VI. THE SOUTHERN MONGOLS…

VI. THE SOUTHERN MONGOLS

South Mongol Domain--Tibet, the Mongol Cradle-land--Stone Age in Tibet--The Primitive Mongol Type--The Balti and Ladakhi--Balti Type and Origins--The Tibetans Proper--Type--The Bhotiyas--Prehistoric Expansion of the Tibetan Race--Sub-Himalayan Groups: the Gurkhas--Mental Qualities of the Tibetans--Lamaism--The Horsoks-- The Tanguts--Polyandry--The Bonbo Religion--Buddhist and Christian Ritualism--The Prayer-Wheel--Language and Letters--Diverse Linguistic Types--Lepcha--Angami-Naga and Kuki-Lushai Speech--Naga Tribes--General Ethnic Relations in Indo-China--Aboriginal and Cultured Peoples--The Talaings--The Manipuri--Religion--The Game of Polo--The Khel System--The Chins--Mental and Physical Qualities--Gods, Nats, and the After-Life--The Kakhyens--Caucasic Elements--The Karens--Type--Temperament--Christian Missions--The Burmese--Type--Character--Buddhism--Position of Woman--Tattooing-- The Tai-Shan Peoples--The Ahom, Khamti and Chinese Shans--Shan Cradle-land and Origins--Caucasic Contacts--Tai-Shan Toned Speech--Shan, Lolo, and Mosso Writing Systems--Mosso Origins-- Aborigines of South China and Annam--Man-tse Origins and Affinities--Caucasic Aborigines in South-East Asia--The Siamese Shans--Origins and Early Records--Social System--Buddhism--The Annamese--Origins--Physical and Mental Characters--Language and Letters--Social Institutions--Religious Systems--The Chinese-- Origins--The Babylonian Theory--Persistence of Chinese Culture and Social System--Letters and Early Records--Traditions of the Stone and Metal Ages--Chinese Cradle and Early Migrations-- Absorption of the Aborigines--Survivals: Hok-lo, Hakka, Pun-ti--Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism--Fung-shui and Ancestry Worship--Islam and Christianity--The Mandarin Class.

CONSPECTUS.

#Present Range.# Tibet; S. Himalayan slopes; Indo-China to the Isthmus of Kra; China; Formosa; Parts of Malaysia.

#Hair#, uniformly black, lank, round in transverse section; sparse or no beard, moustache common. #Colour#, generally a dirty yellowish brown, shading off to olive and coppery brown in the south, and to lemon or whitish in N. China. #Skull#, normally brachy (80 to 84), but in parts of China sub-dolicho (77) and high. #Jaws#, slightly prognathous. #Cheek-bones#, very high and prominent laterally. #Nose#, very small, and concave, with widish nostrils (mesorrhine), but often large and straight amongst the upper classes. #Eyes#, small, black, and oblique (outer angle slightly elevated), vertical fold of skin over inner canthus. #Stature#, below the average, 1.62 m. (5 ft. 4 in.), but in N. China often tall, 1.77 m. to 1.82 m. (5 ft. 10 in. to 6 ft.). #Lips#, rather thin, sometimes slightly protruding. #Arms#, #legs#, and #feet#, of normal proportions, calves rather small.

#Temperament.# Somewhat sluggish, with little initiative, but great endurance; cunning rather than intelligent; generally thrifty and industrious, but mostly indolent in Siam and Burma; moral standard low, with slight sense of right and wrong.

#Speech.# Mainly isolating and monosyllabic, due to phonetic decay; loss of formative elements compensated by tone; some (south Chinese, Annamese) highly tonic, but others (in Himalayas and North Burma) highly agglutinating and consequently toneless.

#Religion.# Ancestry and spirit-worship, underlying various kinds of Buddhism; religious sentiment weak in Annam, strong in Tibet; thinly diffused in China.

#Culture.# Ranges from sheer savagery (Indo-Chinese aborigines) to a low phase of civilisation; some mechanical arts (ceramics, metallurgy, weaving), and agriculture well developed; painting, sculpture, and architecture mostly in the barbaric stage; letters widespread, but true literature and science slightly developed; stagnation very general.

Main Divisions.

#Bod-pa.# Tibetan; Tangut; Horsok; Si-fan; Balti; Ladakhi; Gurkha; Bhotiya; Miri; Mishmi; Abor.

#Burmese.# Naga; Kuki-Lushai; Chin; Kakhyen; Manipuri; Karen; Talaing; Arakanese; Burmese proper.

#Tai-Shan.# Ahom; Khamti; Ngiou; Lao; Siamese.

#Giao-Shi.# Annamese; Cochin-Chinese.

#Chinese.# Chinese proper; Hakka; Hok-lo; Pun-ti.

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The Mongolian stock may be divided into two main branches[375]: the Mongolo-Tatar, of the western area, and the Tibeto-Indo-Chinese of the eastern area, the latter extending into a secondary branch, Oceanic Mongols. These two, that is, the main and secondary branch, which jointly occupy the greater part of south-east Asia with most of Malaysia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Formosa, will form the subject of the present and following chapters. Allowing for encroachments and overlappings, especially in Manchuria and North Tibet, the northern "divide" towards the Mongolo-Tatar domain is roughly indicated by the Great Wall and the Kuen-lun range westwards to the Hindu-Kush, and towards the south-west by the Himalayas from the Hindu-Kush eastwards to Assam. The Continental section thus comprises the whole of China proper and Indo-China, together with a great part of Tibet with Little Tibet (Baltistan and Ladakh), and the Himalayan uplands including their southern slopes. This section is again separated from the Oceanic section by the Isthmus of Kra--the Malay Peninsula belonging ethnically to the insular Malay world. "I believe," writes Warington Smyth, "that the Malay never really extended further south than the Kra isthmus[376]."

From the considerations advanced in Ethnology, Chap. XII., it seems a reasonable assumption that the lacustrine Tibetan tableland with its Himalayan escarpments, all standing in pleistocene times at a considerably lower level than at present, was the cradle of the Mongol division of mankind. Here were found all the natural conditions favourable to the development of a new variety of the species moving from the tropics northwards--ample space such as all areas of marked specialisation seem to require; a different and cooler climate than that of the equatorial region, though, thanks to its then lower elevation, warmer than that of the bleak and now barely inhabitable Tibetan plateau; extensive plains, nowhere perhaps too densely wooded, intersected by ridges of moderate height, and diversified by a lacustrine system far more extensive than that revealed by the exploration of modern travellers[377].

Under these circumstances, which are not matter of mere speculation, but to be directly inferred from the observations of intelligent explorers and of trained Anglo-Indian surveyors, it would seem not only probable but inevitable that the pleistocene Indo-Malayan should become modified and improved in his new and more favourable Central Asiatic environment.

Later, with the gradual upheaval of the land to a mean altitude of some 14,000 feet above sea-level, the climate deteriorated, and the present somewhat rude and rugged inhabitants of Tibet are to be regarded as the outcome of slow adaptation to their slowly changing surroundings since the occupation of the country by the Indo-Malayan pleistocene precursor. To this precursor Tibet was accessible either from India or from Indo-China, and although few of his implements have yet been reported from the plateau, it is certain that Tibet has passed through the Stone as well as the Metal Ages. In Bogle's time "thunder-stones" were still used for tonsuring the lamas, and even now stone cooking-pots are found amongst the shepherds of the uplands, although they are acquainted both with copper and iron. In India also and Indo-China palaeoliths of rude type occur at various points--Arcot, the Narbada gravels, Mirzapur[378], the Irawadi valley and the Shan territory--as if to indicate the routes followed by early man in his migrations from Indo-Malaysia northwards.

Thus, where man is silent the stones speak, and so old are these links of past and present that amongst the Shans, as in ancient Greece, their origin being entirely forgotten, they are often mounted as jewellery and worn as charms against mishaps.

Usually the Mongols proper, that is, the steppe nomads who have more than once overrun half the eastern hemisphere, are taken as the typical and original stem of the Mongolian stock. But if Ch. de Ujfalvy's views can be accepted this honour will now have to be transferred to the Tibetans, who still occupy the supposed cradle of the race. This veteran student of the Central Asiatic peoples describes two Mongol types, a northern round-headed and a southern long-headed, and thinks that the latter, which includes "the Ladakhi, the Champas and Tibetans proper," was "the primitive Mongol type[379]."

Owing to the political seclusion of Tibet, the race has hitherto been studied chiefly in outlying provinces beyond the frontiers, such as Ladakh, Baltistan, and Sikkim[380], that is, in districts where mixture with other races may be suspected. Indeed de Ujfalvy, who has made a careful survey of Baltistan and Ladakh, assures us that, while the Ladakhi represent two varieties of Asiatic man with ceph. index 77, the Balti are not Tibetans or Mongols at all, but descendants of the historical Sacae, although now of Tibetan speech and Moslem faith[381]. They are of the mean height or slightly above it, with rather low brow, very prominent superciliary arches, deep depression at nasal root, thick curved eyebrows, long, straight or arched nose, thick lips, oval chin, small cheek-bones, small flat ears, straight eyes, very black and abundant ringletty (boucle) hair, full beard, usually black and silky, robust hairy body, small hands and feet, and long head (index 72). In such characters it is impossible to recognise the Mongol, and the contrast is most striking with the neighbouring Ladakhi, true Mongols, as shown by their slightly raised superciliary arches, square and scarcely curved eyebrows, slant eyes, large prominent cheek-bones, lank and coarse hair, yellowish and nearly hairless body.

