saw that they were men; and, were the front parts of their bodies and their breasts covered with shields, such as they always use, I am convinced any person seeing them for the first time would conclude they were women. We have only therefore to suppose that tribes having similar customs to those now existing on the river Uaupés, inhabited the regions where the Amazons were reported to have been seen, and we have a rational explanation of what has so much puzzled all geographers. The only objection to this explanation is, that traditions are said to exist among the natives, of a nation of ‘women without husbands.’ Of this tradition, however, I was myself unable to obtain any trace, and I can easily imagine it entirely to have arisen from the suggestions and inquiries of Europeans themselves. When the story of the Amazons was first made known, it became of course a point with all future travellers to verify it, or if possible get a glimpse of these warlike ladies. The Indians must no doubt have been overwhelmed with questions and suggestions about them, and they, thinking that the white men must know best, would transmit to their descendants and families the idea that such a nation did exist in some distant part of the country. Succeeding travellers, finding traces of this idea among the Indians, would take it as a proof of the existence of the Amazons; instead of being merely the effect of a mistake at the first, which had been unknowingly spread among them by preceding travellers, seeking to obtain some evidence on the subject.

“Tattooing is very little practised by these Indians; they all, however, have a row of circular punctures along the arm, and one tribe, the Tucános, are distinguished from the rest by three vertical blue lines on the chin; and they also pierce the lower lip, through which they hang three little threads of white beads. All the tribes bore their ears, and wear in them little pieces of grass, ornamented with feathers. The Cobeus alone expand the hole to so large a size, that a bottle-cork could be inserted; they ordinarily wear a plug of wood in it, but, on festas, insert a little bunch of arrows.

“The men generally have but one wife, but there is no special limit, and many have two or three, and some of the chiefs more; the elder one is never turned away, but remains the mistress of the house. They have no particular ceremony at their marriages, except that of always carrying away the girl by force, or making a show of doing so, even when she and her parents are quite willing. They do not often marry with relations, or even neighbours,--preferring those from a distance, or even from other tribes. When a young man wishes to have the daughter of another Indian, his father sends a message to say he will come with his son and relations to visit him. The girl’s father guesses what it is for, and, if he is agreeable, makes preparations for a grand festival: it lasts perhaps two or three days, when the bridegroom’s party suddenly seize the bride, and hurry her off to their canoes; no attempt is made to prevent them, and she is then considered as married.

“Some tribes, as the Uacarrás, have a trial of skill at shooting with the bow and arrow, and if the young man does not show himself a good marksman, the girl refuses him, on the ground that he will not be able to shoot fish and game enough for the family.

“The dead are almost always buried in the houses, with their bracelets, tobacco-bag, and other trinkets upon them; they are buried the same day they die, the parents and relations keeping up a continual mourning and lamentation over the body, from the death to the time of interment; a few days afterwards, a great quantity of caxirí is made, and all friends and relatives invited to attend, to mourn for the dead, and to dance, sing, and cry to his memory. Some of the large houses have more than a hundred graves in them, but when the houses are small, and very full, the graves are made outside,

“The Tariánas and Tucános, and some other tribes, about a month after the funeral, disinter the corpse, which is then much decomposed, and put it in a great pan, or oven, over the fire, till all the volatile parts are driven off with a most horrible odour, leaving only a black carbonaceous mass, which is pounded into a fine powder, and mixed in several large couchés (vats made of hollowed trees) of caxirí: this is drunk by the assembled company till all is finished; they believe that thus the virtues of the deceased will be transmitted to the drinkers.

“The Cobeus alone, in the Uaupés, are real cannibals: they eat those of other tribes, whom they kill in battle, and even make war for the express purpose of procuring human flesh for food. When they have more than they can consume at once, they smoke-dry the flesh over the fire, and preserve it for food a long time. They burn their dead, and drink the ashes in caxirí, in the same manner as described above.

“Every tribe and every ‘malocca’ (as their houses are called) has its chief, or ‘Tushaúa,’ who has a limited authority over them, principally in war, in making festivals, and in repairing the malocca and keeping the village clean, and in planting the mandiocca-fields; he also treats with the traders, and supplies them with men to pursue their journeys. The succession of these chiefs is strictly hereditary in the male line, or through the female to her husband, who may be a stranger: their regular hereditary chief is never superseded, however stupid, dull, or cowardly he may be. They have very little law of any kind; but what they have is of strict retaliation,--an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; and a murder is punished or revenged in the same manner and by the same weapon with which it was committed.