Doubtless there has been a considerable intermingling of Balti and Ladakhi, and in recent times still more of Balti and Dards (Hindu-Kush "Aryans"), whence Leitner's view that the Balti are Dards at a remote period conquered by the Bhots (Tibetans), losing their speech with their independence. But of all these peoples the Balti were in former times the most civilised, as shown by the remarkable rock-carvings still found in the country, and attributed by the present inhabitants to a long vanished race. Some of these carvings represent warriors mounted and on foot, the resemblance being often very striking between them and the persons figured on the coins of the Sacae kings both in their physical appearance, attitudes, arms, and accoutrements. The Balti are still famous horsemen, and with them is said to have originated the game of polo, which has thence spread to the surrounding peoples as far as Chitral and Irania.

From all these considerations it is inferred that the Balti are the direct descendants of the Sacae, who invaded India about 90 B.C., not from the west (the Kabul valley) as generally stated, but from the north over the Karakorum Passes leading directly to Baltistan[382]. Thus lives again a name renowned in antiquity, and another of those links is established between the past and the present, which it is the province of the historical ethnologist to rescue from oblivion.

In Tibet proper the ethnical relations have been confused by the loose way tribal and even national names are referred to by Prjevalsky and some other modern explorers. It should therefore be explained that three somewhat distinct branches of the race have to be carefully distinguished: 1. The Bod-pa[383], "Bodmen," the settled and more or less civilised section, who occupy most of the southern and more fertile provinces of which Lhasa is the capital, who till the land, live in towns, and have passed from the tribal to the civic state. 2. The Dru-pa[384], peaceful though semi-nomadic pastoral tribes, who live in tents on the northern plateaux, over 15,000 feet above sea-level. 3. The Tanguts[385], restless, predatory tribes, who hover about the north-eastern borderland between Koko-nor and Kansu.

All these are true Tibetans, speak the Tibetan language, and profess one or other of the two national religions, Bonbo and Lamaism (the Tibetan form of Buddhism). But the original type is best preserved, not amongst the cultured Bod-pa, who in many places betray a considerable admixture both of Chinese and Hindu elements, but amongst the Dru-pa, who on their bleak upland steppes have for ages had little contact with the surrounding Mongolo-Turki populations. They are described by W. W. Rockhill from personal observation as about five feet five inches high, and round-headed, with wavy hair, clear-brown and even hazel eye, cheek-bone less high than the Mongol, thick nose, depressed at the root, but also prominent and even aquiline and narrow but with broad nostrils, large-lobed ears standing out to a less degree than the Mongol, broad mouth, long black hair, thin beard, generally hairless body, broad shoulders, very small calves, large foot, coarse hand, skin coarse and greasy and of light brown colour, though "frequently nearly white, but when exposed to the weather a dark brown, nearly the colour of our American Indians. Rosy cheeks are quite common amongst the younger women[386]."

Some of these characters--wavy hair, aquiline nose, hazel eye, rosy cheeks--are not Mongolic, and despite W. W. Rockhill's certificate of racial purity, one is led to suspect a Caucasic strain, perhaps through the neighbouring Salars. These are no doubt sometimes called Kara-Tangutans, "Black Tangutans," from the colour of their tents, but we learn from Potanin, who visited them in 1885[387], that they are Muhammadans of Turki stock and speech, and we already know[388] that from a remote period the Turki people were in close contact with Caucasians. The Salars pitch their tents on the banks of the Khitai and other Yang-tse-Kiang headstreams.

That the national name Bod-pa must be of considerable antiquity is evident from the Sanskrit expression Bhotiya, derived from it, and long applied by the Hindus collectively to all southern Tibetans, but especially to those of the Himalayan slopes, such as the Rongs (Lepchas) of Sikkim and the Lho-pa dominant in Bhutan, properly Bhot-ant, that is, "Land's End"--the extremity of Tibet. Eastwards also the Tibetan race stretches far beyond the political frontiers into the Koko-nor region (Tanguts), and the Chinese province of Se-chuan, where they are grouped with all the other Si-fan aborigines. Towards the south-east are the kindred Tawangs, Mishmi, Miri, Abor[389], Daflas, and many others about the Assam borderlands, all of whom may be regarded as true Bhotiyas in the wild state.

Through these the primitive Tibetan race extends into Burma, where however it has become greatly modified and again civilised under different climatic and cultural influences. Thus we see how, in the course of ages, the Bod-pa have widened their domain, radiating in all directions from the central cradle-land about the Upper Brahmaputra (San-po) valley westwards into Kashmir, eastwards into China, southwards down the Himalayan slopes to the Gangetic plains, south-eastwards to Indo-China. In some places they have come into contact with other races and disappeared either by total extinction or by absorption (India, Hindu-Kush), or else preserved their type while accepting the speech, religion, and culture of later intruders. Such are the Garhwali, and many groups in Nepal, especially the dominant Gurkhas (Khas[390]), of whom there are twelve branches, all Aryanised and since the twelfth century speaking the Parbattia Bhasha, a Prakrit or vulgar Sanskrit tongue current amongst an extremely mixed population of about 2,000,000.

In other directions the migrations took place in remote prehistoric times, the primitive proto-Tibetan groups becoming more and more specialised as they receded farther and farther from the cradle-land into Mongolia, Siberia, China, Farther India, and Malaysia. This is at least how I understand the peopling of a great part of the eastern hemisphere by an original nucleus of Mongolic type first differentiated from a pleistocene precursor on the Tibetan tableland.

Strangely contradictory estimates have been formed of the temperament and mental characters of the Bod-pa, some, such as that of Turner[391], no doubt too favourable, while others err perhaps in the opposite direction. Thus Desgodins, who nevertheless knew them well, describes the cultured Tibetan of the south as "a slave towards the great, a despot towards the weak, knavish or treacherous according to circumstances, always on the look-out to defraud, and lying impudently to attain his end," and much more to the same effect[392].

W. W. Rockhill, who is less severe, thinks that "the Tibetan's character is not as black as Horace della Penna and Desgodins have painted it. Intercourse with these people extending over six years leads me to believe that the Tibetan is kindhearted, affectionate, and law-abiding[393]." He concludes, however, with a not very flattering native estimate deduced from the curious national legend that "the earliest inhabitants of Tibet descended from a king of monkeys and a female hobgoblin, and the character of the race perhaps from those of its first parents. From the king of monkeys [he was an incarnate god] they have religious faith and kindheartedness, intelligence and application, devotion to religion and to religious debate; from the hobgoblin they get cruelty, fondness for trade and money-making, great bodily strength, lustfulness, fondness for gossip, and carnivorous instinct[394]."

While they are cheerful under a depressing priestly regime, all allow that they are vindictive, superstitious, and cringing in the presence of the lamas, who are at heart more dreaded than revered. In fact the whole religious world is one vast organised system of hypocrisy, and above the old pagan beliefs common to all primitive peoples there is merely a veneer of Buddhism, above which follows another and most pernicious veneer of lamaism (priestcraft), under the yoke of which the natural development of the people has been almost completely arrested for several centuries. The burden is borne with surprising endurance, and would be intolerable but for the relief found in secret and occasionally even open revolt against the more oppressive ordinances of the ecclesiastical rule. Thus, despite the prescriptions regarding a strict vegetarian diet expressed in the formula "eat animal flesh eat thy brother," not only laymen but most of the lamas themselves supplement their frugal diet of milk, butter, barley-meal, and fruits with game, yak, and mutton--this last pronounced by Turner the best in the world. The public conscience, however, is saved by a few extra turns of the prayer-wheel at such repasts, and by the general contempt in which is held the hereditary caste of butchers, who like the Jews in medieval times are still confined to a "ghetto" of their own in all the large towns.

These remarks apply more particularly to the settled southern communities living in districts where a little agriculture is possible. Elsewhere the religious cloak is worn very loosely, and the nomad Horsoks of the northern steppes, although all nominal Buddhists, pay but scant respect to the decrees supposed to emanate from the Dalai Lama enshrined in Lhasa. Horsok is an almost unique ethnical term[395], being a curious compound of the two names applied by the Tibetans to the Hor-pa and the Sok-pa who divide the steppe between them. The Hor-pa, who occupy the western parts, are of Turki stock, and are the only group of that race known to me who profess Buddhism[396], all the rest being Muhammadans with some Shamanists (Yakuts) in the Lena basin. The Sok-pa, who roam the eastern plains and valleys, although commonly called Mongols, are true Tibetans or more strictly speaking Tanguts, of whom there are here two branches, the Goliki and the Yegrai, all, like the Hor-pa, of Tibetan speech. The Yegrai, as described by Prjevalsky, closely resemble the other North Tibetan tribes, with their long, matted locks falling on their shoulders, their scanty whiskers and beard, angular head, dark complexion and dirty garb[397].

Besides stock-breeding and predatory warfare, all these groups follow the hunt, armed with darts, bows, and matchlock guns; the musk-deer is ensnared, and the only animal spared is the stag, "Buddha's horse." The taste of these rude nomads for liquid blood is insatiable, and the surveyor, Nain Singh, often saw them fall prone on the ground to lick up the blood flowing from a wounded beast. As soon as weaned, the very children and even the horses are fed on a diet of cheese, butter, and blood, kneaded together in a horrible mess, which is greedily devoured when the taste is acquired. On the other hand alcoholic drinks are little consumed, the national beverage being coarse Chinese tea imported in the form of bricks and prepared with tsampa (barley-meal) and butter, and thus becoming a food as well as a drink. The lamas have a monopoly of this tea-trade, which could not stand the competition of the Indian growers; hence arises the chief objection to removing the barriers of seclusion.

Tibet is one of the few regions where polyandrous customs, intimately associated with the matriarchal state, still persist almost in their pristine vigour. The husbands are usually but not necessarily all brothers, and the bride is always obtained by purchase. Unless otherwise arranged, the oldest husband is the putative "father," all the others being considered as "uncles." An inevitable result of the institution is to give woman a dominant position in society; hence the "queens" of certain tribes, referred to with so much astonishment by the early Chinese chroniclers. Survivors of this "petticoat government" have been noticed by travellers amongst the Lolos, Mossos, and other indigenous communities about the Indo-Chinese frontiers. But it does not follow that polyandry and a matriarchal state always and necessarily preceded polygyny and a patriarchal state. On the contrary, it would appear that polyandry never could have been universal; possibly it arose from special conditions in particular regions, where the struggle for existence is severe, and the necessity of imposing limits to the increase of population more urgent than elsewhere[398]. Hence to me it seems as great a mistake to assume a matriarchate as it is to assume promiscuity as the universal antecedent of all later family relations. In Tibet itself polygyny exists side by side with polyandry amongst the wealthy classes, while monogamy is the rule amongst the poor pastoral nomads of the northern steppe.

Great ethnical importance has been attached by some distinguished anthropologists to the treatment of the dead. But, as in the New Stone and Metal Ages in Europe cremation and burial were practised side by side[399], so in Tibet the dead are now simultaneously disposed of in diverse ways. It is a question not so much of race as of caste or social classes, or of the lama's pleasure, who, when the head has been shaved to facilitate the transmigration of the soul, may order the body to be burnt, buried, cast into the river, or even thrown to carrion birds or beasts of prey. Strange to say, the last method, carried out with certain formalities, is one of the most honourable, although the lamas are generally buried in a seated posture, and high officials burnt, and (in Ladakh) the ashes, mixed with a little clay, kneaded into much venerated effigies--doubtless a survival of ancestry worship.

Reference was above made to the primitive Shamanistic ideas which still survive beneath the Buddhist and the later lamaistic systems. In the central and eastern provinces of Ui and Tsang this pre-Buddhist religion has again struggled to the surface, or rather persisted under the name of Bonbo (Boa-ho) side by side with the national creed, from which it has even borrowed many of its present rites. From the colour of the robes usually worn by its priests, it is known as the sect of the "Blacks," in contradistinction to the orthodox "Yellow" and dissenting "Red" lamaists, and as now constituted, its origin is attributed to Shen-rab (Gsen-rabs), who flourished about the fifth century before the new era, and is venerated as the equal of Buddha himself. His followers, who were powerful enough to drive Buddhism from Tibet in the tenth century, worship 18 chief deities, the best known being the red and black demons, the snake devil, and especially the fiery tiger-god, father of all the secondary members of this truly "diabolical pantheon." It is curious to note that the sacred symbol of the Bonbo sect is the ubiquitous svastika, only with the hooks of the cross reversed, [Symbol] instead of [Symbol]. This change, which appears to have escaped the diligent research of Thomas Wilson[400], was caused by the practice of turning the prayer-wheel from right to left as the red lamas do, instead of from left to right as is the orthodox way. The common Buddhist formula of six syllables--om-ma-ni-pad-me-hum--is also replaced by one of seven syllables--ma-tri-mon-tre-sa-ta-dzun[401].

Buddhism itself, introduced by Hindu missionaries, is more recent than is commonly supposed. Few conversions were made before the fifth century of our era, and the first temple dates only from the year 698. Reference is often made to the points of contact or "coincidences" which have been observed between this system and that of the Oriental and Latin Christian Churches. There is no question of a common dogma, and the numerous resemblances are concerned only with ritualistic details, such as the cross, the mitre, dalmatica, and other distinctive vestments, choir singing, exorcisms, the thurible, benedictions with outstretched hand, celibacy, the rosary, fasts, processions, litanies, spiritual retreats, holy water, scapulars or other charms, prayer addressed to the saints, relics, pilgrimages, music and bells at the service, monasticism; this last being developed to a far greater extent in Tibet than at any time in any Christian land, Egypt not excepted. The lamas, representing the regular clergy of the Roman Church, hold a monopoly of all "science," letters, and arts. The block printing-presses are all kept in the huge monasteries which cover the land, and from them are consequently issued only orthodox works and treatises on magic. Religion itself is little better than a system of magic, and the sole aim of all worship, reduced to a mere mechanical system of routine, is to baffle the machinations of the demons who at every turn beset the path of the wayfarer through this "vale of tears."

For this purpose the prayer-wheels--an ingenious contrivance by which innumerable supplications, not less efficacious because vicarious, may be offered up night and day to the powers of darkness--are incessantly kept going all over the land, some being so cleverly arranged that the sacred formula may be repeated as many as 40,000 times at each revolution of the cylinder. These machines, which have also been introduced into Korea and Japan, have been at work for several centuries without any appreciable results, although fitted up in all the houses, by the river banks or on the hill-side, and kept in motion by the hand, wind, and water; while others of huge size, 30 to 40 feet high and 15 to 20 in diameter, stand in the temples, and at each turn repeat the contents of whole volumes of liturgical essays stowed away in their capacious receptacles. But despite all these everlasting revolutions, stagnation reigns supreme throughout the most priest-ridden land under the sun.

With its religion Tibet imported also its letters from India by the route of Nepal or Kashmir in the seventh century. Since then the language has undergone great changes, always, like other members of the Indo-Chinese family, in the direction from agglutination towards monosyllabism[402]. But the orthography, apart from a few feeble efforts at reform, has remained stationary, so that words are still written as they were pronounced 1200 years ago. The result is a far greater discrepancy between the spoken and written tongue than in any other language, English not excepted. Thus the province of Ui has been identified by Sir A. Cunningham with Ptolemy's Debasae through its written form Dbus, though now always pronounced U[403]. This bears out de Lacouperie's view that all words were really uttered as originally spelt, although often beginning with as many as three consonants. Thus spra (monkey) is now pronounced deu in the Lhasa dialect, but still streu-go in that of the province of Kham. The phonetic disintegration is still going on, so that, barring reform, the time must come when there will be no correspondence at all between sound and its graphic expression.

On the other hand it is a mistake to suppose that all languages in the Indo-Chinese linguistic zone have undergone this enormous extent of phonetic decay. The indefatigable B. H. Hodgson has made us acquainted with several, especially in Nepal, which are of a highly conservative character. Farther east the Lepcha (properly Rong) of Sikkim presents the remarkable peculiarity of distinct agglutination of the Mongolo-Turki, or perhaps I should say of the Kuki-Lushai type, combined with numerous homophones and a total absence of tone. Thus pano-sa, of a king, pano-sang, kings, and pano-sang-sa, of kings, shows pure agglutination, while mat yields no less than twenty-three distinct meanings[404], which should necessitate a series of discriminating tones, as in Chinese or Siamese. Their absence, however, is readily explained by the persistence of the agglutinative principle, which renders them unnecessary.

A somewhat similar feature is presented by the Angami Naga, the chief language of the Naga Hills, of which R. B. McCabe writes that it is "still in a very primitive stage of the agglutinating class," and "peculiarly rich in intonation," although "for one Naga who clearly marks these tonal distinctions twenty fail to do so[405]." It follows that it is mainly spoken without tones, and although said to be "distinctly monosyllabic" it really abounds in polysyllables, such as merenama, orphan, kehutsaporimo, nowhere, dukriwache, to kill, etc. There are also numerous verbal formative elements given by McCabe himself, so that Angami must clearly be included in the agglutinating order. To this order also belongs beyond all doubt the Kuki-Lushai of the neighbouring North Kachar Hills and parts of Nagaland itself, the common speech in fact of the Rangkhols, Jansens, Lushai, Roeys and other hill peoples, collectively called Kuki by the lowlanders, and Dzo by themselves[406]. The highly agglutinating character of this language is evident from the numerous conjugations given by Soppitt[407], for some of which he has no names, but which may be called Acceleratives, Retardatives, Complementatives, and so on. Thus with the root, ahong, come, and infix jam, slow, is formed the retardative nang ahongjamrangmoh, "will-you-come-slowly?" (rang, future, moh, interrogative particle)[408].