“They have numerous ‘Pagés,’ a kind of priests, answering to the ‘medicine-men’ of the North American Indians. These are believed to have great power: they cure all diseases by charms, applied by strong blowing and breathing upon the party to be cured, and by the singing of certain songs and incantations. They are also believed to have power to kill enemies, to bring or send away rain, to destroy dogs or game, to make the fish leave a river, and to afflict with various diseases. They are much consulted and believed in, and are well paid for their services. An Indian will give almost all his wealth to a pagé, when he is threatened with any real or imaginary danger.

“They scarcely seem to think that death can occur naturally, always imputing it either to direct poisoning or the charms of some enemy, and, on this supposition, will proceed to revenge it. This they generally do by poisons, of which they have many which are most deadly in their effects: they are given at some festival in a bowl of caxirí, which it is good manners always to empty, so that the whole dose is sure to be taken. One of the poisons often used is most terrible in its effects, causing the tongue and throat, as well as the intestines, to putrefy and rot away, so that the sufferer lingers some days in the greatest agony: this is of course again retaliated, on perhaps the wrong party, and thus a long succession of murders may result from a mere groundless suspicion in the first instance.

“I cannot make out that they have any belief that can be called a religion. They appear to have no definite idea of a God; if asked who they think made the rivers, and the forests, and the sky, they will reply that they do not know, or sometimes that they suppose it was ‘Tupánau,’ a word that appears to answer to God, but of which they understand nothing. They have much more definite ideas of a bad spirit, ‘Juruparí,’ or Devil, whom they fear, and endeavour through their pagés to propitiate. When it thunders, they say the ‘Juruparí’ is angry, and their idea of natural death is that the Juruparí kills them. At an eclipse they believe that this bad spirit is killing the moon, and they make all the noise they can to frighten him away.

“One of their most singular superstitions is about the musical instruments they use at their festivals, which they call the Juruparí music. They consist of eight or sometimes twelve pipes or trumpets, made of bamboos or palm-stems hollowed out, some with trumpet-shaped mouths of bark and with mouth-holes of clay and leaf. Each pair of instruments gives a distinct note, and they produce a rather agreeable concert, something resembling clarionets and bassoons. These instruments however are with them such a mystery, that no woman must ever see them on pain of death. They are always kept in some igaripé, at a certain distance from the malocca, whence they are brought on particular occasions: when the sound of them is heard approaching, every woman retires into the woods, or into some adjoining shed, which they generally have near, and remains invisible till after the ceremony is over, when the instruments are taken away to their hiding-place, and the women come out of their concealment. Should any female be supposed to have seen them, either by accident or design, she is invariably executed, generally by poison, and a father will not hesitate to sacrifice his daughter, or a husband his wife, on such an occasion.

“They have many other prejudices with regard to women. They believe that if a woman, during her pregnancy, eats of any meat, any other animal partaking of it will suffer: if a domestic animal or tame bird, it will die; if a dog, it will be for the future incapable of hunting; and even a man will be unable to shoot that particular kind of game for the future. An Indian, who was one of my hunters, caught a fine cock of the rock, and gave it to his wife to feed, but the poor woman was obliged to live herself on cassava-bread and fruits, and abstain entirely from all animal food, peppers, and salt, which it was believed would cause the bird to die; notwithstanding all precautions however the bird did die, and the woman got a beating from her husband, because he thought she had not been sufficiently rigid in her abstinence from the prohibited articles.”

Few ethnological phenomena deserve more attention than the re-appearance of similar customs in the distant parts of the world, where, however, the physical conditions are alike.

Borneo and the Uaupés country, both are under the equator; and the same mode of building large houses for joint occupation prevails in both.

Observe, too, the use of the blow-pipe; it appears equally on the Amazons and in Borneo.

The details of the group before us are as follows:--

The tattoed and painted individual with the skull of a slain enemy on a pole, is a Mundrucu, of the River Tapajos, the most formidable, numerous, and independent of the Brazilian Indians.