The Kuki, the Naga and the Manipuri, none of which claim to be the original occupants of the country, have a tradition of a common ancestor, who had three sons who became the progenitors of the tribes. The Kuki are found almost everywhere throughout Manipur. "We are like the birds of the air," said a Kuki to T. C. Hodson, "we make our nests here this year, and who knows where we shall build next year[409]?" The following description is given of the Naga tribes, Tangkhuls, Mao and Maram Nagas (Angami Nagas), Kolya, or Mayang Khong group, Kabuis, Quoirengs, Chirus and Marrings. "Differences of stature, dress, coiffure and weapons make it easy to distinguish between the members of these tribes. In colour they are all brown with but little variety, though some of the Tangkhuls who earn their living by salt making seem to be darker. Among them all, as among the Manipuris, there are persons who have a tinge of colour in their cheeks when still young. The nose also varies, for there are cases where it is almost straight, while in the majority of individuals it is flattened at the nostril. Here and there one may see noses which in profile are almost Roman. The eyes are usually brown, though black eyes are sometimes found to occur. The jaw is generally clean, not heavy, and the hair is of some variety, as there are many persons whose hair is decidedly curly, and in most there is a wave. Beards are very uncommon, and hair on the face is very rare, so much so that the few who possess a moustache are known as khoi-hao-bas (Meithei words, meaning moustache grower). I am informed that the ladies do not like hirsute men, and that the men therefore pull out any stray hairs. The cheekbones are often prominent and the slope of the eye is not very marked[410]." The stature is moderate varying from the slender lightly built Marrings to the tall sturdy finely proportioned Maos. The women are all much shorter than the men, but strongly built with a muscular development of which the men would not be ashamed. The land is thickly peopled with local deities and at Maram the case is recorded of a Rain Deity who was once a man of the village specially cunning in rain making. Among the points of special interest in this region are the stone monuments still erected in honour of the dead, and the custom of head-hunting, connected with simple blood feud, with agrarian rites, with funerary rites and eschatological belief, and in some cases no more than a social duty[411].

Through these Naga and Kuki aborigines we pass without any break of continuity from the Bhotiya populations of the Himalayan slopes to those of Indo-China. Here also, as indeed in nearly all semi-civilised lands, peoples at various grades of culture are found dwelling for ages side by side--rude and savage groups on the uplands or in the more dense wooded tracts, settled communities with a large measure of political unity (in fact nations and peoples in the strict sense of those terms) on the lowlands, and especially along the rich alluvial riverine plains of this well watered region. The common theory is that the wild tribes represent the true aborigines driven to the hills and woodlands by civilised invaders from India and other lands, who are now represented by the settled communities.

Whether such movements and dislocations have elsewhere taken place we need not here stop to inquire; indeed their probability, and in some instances their certainty may be frankly admitted. But I cannot think that the theory expresses the true relations in most parts of Farther India. Here the civilised peoples, and ex hypothesi the intruders, are the Manipuri, Burmese, Arakanese, and the nearly extinct or absorbed Talaings or Mons in the west; the Siamese, Shans or Laos, and Khamti in the centre; the Annamese (Tonkinese and Cochin-Chinese), Cambojans, and the almost extinct Champas in the east. Nearly all of these I hold to be quite as indigenous as the hillmen, the only difference being that, thanks to their more favourable environment, they emerged at an early date from the savage state and thus became more receptive to foreign civilising influences, mostly Hindu, but also Chinese (in Annam). All are either partly or mainly of Mongolic or Indonesian type, and all speak toned Indo-Chinese languages, except the Cambojans and Champas, whose linguistic relations are with the Oceanic peoples, who are not here in question. The cultivated languages are no doubt full of Sanskrit or Prakrit terms in the west and centre, and of Chinese in the east, and all, except Annamese, which uses a Chinese ideographic system, are written with alphabets derived through the square Pali characters from the Devanagari. It is also true that the vast monuments of Burma, Siam, and Camboja all betray Hindu influences, many of the temples being covered with Brahmanical or Buddhist sculptures and inscriptions. But precisely analogous phenomena are reproduced in Java, Sumatra, and other Malaysian lands, as well as in Japan and partly in China itself. Are we then to conclude that there have been Hindu invasions and settlements in all these regions, the most populous on the globe?

During the historic period a few Hinduized Dravidians, especially Telingas (Telugus) of the Coromandel coast, have from time to time emigrated to Indo-China (Pegu), where the name survives amongst the "Talaings," that is, the Mons, by whom they were absorbed, just as the Mons themselves are now being absorbed by the Burmese. Others of the same connection have gained a footing here and there in Malaysia, especially the Malacca coastlands, where they are called "Klings[412]," i.e. Telings, Telingas.

But beyond these partial movements, without any kind of influence on the general ethnical relations, I know of no Hindu (some have even used the term "Aryan," and have brought Aryans to Camboja) invasions except those of a moral order--the invasions of the zealous Hindu missionaries, both Brahman and Buddhist, which, however, amply suffice to account for all the above indicated points of contact between the Indian, the Indo-Chinese, and the Malayan populations.

That the civilised lowlanders and rude highlanders are generally of the same aboriginal stocks is well seen in the Manipur district with its fertile alluvial plains and encircling Naga and Lushai Hills on the north and south. The Hinduized Manipuri of the plains, that is, the politically dominant Meithis, as they call themselves, are considered by George Watt to be "a mixed race between the Kukies and the Nagas[413]." The Meithis are described as possessing in general the facial characteristics of Mongolian type, but with great diversity of feature. "It is not uncommon to meet with girls with brownish-black hair, brown eyes, fair complexions, straight noses and rosy cheeks[414]." In spite of the veneer of civilisation acquired by the Meithis, the old order of things has by no means passed away. "The maiba, the doctor and priest of the animistic system, still finds a livelihood despite the competition on the one hand of the Brahmin, and on the other of the hospital Assistant. Nevertheless the maibas frequently adapt their methods to the altered circumstances in which they now find themselves, and realize that the combination of croton oil and a charm is more efficacious than the charm alone[415]."

"It is possible to discover at least four definite orders of spiritual beings who have crystallized out from the amorphous mass of animistic Deities. There are the Lam Lai, gods of the country-side who shade off into Nature Gods controlling the rain, the primal necessity of an agricultural community; the Umang Lai or Deities of the Forest Jungle; the Imung Lai, the Household Deities, Lords of the lives, the births and the deaths of individuals, and there are Tribal Ancestors, the ritual of whose worship is a strange compound of magic and Nature-worship. Beyond these Divine beings, who possess in some sort a majesty of orderly decent behaviour, there are spirits of the mountain passes, spirits of the lakes and rivers, vampires and all the horrid legion of witchcraft.... It is difficult to estimate the precise effect of Hinduism on the civilisation of the people, for to the outward observer they seem to have adopted only the festivals, the outward ritual, the caste marks and the exclusiveness of Hinduism, while all unmindful of its spirit and inward essentials. Colonel McCulloch remarked nearly fifty years ago that 'In fact their observances are only for appearance sake, not the promptings of the heart[416].'"

It is noteworthy that the Manipuri are also devoted to the game of polo, which R. C. Temple tells us they play much in the same way as do the Balti and Ladakhi at the opposite extremity of the Himalayas. Another remarkable link with the "Far West" is the term Khel, which has travelled all the way from Persia or Parthia through Afghanistan to Nagaland, where it retains the same meaning of clan or section of a village, and produces the same disintegrating effects as amongst the Afghans. In Angamiland each village is split into two or more Khels, and "it is no unusual state of affairs to find Khel A of one village at war with Khel B of another, while not at war with Khel B of its own village. The Khels are often completely separated by great walls, the people on either side living within a few yards of each other, yet having no dealings whatever. Each Khel has its own headman, but little respect is paid to the chief: each Khel maybe described as a small republic[417]." There appears to be no trace even of a jirga, or council of elders, by which some measure of cohesion is imparted to the Afghan Khel system.

From the Kuki-Nagas the transition is unbroken to the large group of Chins of the Chindwin valley, named from them, and thence northwards to the rude Kakhyens (Kachins) about the Irawadi headstreams and southwards to the numerous Karen tribes, who occupy the ethnical parting-line between Burma and Siam all the way down to Tenasserim.

For the first detailed account of the Chins we are indebted to S. Carey and H. N. Tuck[418], who accept B. Houghton's theory that these tribes, as well as the Kuki-Lushai, "originally lived in what we now know as Tibet, and are of one and the same stock; their form of government, method of cultivation, manners and customs, beliefs and traditions, all point to one origin." The term Chin, said to be a Burmese form of the Chinese jin, "men," is unknown to these aborigines, who call themselves Yo in the north and Lai in the south, while in Lower Burma they are Shu.

In truth there is no recognised collective name, and Shendu (Sindhu) often so applied is proper only to the once formidable Chittagong and Arakan frontier tribes, Klangklangs and Hakas, who with the Sokte, Tashons, Siyirs, and others are now reduced and administered from Falam. Each little group has its own tribal name, and often one or two others, descriptive, abusive and so on, given them by their neighbours. Thus the Nwengals (Nun, river, ngal, across) are only that section of the Soktes now settled on the farther or right bank of the Manipur, while the Soktes themselves (Sok, to go down, te, men) are so called because they migrated from Chin Nwe (9 miles from Tiddim), cradle of the Chin race, down to Molbem, their earliest settlement, which is the Mobingyi of the Burmese. So with Siyin, the Burmese form of Sheyante (she, alkali, yan, side, te, men), the group who settled by the alkali springs east of Chin Nwe, who are the Taute ("stout" or "sturdy" people) of the Lushai and southern Chins. Let these few specimens suffice as a slight object-lesson in the involved tribal nomenclature which prevails, not only amongst the Chins, but everywhere in the Tibeto-Indo-Chinese domain, from the north-western Himalayas to Cape St James at the south-eastern extremity of Farther India. I have myself collected nearly a thousand such names of clans, septs, and fragmentary groups within this domain, and am well aware that the list neither is, nor ever can be, complete, the groups themselves often being unstable quantities in a constant state of fluctuation.

Most of the Chin groups have popular legends to explain either their origin or their present reduced state. Thus the Tawyans, a branch of the Tashons, claim to be Torrs, that is, the people of the Rawvan district, who were formerly very powerful, but were ruined by their insane efforts to capture the sun. Building a sort of Jacob's ladder, they mounted higher and higher; but growing tired, quarrelled among themselves, and one day, while half of them were clambering up the pole, the other half below cut it down just as they were about to seize the sun. So the Whenohs, another Tashon group, said to be Lushais left behind in a district now forming part of Chinland, tell a different tale. They say they came out of the rocks at Sepi, which they think was their original home. They share, however, this legend of their underground origin with the Soktes and several other Chin tribes.

Amid much diversity of speech and physique the Chins present some common mental qualities, such as "slow speech, serious manner, respect for birth and knowledge of pedigrees, the duty of revenge, the taste for a treacherous method of warfare, the curse of drink, the virtue of hospitality, the clannish feeling, the vice of avarice, the filthy state of the body, mutual distrust, impatience under control, the want of power of combination and of continued effort, arrogance in victory, speedy discouragement and panic in defeat[419]."

Physically they are a fine race, taller and stouter than the surrounding lowlanders, men 5 feet 10 or 11 inches being common enough among the independent southerners. There are some "perfectly proportioned giants with a magnificent development of muscle." Yet dwarfs are met with in some districts, and in others "the inhabitants are a wretched lot, much afflicted with goitre, amongst whom may be seen cretins who crawl about on all fours with the pigs in the gutter. At Dimlo, in the Sokte tract, leprosy has a firm hold on the inhabitants."

Although often described as devil-worshippers, the Chins really worship neither god nor devil. The northerners believe there is no Supreme Being, and although the southerners admit a "Kozin" or head god, to whom they sacrifice, they do not worship him, and never look to him for any grace or mercy, except that of withholding the plagues and misfortunes which he is capable of working on any in this world who offend him. Besides Kozin, there are nats or spirits of the house, family, clan, fields; and others who dwell in particular places in the air, the streams, the jungle, and the hills. Kindly nats are ignored; all others can and will do harm unless propitiated[420].

The departed go to Mithikwa, "Dead Man's Village," which is divided into Pwethikwa, the pleasant abode, and Sathikwa, the wretched abode of the unavenged. Good or bad deeds do not affect the future of man, who must go to Pwethikwa if he dies a natural or accidental death, and to Sathikwa if killed, and there bide till avenged by blood. Thus the vendetta receives a sort of religious sanction, strengthened by the belief that the slain becomes the slave of the slayer in the next world. "Should the slayer himself be slain, then the first slain is the slave of the second slain, who in turn is the slave of the man who killed him."

Whether a man has been honest or dishonest in this world is of no consequence in the next existence; but, if he has killed many people in this world, he has many slaves to serve him in his future existence; if he has killed many wild animals, then he will start well-supplied with food, for all that he kills on earth are his in the future existence. In the next existence hunting and drinking will certainly be practised, but whether fighting and raiding will be indulged in is unknown.

Cholera and small-pox are spirits, and when cholera broke out among the Chins who visited Rangoon in 1895 they carried their dahs (knives) drawn to scare off the nat, and spent the day hiding under bushes, so that the spirit should not find them. Some even wanted to sacrifice a slave boy, but were talked over to substitute some pariah dogs. They firmly believe in the evil eye, and the Hakas think the Sujins and others are all wizards, whose single glance can bewitch them, and may cause lizards to enter the body and devour the entrails. A Chin once complained to Surgeon-Major Newland that a nat had entered his stomach at the glance of a Yahow, and he went to hospital quite prepared to die. But an emetic brought him round, and he went off happy in the belief that he had vomited the nat.

Ethnically connected with the Kuki-Naga groups are the Kakhyens of the Irawadi headstreams, and the Karens, who form numerous village communities about the Burma-Siamese borderland. The Kakhyens, so called abusively by the Burmese, are the Cacobees of the early writers[421], whose proper name is Singpho (Chingpaw), i.e. "Men[422]," and whose curious semi-agglutinating speech, spoken in an ascending tone, each sentence ending in a long-drawn i in a higher key (Bigandet), shows affinities rather with the Mishmi and other North Assamese tongues than with the cultured Burmese. They form a very widespread family, stretching from the Eastern Himalayas right into Yunnan, and presenting two somewhat marked physical types: (1) the true Chingpaws, with short round head, low forehead, prominent cheek-bones, slant eye, broad nose, thick protruding lips, very dark brown hair and eyes, dirty buff colour, mean height (about 5 ft. 5 or 6 in.) with disproportionately short legs; (2) a much finer race, with regular Caucasic features, long oval face, pointed chin, aquiline nose. One Kakhyen belle met with at Bhamo, "with large lustrous eyes and fair skin, might almost have passed for a European[423]."

It is important to note this Caucasic element, which we first meet here going eastwards from the Himalayas, but which is found either separate or interspersed amongst the Mongoloid populations all over the south-east Asiatic uplands from Tibet to Cochin-China, and passing thence into Oceanica[424].

The kinship of the Kakhyens with the still more numerous Karens is now generally accepted, and it is no longer found necessary to bring the latter all the way from Turkestan. They form a large section, perhaps one-sixth, of the whole population of Burma, and overflow into the west Siamese borderlands. Their subdivisions are endless, though all may be reduced to three main branches, Sgaws, Pwos and Bwais, these last including the somewhat distinct group of Karenni, or "Red Karens." Although D. M. Smeaton calls the language "monosyllabic," it is evidently agglutinating, of the normal sub-Himalayan type[425].

The Karens are a short, sturdy race, with straight black and also brownish hair, black, and even hazel eyes, and light or yellowish brown complexion, so that here also a Caucasic strain may be suspected.

Despite the favourable pictures of the missionaries, whose propaganda has been singularly successful amongst these aborigines, the Karens are not an amiable or particularly friendly people, but rather shy, reticent and even surly, though trustworthy and loyal to those chiefs and guides who have once gained their confidence. In warfare they are treacherous rather than brave, and strangely cruel even to little children. Their belief in a divine Creator who has deserted them resembles that of the Kuki people, and to the nats of the Kuki correspond the la of the Karens, who are even more numerous, every mountain, stream, rapid, crest, peak or other conspicuous object having its proper indwelling la. There are also seven specially baneful spirits, who have to be appeased by family offerings. "On the whole their belief in a personal god, their tradition as to the former possession of a 'law,' and their expectation of a prophet have made them susceptible to Christianity to a degree that is almost unique. Of this splendid opportunity the American mission has taken full advantage, educating, civilising, welding together, and making a people out of the downtrodden Karen tribes, while Christianizing them[426]."

In the Burmese division proper are comprised several groups, presenting all grades of culture, from the sheer savagery of the Mros, Kheongs, and others of the Arakan Yoma range, and the agricultural Mugs of the Arakan plains, to the dominant historical Burmese nation of the Irawadi valley. Here also the terminology is perplexing, and it may be well to explain that Yoma, applied by Logan collectively to all the Arakan Hill tribes, has no ethnic value at all, simply meaning a mountain range in Burmese[427]. Toung-gnu, one of Mason's divisions of the Burmese family, was merely a petty state founded by a younger branch of the Royal House, and "has no more claim to rank as a separate tribe than any other Burman town[428]. "Tavoyers are merely the people of the Tavoy district, Tenasserim, originally from Arakan, and now speaking a Burmese dialect largely affected by Siamese elements; Tungthas, like Yoma, means "Highlander," and is even of wider application; the Tipperahs, Mrungs, Kumi, Mros, Khemis, and Khyengs are all Tungthas of Burmese stock, and speak rude Burmese dialects.

The correlative of Tungthas is Khyungthas, "River People," that is, the Arakan Lowlanders comprising the more civilised peoples about the middle and lower course of the rivers, who are improperly called Mugs (Maghs) by the Bengali, and whose real name is Rakhaingtha, i.e. people of Rakhaing (Arakan). They are undoubtedly of the same stock as the cultured Burmese, whose traditions point to Arakan as the cradle of the race, and in whose chronicles the Rakhaingtha are called M'ranmakrih, "Great M'ranmas," or "Elder Burmese." Both branches call themselves M'ranma, M'rama (the correct form of Barma, Burma, but now usually pronounced Myamma), probably from a root mro, myo, "man," though connected by Burnouf with Brahma, the Brahmanical having preceded the Buddhist religion in this region. In any case the M'rama may claim a respectable antiquity, being already mentioned in the national records so early as the first century of the new era, when the land "was said to be overrun with fabulous monsters and other terrors, which are called to this day by the superstitious natives, the five enemies. These were a fierce tiger, an enormous boar, a flying dragon, a prodigious man-eating bird, and a huge creeping pumpkin, which threatened to entangle the whole country[429]."

The Burmese type has been not incorrectly described as intermediate between the Chinese and the Malay, more refined, or at least softer than either, of yellowish brown or olive complexion, often showing very dark shades, full black and lank hair, no beard, small but straight nose, weak extremities, pliant figure, and a mean height[430].