When a Mundrucu has slain an enemy, he cuts off his head, extracts the brain through the occipital _foramen_, washes the blood away, fills the skull with cotton, and then converts the whole into a kind of mummy, by drying it before the fire. The eyes he gouges out, and he fills up the orbits with colouring matter. Thus prepared, the head is placed outside his hut. On festive occasions it is placed at the top of a spear. Such is the history of the head of an enemy. Those, however, of friends and relations are preserved, and kept--though with certain differences of detail. Thus, on certain days dedicated to the obsequies and memory of the dead, the widow of the deceased takes his skull, seats herself before the cabin, and indulges either in melancholy lamentation, or in fierce encomium--the assembled friends meanwhile dancing round her.

The one behind is a Mura; the Muras being a numerous tribe, and from the vast extent of country over which they are spread, or rather scattered, a tribe whose number seems greater than it is. Settled habitations they have none; but, just as necessity or inclination takes them, they wander from wood to wood, from stream to stream. Taking the different divisions of them altogether, their number may amount to between 6000 and 7000 “bows,” (this “bow” meaning “fighting-man;”) the rest of the population being in proportion. This gives us from 20,000 to 30,000 persons. The lower Madeira was their original area, but the lower Madeira was vexed and harassed by tribes of the powerful and hostile Mundrucus; and the Mundrucus and Muras are ever at war with each other. At present the Mundrucus are the superior population. They are bigger in body, and they are more closely allied to the Portuguese. Indeed the Portuguese used them as a sort of military police against the Muras; who fear them so much that the presence of a single Mundrucu on board Von Martius’ canoe terrified a whole family of Muras.

The incursions, then, of the Mundrucus dispersed the Muras of the lower Madeira over vast districts on the Solimoes, and on the Rio Negro. Here they are formidable as pirates. The Muras, with their associates, the Toras (or Torayes), harass the navigation of the Amazons, where the settlers and traders know them as the _Indios de Corso_, and attempt their extermination accordingly. When the stream gets narrow, and the current strong, and the canoe has to labour slowly against the stream of a mighty river, the Mura places himself on the banks, and lies in wait, _turé_ in hand. The _turé_ is an instrument, half wood and half reed, made out of the bamboo, the transverse septum of which is pierced in its centre. Here is inserted a second piece of cane, split. The _turé_ is heard at a considerable distance, and the watchman that blows it has a tree for a watch-tower. The _turé_, too, is the instrument to which they dance, and sing, and drink, at their festivals.

Less formidable than they once were, the Mura is still shy, indocile, intractable, and impracticable as a labourer. Nothing but liquor will tempt him; and liquor tempts him but little in the way of work. He hunts skilfully, and he fishes skilfully; but he is rarely provident enough to economise the results of any successful exertions for the future. He gorges himself when he is in luck, and starves when out of it; he thinks of the passing time only.

As a general rule, the Indians of the Amazons neither respect the female sex, nor vex themselves with jealousy on account of them. The Muras are said to be exceptions. The number of wives is two or three, and of these the youngest is the favoured one. The other is little more than a domestic drudge. To win them, the Mura must have fought at fisticuffs; for a battle of this kind always takes place whenever a young lady becomes marriageable. Those who enter into the list for possession, fight, and the winner carries her off.

Their language is harsh and guttural, and their speech is accompanied with gesticulation. It is peculiar, at least it is different from the _Lingoa Geral_, which but few Muras understand. It has been stated that the Mundrucus are their chief enemies. Besides these there are the Mauhes, and the Catauxis--hostile also.

The use of the _paricá_ is one of the characteristic customs of the Muras. The _paricá_ is a powder. It is made from the dried seeds of a kind of Inga. It is a narcotic stimulating in the first instance, sedative or depressing afterwards. Once a year there is a _paricá_ feast, where the “snuff” is indulged in to excess, and where the additional stimulants of dance, and song, and fermented liquors are superadded.

The other Indians are from the northern bank, on the frontier of Brazil and Bolivia. They cannot be said to represent any particular tribe. If they give an idea of the general character of a South American Indian of the parts in question it is sufficient. All the current descriptions are of this general character. The figures before us approach, however, the _Ticunas_ Indians of Osculati, the nearest. Ticunas, however, is a term of a somewhat lax import; inasmuch as it means any of the Indians who use the Ticunas poison, or come from the country which produces it.

GROUP XI.

INDIANS FROM BRITISH GUIANA.