Most Europeans speak well of the Burmese people, whose bright genial temperament and extreme friendliness towards strangers more than outweigh a natural indolence which hurts nobody but themselves, and a little arrogance or vanity inspired by the still remembered glories of a nation that once ruled over a great part of Indo-China. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Burmese society is the almost democratic independence and equality of all classes developed under an exceptionally severe Asiatic autocracy. "They are perfectly republican in the freedom with which all ranks mingle together and talk with one another, without any marked distinction in regard to difference of rank or wealth[431]." Scott attributes this trait, I think rightly, to the great leveller, Buddhism, the true spirit of which has perhaps been better preserved in Burma than in any other land.

The priesthood has not become the privileged and oppressive class that has usurped all spiritual and temporal functions in Tibet, for in Burma everybody is or has been a priest for some period of his life. All enter the monasteries--which are the national schools--not only for general instruction, but actually as members of the sacerdotal order. They submit to the tonsure, take "minor orders," so to say, and wear the yellow robe, if only for a few months or weeks or days. But for the time being they must renounce "the world, the flesh and the devil," and must play the mendicant, make the round of the village at least once with the begging-bowl hung round their neck in company with the regular members of the community. They thus become initiated, and it becomes no longer possible for the confraternity to impose either on the rulers or on the ruled. "Teaching is all that the brethren of the order do for the people. They have no spiritual powers whatever. They simply become members of a holy society that they may observe the precepts of the Master more perfectly, and all they do for the alms lavished on them by the pious laity is to instruct the children in reading, writing, and the rudiments of religion[432]."

R. Grant Brown denies the common report which "has appeared in almost every work in which religion in Burma is dealt with" that Burman Buddhism is superficial. "The Burman Buddhist is at least as much influenced by his religion as the average Christian. The monks are probably as strict in their religious observances as any large religious body in the world.... Most laymen, too, obey the prohibitions against alcohol and the taking of life, though these run counter both to strong human instincts and to animistic practice[433]."

Nor is the personal freedom here spoken of confined to the men. In no other part of the world do the women enjoy a larger measure of independent action than in Burma, with the result that they are acknowledged to be far more virtuous, thrifty, and intelligent than those of all the surrounding lands. Their capacity for business and petty dealings is rivalled only by their Gallic sisters; and H. S. Hallett tells us that in every town and village "you will see damsels squatted on the floor of the verandah with diminutive, or sometimes large, stalls in front of them, covered with vegetables, fruit, betel-nut, cigars and other articles. However numerous they may be, the price of everything is known to them; and such is their idea of probity, that pilfering is quite unknown amongst them. They are entirely trusted by their parents from their earliest years; even when they blossom into young women, chaperons are never a necessity; yet immorality is far less customary amongst them, I am led to believe, than in any country in Europe[434]."

This observer quotes Bishop Bigandet, a forty years' resident amongst the natives, to the effect that "in Burmah and Siam the doctrines of Buddhism have produced a striking, and to the lover of true civilization a most interesting result--the almost complete equality of the condition of the women with that of the men. In these countries women are seen circulating freely in the streets; they preside at the comptoir, and hold an almost exclusive possession of the bazaars. Their social position is more elevated, in every respect, than in the regions where Buddhism is not the predominating creed. They may be said to be men's companions, and not their slaves."

Burma is one of those regions where tattooing has acquired the rank of a fine art. Indeed the intricate designs and general pictorial effect produced by the Burmese artists on the living body are rivalled only by those of Japan, New Zealand, and some other Polynesian groups. Hallett, who states that "the Burmese, the Shans, and certain Burmanized tribes are the only peoples in the south of Asia who are known to tattoo their body," tells us that the elaborate operation is performed only on the male sex, the whole person from waist to knees, and amongst some Shan tribes from neck to foot, being covered with heraldic figures of animals, with intervening traceries, so that at a little distance the effect is that of a pair of dark-blue breeches[435]. The pigments are lamp-black or vermilion, and the pattern is usually first traced with a fine hair pencil and then worked in by a series of punctures made by a long pointed brass style[436].

East of Burma we enter the country of the Shans, one of the most numerous and widespread peoples of Asia, who call themselves Tai (T'hai), "Noble" or "Free," although slavery in various forms has from time immemorial been a social institution amongst all the southern groups. Here again tribal and national terminology is somewhat bewildering; but it will help to notice that Shan, said to be of Chinese origin[437], is the collective Burmese name, and therefore corresponds to Lao, the collective Siamese name. These two terms are therefore rather political than ethnical, Shan denoting all the Tai peoples formerly subject to Burma and now mostly British subjects, Lao all the Tai peoples formerly subject to Siam, and now (since 1896) mostly French subjects[438]. The Siamese group them all in two divisions, the Lau-pang-dun, "Black-paunch Lao," so called because they clothe themselves as it were in a dark skin-tight garb by the tattooing process; and the Lau-pang-kah, "White-paunch Lao," who do not tattoo. The Burmese groups call themselves collectively Ngiou[439], while the most general Chinese name is Pai (Pa-y). Prince Henri d'Orleans, who is careful to point out that Pai is only another name for Lao[440], constantly met Pai groups all along the route from Tonking to Assam, and the bulk of the lowland population in Assam itself belongs originally[441] to the same family, though now mostly assimilated to the Hindus in speech, religion, and general culture. Assam in fact takes its name from the Ahoms, the "peerless," the title first adopted by the Mau Shan chief, Chukupha, who invaded the country from north-east Burma, and in 1228 A.D. founded the Ahom dynasty, which was overthrown in 1810 by the Burmese, who were ejected in 1827 by the English[442].

These Ahoms came from the Khamti (Kampti) district about the sources of the Irawadi, where Prince Henri was surprised to find a civilised and lettered Buddhist people of Pai (Shan) speech still enjoying political autonomy in the dangerous proximity of le leopard britannique. They call themselves Padao, and it is curious to note that both Padam and Assami are also tribal names amongst the neighbouring Abor Hillmen. The French traveller was told that the Padao, who claimed to be T'hais (Tai) like the Laotians[443], were indigenous, and he describes the type as also Laotian--straight eyes rather wide apart, nose broad at base, forehead arched, superciliary arches prominent, thick lips, pointed chin, olive colour, slightly bronzed and darker than in the Lao country; the men ill-favoured, the young women with pleasant features, and some with very beautiful eyes.

Passing into China we are still in the midst of Shan peoples, whose range appears formerly to have extended up to the right bank of the Yang-tse-Kiang, and whose cradle has been traced by de Lacouperie to "the Kiu-lung mountains north of Sechuen and south of Shensi in China proper[444]." This authority holds that they constitute a chief element in the Chinese race itself, which, as it spread southwards beyond the Yang-tse-Kiang, amalgamated with the Shan aborigines, and thus became profoundly modified both in type and speech, the present Chinese language comprising over thirty per cent. of Shan ingredients. Colquhoun also, during his explorations in the southern provinces, found that "most of the aborigines, although known to the Chinese by various nicknames, were Shans; and that their propinquity to the Chinese was slowly changing their habits, manners, and dress, and gradually incorporating them with that people[445]."

This process of fusion has been in progress for ages, not only between the southern Chinese and the Shans, but also between the Shans and the Caucasic aborigines, whom we first met amongst the Kakhyens, but who are found scattered mostly in small groups over all the uplands between Tibet and the Cochin-Chinese coast range. The result is that the Shans are generally of finer physique than either the kindred Siamese and Malays in the south, or the more remotely connected Chinese in the north. The colour, says Bock, "is much lighter than that of the Siamese," and "in facial expression the Laotians are better-looking than the Malays, having good high foreheads, and the men particularly having regular well-shaped noses, with nostrils not so wide as those of their neighbours[446]." Still more emphatic is the testimony of Kreitner of the Szechenyi expedition, who tells us that the Burmese Shans have "a nobler head than the Chinese; the dark eyes are about horizontal, the nose is straight, the whole expression approaches that of the Caucasic race[447]."

Notwithstanding their wide diffusion, interminglings with other races, varied grades of culture, and lack of political cohesion, the Tai-Shan groups acquire a certain ethnical and even national unity from their generally uniform type, social usages, Buddhist religion, and common Indo-Chinese speech. Amidst a chaos of radically distinct idioms current amongst the surrounding indigenous populations, they have everywhere preserved a remarkable degree of linguistic uniformity, all speaking various more or less divergent dialects of the same mother-tongue. Excluding a large percentage of Sanskrit terms introduced into the literary language by their Hindu educators, this radical mother-tongue comprises about 1860 distinct words or rather sounds, which have been reduced by phonetic decay to so many monosyllables, each uttered with five tones, the natural tone, two higher tones, and two lower[448]. Each term thus acquires five distinct meanings, and in fact represents five different words, which were phonetically distinct dissyllables, or even polysyllables in the primitive language.

The same process of disintegration has been at work throughout the whole of the Indo-Chinese linguistic area, where all the leading tongues--Chinese, Annamese, Tai-Shan, Burmese--belong to the same isolating form of speech, which, as explained in Ethnology, Chap. IX., is not a primitive condition, but a later development, the outcome of profound phonetic corruption.

The remarkable uniformity of the Tai-Shan member of this order of speech may be in part due to the conservative effects of the literary standard. Probably over 2000 years ago most of the Shan groups were brought under Hindu influences by the Brahman, and later by the Buddhist missionaries, who reduced their rude speech to written form, while introducing a large number of Sanskrit terms inseparable from the new religious ideas. The writing systems, all based on the square Pali form of the Devanagari syllabic characters, were adapted to the phonetic requirements of the various dialects, with the result that the Tai-Shan linguistic family is encumbered with four different scripts. "The Western Shans use one very like the Burmese; the Siamese have a character of their own, which is very like Pali; the Shans called Lue have another character of their own; and to the north of Siam the Lao Shans have another[449]."