These are from casts taken from life during Sir R. Schomburgk’s expedition. All belong to the great Carib stock, and speak dialects of the widely-spread Carib language.

This is a point of importance. In _Brazil_ the predominant language is the one alluded to under the name of _Tupi_--the basis of the _Lingoa Geral_ (_General Language_) or _Lingua Franca_.

In other respects, the leading characteristics are the same, or similar; the details being more or less different. Some tribes, for instance, flatten the head, or tattoo the body; which the others do not. Some burn, others bury the dead. With the Carabisi, for instance, in ordinary cases the hammock in which the death took place, serves as a coffin, the body is buried, and the funeral procession made once or twice round the grave; but the bodies of persons of importance are watched and washed by the nearest female relations, and when nothing but the skeleton remains, the bones are cleaned, painted, packed in a basket and preserved. When, however, there is a change of habitation they are _burned_; after which the ashes are collected, and kept.

The _Macusi_, on the other hand, buries his dead in a sitting posture without coffins, and with but few ceremonies.

The Arawak custom is peculiar. When a man of note dies, his relations plant a field of cassava. They lament loudly. But when twelve moons are over, and the cassava is ripe, they reassemble, feast, dance, lash each other cruelly, and severely with whips. The whips are then _hung up_ on the spot where the person died. Six moons later a second meeting takes place; and this time the whips are _buried_.

GROUP XII.

NORTH AMERICANS DANCING.

This group gives us the general character of the more typical North American Indians, rather than the details of any particular division; the chief sources being the portraits in McKennedy’s Gallery, and some well-executed daguerreotypes taken at St. Louis, and kindly placed at the disposal of the Crystal Palace Company by Mr. Fitzherbert of New York.

The prominence of the features, along with the red or copper tinge of the skin, characterises the Americans before us. This contrasts them with the Eskimo. Their size, on the other hand, distinguishes them from the majority of the South American tribes. Nevertheless, the size decreases as we go southward; and the Eskimo configuration (along with the Eskimo habits) is approached as we move westward of the Rocky Mountains.

Nine-tenths, and perhaps a larger proportion of the Indians of the northern half of the United States are referable to one of three great groups--the _Algonkin_, the _Iroquois_, the _Sioux_; each of which falls into divisions and subdivisions.

I. The _Algonkin_ is the greatest; greatest in respect to the number of its divisions and subdivisions, greatest in respect to the ground it covers, and greatest in respect to the range of difference which it embraces.

The whole of the Canadas, with one small exception, the whole of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward’s Isle, was originally Algonkin, as were Labrador and Newfoundland to a great extent.

To the Algonkin stock belonged and belong the extinct and extant Indians of New England, part of New York, part of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, part of the Carolinas, and part of even Kentucky and Tennessee.

The Pequods, the Mohicans, the Narragansetts, the Massachuset, the Montaug, the Delaware, the Menomini, the Sauks, the Ottogamis, the Kikkapùs, the Potawhotamis, the Illinois, the Miami, the Piankeshaws, the Shawnos, &c. belong to this stock--all within the United States.

The Algonkins of British America are as follows:--

1. The _Crees_; of which the _Skofi_ and _Sheshatapúsh_ of Labrador are branches.

2. The _Ojibways_; falling into--

_a._ The _Ojibways Proper_, of which the _Sauteurs_ are a section.

_b._ The _Ottawas_ of the River Ottawa.

_c._ The original Indians of Lake _Nipissing_; important because it is believed that the form of speech called _Algonkin_, a term since extended to the whole class, was their particular dialect. They are now either extinct or amalgamated with other tribes.

_d._ The _Messisaugis_, to the north of Lake Ontario.

3. The _Micmacs_ of New Brunswick, Gaspé, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and part of Newfoundland; closely allied to the--

4. _Abnaki_ of Mayne, and the British frontier; represented at present by the _St. John’s Indians_.

5. The _Bethuck_--the aborigines of Newfoundland.

6. The _Blackfoots_, consisting of the--

_a._ _Satsikaa_, or _Blackfoots Proper_.

_b._ The _Kena_, or _Blood Indians_.

_c._ The _Piegan_.

To these must be added numerous extinct tribes.