These Shan alphabets of Hindu origin are supposed by de Lacouperie to be connected with the writing systems which have been credited to the Mossos, Lolos, and some other hill peoples about the Chinese and Indo-Chinese borderlands. At Lan-Chu in the Lolo country Prince Henri found that MSS. were very numerous, and he was shown some very fine specimens "enlumines." Here, he tells us, the script is still in use, being employed jointly with Chinese in drawing up legal documents connected with property. He was informed that this Lolo script comprised 300 characters, read from top to bottom and from left to right[450], although other authorities say from right to left.

Of the Lolo he gives no specimens[451], but reproduces two or three pages of a Mosso book with transliteration and translation. Other specimens, but without explanation, were already known through Gill and Desgodins, and their decipherment had exercised the ingenuity of several Chinese scholars. Their failure to interpret them is now accounted for by Prince Henri, who declares that, "strictly speaking the Mossos have no writing system. The magicians keep and still make copy-books full of hieroglyphics; each page is divided into little sections (cahiers) following horizontally from left to right, in which are inscribed one or more somewhat rough figures, heads of animals, men, houses, conventional signs representing the sky or lightning, and so on." Some of the magicians expounded two of the books, which contained invocations, beginning with the creation of the world, and winding up with a catalogue of all the evils threatening mortals, but to be averted by being pious, that is, by making gifts to the magicians. The same ideas are always expressed by the same signs; yet the magicians declared that there was no alphabet, the hieroglyphs being handed down bodily from one expert to another. Nevertheless Prince Henri looks on this as one of the first steps in the history of writing; "originally many of the Chinese characters were simply pictorial, and if the Mossos, instead of being hemmed in, had acquired a large expansion, their sacred books might also perhaps have given birth to true characters[452]."

Although now "hemmed in," the Mossos are a historical and somewhat cultured people, belonging to the same group as the Iungs (Njungs), who came from the regions north-east of Tibet, and appeared on the Chinese frontiers about 600 B.C. They are referred to in the Chinese records of 796 A.D., when they were reduced by the king of Nanchao. After various vicissitudes they recognised the Chinese suzerainty in the fourteenth century, and were finally subdued in the eighteenth. De Lacouperie[453] thinks they are probably of the same origin as the Lolos, the two languages having much in common, and the names of both being Chinese, while the Lolos and the Mossos call themselves respectively Nossu (Nesu) and Nashi (Nashri).

Everywhere amongst these border tribes are met groups of aborigines, who present more or less regular features which are described by various travellers as "Caucasic" or "European." Thus the Kiu-tse, who are the Khanungs of the English maps, and are akin to the large Lu-tse family (Melam, Anu, Diasu, etc.), reminded Prince Henri of some Europeans of his acquaintance[454], and he speaks of the light colour, straight nose and eyes, and generally fine type of the Yayo (Yao), as the Chinese call them, but whose real name is Lin-tin-yu.

The same Caucasic element reappears in a pronounced form amongst the indigenous populations of Tonking, to whom A. Billet has devoted an instructive monograph[455]. This observer, who declares that these aborigines are quite distinct both from the Chinese and the Annamese, groups them in three main divisions--Tho, Nong, and Man[456]--all collectively called Moi, Muong, and Myong by the Annamese. The Thos, who are the most numerous, are agriculturists, holding all the upland valleys and thinning off towards the wooded heights. They are tall compared to the Mongols (5 ft. 6 or 7 in.), lighter than the Annamese, round-headed, with oval face, deep-set straight eyes, low cheek-bones, straight and even slightly aquiline nose not depressed at root, and muscular frames. They are a patient, industrious, and frugal people, now mainly subject to Chinese and Annamese influences in their social usages and religion. Very peculiar nevertheless are some of their surviving customs, such as the feast of youth, the pastime of swinging, and especially chess played with living pieces, whose movements are directed by two players. The language appears to be a Shan dialect, and to this family the writer affiliates both the Thos and the Nongs. The latter are a much more mixed people, now largely assimilated to the Chinese, although the primitive type still persists, especially amongst the women, as is so often the case. A. Billet tells us that he often met Nong women "with light and sometimes even red hair[457]."

It is extremely interesting to learn that the Mans came traditionally "from a far-off western land where their forefathers were said to have lived in contact with peoples of white blood thousands of years ago." This tradition, which would identify them with the above-mentioned Man-tse, is supported by their physical appearance--long head, oval face, small cheek-bones, eyes without the Mongol fold, skin not yellowish but rather "browned by the sun," regular features--in nothing recalling the traits of the yellow races.

Let us now turn to M. R. Verneau's comments on the rich materials brought together by A. Billet, in whom, "being not only a medical man, but also a graduate in the natural sciences, absolute confidence may be placed[458]."

"The Mans-Tien, the Mans-Coc, the Mans-Meo (Miao, Miao-tse, or Mieu) present a pretty complete identity with the Pan-y and the Pan-yao of South Kwang-si; they are the debris of a very ancient race, which with T. de Lacouperie may be called pre-Chinese. This early race, which bore the name of Pan-hu or Ngao, occupied Central China before the arrival of the Chinese. According to M. d'Hervey de Saint-Denys, the mountains and valleys of Kwei-chau where these Miao-tse still survive were the cradle of the Pan-hu. In any case it seems certain that the T'hai and the Man race came from Central Asia, and that, from the anthropological standpoint, they differ altogether from the Mongol group represented by the Chinese and the Annamese. The Man especially presents striking affinities with the Aryan type."

Thus is again confirmed by the latest investigations, and by the conclusions of some of the leading members of the French school of anthropology, the view first advanced by me in 1879, that peoples of the Caucasic (here called "Aryan") division had already spread to the utmost confines of south-east Asia in remote prehistoric times, and had in this region even preceded the first waves of Mongolic migration radiating from their cradle-land on the Tibetan plateau[459].

Reference was above made to the singular lack of political cohesion at all times betrayed by the Tai-Shan peoples. The only noteworthy exception is the Siamese branch, which forms the bulk of the population in the Menam basin. In this highly favoured region of vast hill-encircled alluvial plains of inexhaustible fertility, traversed by numerous streams navigable for light craft, and giving direct access to the inland waters of Malaysia, the Southern Shans were able at an early date to merge the primitive tribal groups in a great nationality, and found a powerful empire, which at one time dominated most of Indo-China and the Malay Peninsula.

Siam, alone of all the Shan states, even still maintains a precarious independence, although now again reduced by European aggression to little more than the natural limits of the fluvial valley, which is usually regarded by the Southern Shans as the home of their race. Yet they appear to have been here preceded by the Caucasic Khmers (Cambojans), whose advent is referred in the national chronicles to the year 543 B.C. and who, according to the Hindu records, were expelled about 443 A.D. It was through these Khmers, and not directly from India, that the "Sayamas" received their Hindu culture, and the Siamese annals, mingling fact with fiction, refer to the miraculous birth of the national hero, Phra-Ruang, who threw off the foreign yoke, declared the people henceforth T'hai, "Freemen," invented the present Siamese alphabet, and ordered the Khom (Cambojan) to be reserved in future for copying the sacred writings.

The introduction of Buddhism is assigned to the year 638 A.D., one of the first authentic dates in the native records. The ancient city of Labong had already been founded (575), and other settlements now followed rapidly, always in the direction of the south, according as the Shan race steadily advanced towards the seaboard, driving before them or mingling with Khmers, Lawas, Karens, and other aborigines, some now extinct, some still surviving on the wooded uplands and plateaux encircling the Menam valley. Ayuthia, the great centre of national life in later times, dates only from the year 1350, when the empire had received its greatest expansion, comprising the whole of Camboja, Pegu, Tenasserim, and the Malay Peninsula, and extending its conquering arms across the inland waters as far as Java[460]. Then followed the disastrous wars with Burma, which twice captured and finally destroyed Ayuthia (1767), now a picturesque elephant-park visited by tourists from the present capital, Bangkok, founded in 1772 a little lower down the Menam.

But the elements of decay existed from the first in the institution of slavery or serfdom, which was not restricted to a particular class, as in other lands, but, before the modern reforms, extended in principle to all the kings' subjects in mockery declared "Freemen" by the founders of the monarchy. This, however, may be regarded as perhaps little more than a legal fiction, for at all times class distinctions were really recognised, comprising the members of the royal family--a somewhat numerous group--the nobles named by the king, the leks or vassals, and the people, these latter being again subdivided into three sections, those liable to taxation, those subject to forced labour, and the slaves proper. But so little developed was the sentiment of personal dignity and freedom, that anybody from the highest noble to the humblest citizen might at any moment lapse into the lowest category. Like most Mongoloid peoples, the Siamese are incurable gamblers, and formerly it was an everyday occurrence for a freeman to stake all his goods and chattels, wives, children, and self, on the hazard of the die.