II. The _Iroquois_ class has been larger than it is now, many of its members being extinct. It still, however, contains the _Wiandots_, or _Hurons_, of the parts between Lakes Simcoe, Huron, and Erie; the once famous and formidable _Mohawks_, the _Senekas_, the _Onondagos_, the _Cayugas_, the _Oneidas_, and the _Tuskaroras_.

III. To the _Sioux_ class belong the Assiniboins of the Red River, and the Osages of Arkansas; tribes widely distant. It is the great Sioux to which nine-tenths of the Valley of Missouri originally belonged--Sioux, whose original hunting-grounds included the vast prairie-country from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi, and who again appear as an isolated detachment of Lake Michigan; Sioux, known under the names of Winebagoes, Dahcotas, Yanktons, Tetons, Upsarokas, Mandans, Minetaris, Missouris, Osages, Konzas, Ottos, Omahaws, Puncas, Ioways, and Quappas.

None of the Sioux tribes came in contact with the sea. None of them belonged to the great _forest_ districts of America. Most of them hunt over the country of the buffalo. This makes them warlike migratory hunters; with fewer approaches to agricultural or industrial civilisation than any Indians equally favoured by soil and climate.

It is the Iroquois, the Sioux, and certain members of the Algonkin stock, upon which the current and popular notions of the American Indian, the _Red Man_, as he is called, have been formed.

GROUP XIII.

GREENLANDERS.

Greenland is occupied by the same family that occupies the coast of Labrador. It does more. It extends all along the northern coast of North America; all along the shores of the Arctic Sea, both east and west. It extends to Russian America, and beyond it to the other side of Behring’s Straits, and to the Aleutian Islands. Hence, there are certain members of the family to which the Greenlanders belong in Asia.

The general name for this is _Eskimo_, a word, which, like _Malay_ and _Mongol_, is used in a general, as well as a particular sense. It denotes a large family, and it means the special occupants of the coast of Labrador, and the coast of the Arctic Sea.

The Eskimo is the only family common to the Old and the New World.

The large Greenland tent, with its furniture, and a canoe, is from one of the few ethnological museums in existence,--that of Copenhagen; from which it has been liberally and courteously supplied to the Crystal Palace. The details are due to the skill and care of Professor Thomsen of that capital.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

1. For the TIBETANS, &c., TURNER’s Embassy; Works on the Himalayas, by THOMSON and HOOKER; CUNNINGHAM’s Ladakh.

2. The Aborigines of India, by B. HODGSON; Papers in Asiatic Researches; Transactions of the Asiatic Society; Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, &c. &c.

3, 4. MARSDEN’s Sumatra; RAFFLES’ History of Java; CRAUFURD’s Indian Archipelago; Papers in Journal of the Indian Archipelago; SIR JAMES BROOKE’s writings.

5. JUKES’ Voyage of Fly; MCGILLIVRAY’s Voyage of Rattlesnake; The Papuans, by WINDSOR EARL; Works of COLLINS, KING, MITCHELL, &c.; Journal of Indian Archipelago; United States’ Exploring Expedition.

6. Travels in Abyssinia by JOHNSTONE, HARRIS, MANSFIELD, PARKYNS, &c.

7. THE NEGROES, &c. Medical History of the Niger Expedition, by Dr. MCWILLIAM; On the Natives of Old Calabar, by Dr. DANIELL.

8. LICSHTENSTEIN’s Travels; GALTON in Journal of Geographical Society; _The Caffres and Bushmen_.

9, 10, 11, 12. Travels of Prince MAXIMILIAN of NEUWIED, of SPIX, and VON MARTIUS; SIR R. SCHOMBURGK, in Geographical Transactions; WALLACE’s Travels on the Amazon; SQUIER’s Nicaragua.

13. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.--Archæologia Americana, Vol. ii.; Transactions of American Ethnological Society; Works of SCHOOLCRAFT, SQUIER, &c.; Smithsonean Contributions to Knowledge.

14. Papers by Dr. KING on the Industrial and Intellectual character of the Eskimo, in Transactions of Ethnological Society; Accounts of the Arctic Expedition, by PARRY, ROSS, &c. &c.

For Ethnology in general--PRICHARD’s Natural History of Man, five volumes; Ditto, one volume.

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The large Greenland hut, boat and furniture, kindly supplied by the Curator of the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen (Professor Thomsen) reached us after the present pages were in print.