Yet the women, like their Burmese sisters, have always held a somewhat honourable social position, being free to walk abroad, go shopping, visit their friends, see the sights, and take part in the frequent public feastings without restriction. Those, however, who brought no dower and had to be purchased, might again be sold at any time, and many thus constantly fell from the dignity of matrons to the position of the merest drudges without rights or privileges of any kind. These strange relations were endurable, thanks to the genial nature of the national temperament, by which the hard lot of the thralls was softened, and a little light allowed to penetrate into the darkest corners[461] of the social system. The open slave-markets, which in the vassal Lao states fostered systematic raiding-expeditions amongst the unreduced aborigines, were abolished in 1873, and since 1890 all born in slavery are free on reaching their 21st year.

Siamese Buddhism is a slightly modified form of that prevailing in Ceylon, although strictly practised but by few. There are two classes or "sects," the reformers who attach more importance to the observance of the canon law than to meditation, and the old believers, some devoted to a contemplative life, others to the study of the sunless wilderness of Buddhist writings. But, beneath it all, spirit or devil-worship is still rife, and in many districts pure animism is practically the only religion. Even temples and shrines have been raised to the countless gods of land and water, woods, mountains, villages and households. To these gods are credited all sorts of calamities, and to prevent them from getting into the bodies of the dead the latter are brought out, not through door or window, but through a breach in the wall, which is afterwards carefully built up. Similar ideas prevail amongst many other peoples, both at higher and lower levels of culture, for nothing is more ineradicable than such popular beliefs associated with the relations presumed to exist between the present and the after life.

Incredible sums are yearly lavished in offerings to the spirits, which give rise to an endless round of feasts and revels, and also in support of the numerous Buddhist temples, convents, and their inmates. The treasures accumulated in the "royal cloisters" and other shrines represent a great part of the national savings--investments for the other world, among which are said to be numerous gold statues glittering with rubies, sapphires, and other priceless gems. But in these matters the taste of the talapoins[462], as the priests were formerly called, is somewhat catholic, including pictures of reviews and battle-scenes from the European illustrated papers, and sometimes even statues of Napoleon set up by the side of Buddha.

So numerous, absurd, and exacting are the rules of the monastic communities that, but for the aid of the temple servants and novices, existence would be impossible. A list of such puerilities occupies several pages in A. R. Colquhoun's work Amongst the Shans (219-231), and from these we learn that the monks must not dig the ground, so that they can neither plant nor sow; must not boil rice, as it would kill the germ; eat corn for the same reason; climb trees lest a branch get broken; kindle a flame, as it destroys the fuel; put out a flame, as that also would extinguish life; forge iron, as sparks would fly out and perish; swing their arms in walking; wink in speaking; buy or sell; stretch the legs when sitting; breed poultry, pigs, or other animals; mount an elephant or palanquin; wear red, black, green, or white garments; mourn for the dead, etc., etc. In a word all might be summed up by a general injunction neither to do anything, nor not to do anything, and then despair of attaining Nirvana; for it would be impossible to conceive of any more pessimistic system in theory[463]. Practically it is otherwise, and in point of fact the utmost religious indifference prevails amongst all classes.

Within the Mongolic division it would be difficult to imagine any more striking contrast than that presented by the gentle, kindly, and on the whole not ill-favoured Siamese, and their hard-featured, hard-hearted, and grasping Annamese neighbours. Let anyone, who may fancy there is little or nothing in blood, pass rapidly from the bright, genial--if somewhat listless and corrupt--social life of Bangkok to the dry, uncongenial moral atmosphere of Ha-noi or Saigon, and he will be apt to modify his views on that point. Few observers have a good word to say for the Tonkingese, the Cochin-Chinese, or any other branch of the Annamese family, and some even of the least prejudiced are so outspoken that we must needs infer there is good ground for their severe strictures on these strange, uncouth materialists. Buddhists of course they are nominally; but of the moral sense they have little, unless it be (amongst the lettered classes) a pale reflection of the pale Chinese ethical code. The whole region in fact is a sort of attenuated China, to which it owes its arts and industries, its letters, moral systems, general culture, and even a large part of its inhabitants. Giao-shi (Kiao-shi), the name of the aborigines, said to mean "Bifurcated," or "Cross-toes[464]," in reference to the wide space between the great toe and the next, occurs in the legendary Chinese records so far back as 2285 B.C., since which period the two countries are supposed to have maintained almost uninterrupted relations, whether friendly or hostile, down to the present day. At first the Giao-shi were confined to the northern parts of Lu-kiang, the present Tonking, all the rest of the coastlands being held by the powerful Champa (Tsiampa) people, whose affinities are with the Oceanic populations. But in 218 B.C., Lu-kiang having been reduced and incorporated with China proper, a large number of Chinese emigrants settled in the country, and gradually merged with the Giao-shi in a single nationality, whose twofold descent is still reflected in the Annamese physical and mental characters.

This term Annam[465], however, did not come into use till the seventh century, when it was officially applied to the frontier river between China and Tonking, and afterwards extended to the whole of Tonking and Cochin-China. Tonking itself, meaning the "Eastern Court[466]," was originally the name only of the city of Ha-noi when it was a royal residence, but was later extended to the whole of the northern kingdom, whose true name is Yueeh-nan. To this corresponded the southern Kwe-Chen-Ching, "Kingdom of Chen-Ching," which was so named in the ninth century from its capital Chen-Ching, and of which our Cochin-China appears to be a corrupt form.

But, amid all this troublesome political nomenclature, the dominant Annamese nation has faithfully preserved its homogeneous character, spreading, like the Siamese Shans, steadily southwards, and gradually absorbing the whole of the Champa domain to the southern extremity of the peninsula, as well as a large part of the ancient kingdom of Camboja about the Mekhong delta. They thus form at present the almost exclusive ethnical element throughout all the lowland and cultivated parts of Tonking, upper and lower Cochin-China and south Camboja, with a total population in 1898 of about twenty millions.

The Annamese are described in a semi-official report[467] as characterised by a high broad forehead, high cheek-bones, small crushed nose, rather thick lips, black hair, scant beard, mean height, coppery complexion, deceitful (rusee) expression, and rude or insolent bearing. The head is round (index 83 to 84) and the features are in general flat and coarse, while to an ungainly exterior corresponds a harsh unsympathetic temperament. The Abbe Gagelin, who lived years in their midst, frankly declares that they are at once arrogant and dishonest, and dead to all the finer feelings of human nature, so that after years of absence the nearest akin will meet without any outward sign of pleasure or affection. Others go further, and J. G. Scott summed it all up by declaring that "the fewer Annamese there are, the less taint there is on the human race." No doubt Lord Curzon gives a more favourable picture, but this traveller spent only a short time in the country, and even he allows that they are "tricky and deceitful, disposed to thieve when they get the chance, mendacious, and incurable gamblers[468]."

Yet they have one redeeming quality, an intense love of personal freedom, strangely contrasting with the almost abject slavish spirit of the Siamese. The feeling extends to all classes, so that servitude is held in abhorrence, and, as in Burma, a democratic sense of equality permeates the social system[469]. Hence, although the State has always been an absolute monarchy, each separate commune constitutes a veritable little oligarchic commonwealth. This has come as a great surprise to the present French administrators of the country, who frankly declare that they cannot hope to improve the social or political position of the people by substituting European for native laws and usages. The Annamese have in fact little to learn from western social institutions.

Their language, spoken everywhere with remarkable uniformity, is of the normal Indo-Chinese isolating type, possessing six tones, three high, and three low, and written in ideographic characters based on the Chinese, but with numerous modifications and additions. But, although these are ill-suited for the purpose, the attempt made by the early Portuguese missionaries to substitute the so-called quoc-ngu, or Roman phonetic system, has been defeated by the conservative spirit of the people. Primary instruction has long been widely diffused, and almost everybody can read and write as many of the numerous hieroglyphs as are needed for the ordinary purpose of daily intercourse. Every village has its free school, and a higher range of studies is encouraged by the public examinations to which, as in China, all candidates for government appointments are subjected. Under such a scheme surprising results might be achieved, were the course of studies not based exclusively on the empty formulas of Chinese classical literature. The subjects taught are for the most part puerile, and true science is replaced by the dry moral precepts of Confucius. One result amongst the educated classes is a scoffing, sceptical spirit, free from all religious prejudice, and unhampered by theological creeds or dogmas, combined with a lofty moral tone, not always however in harmony with daily conduct.

Even more than in China, the family is the true base of the social system, the head of the household being not only the high-priest of the ancestral cult, but also a kind of patriarch enjoying almost absolute control over his children. In this respect the relations are somewhat one-sided, the father having no recognised obligations towards his offspring, while these are expected to show him perfect obedience in life and veneration after death. Besides this worship of ancestry and the Confucian ethical philosophy, a national form of Buddhism is prevalent. Some even profess all three of these so-called "religions," beneath which there still survive many of the primitive superstitions associated with a not yet extinct belief in spirits and the supernatural power of magicians. While the Buddhist temples are neglected and the few bonzes[470] despised, offerings are still made to the genii of agriculture, of the waters, the tiger, the dolphin, peace, war, diseases, and so forth, whose rude statues in the form of dragons or other fabulous monsters are even set up in the pagodas. Since the early part of the seventeenth century Roman Catholic missionaries have laboured with considerable success in this unpromising field, where the congregations were estimated in 1898 at about 900,000.

From Annam the ethnical transition is easy to China[471] and its teeming multitudes, regarding whose origins, racial and cultural, two opposite views at present hold the field. What may be called the old, but by no means the obsolete school, regards the Chinese populations as the direct descendants of the aborigines who during the Stone Ages entered the Hoang-ho valley probably from the Tibetan plateau, there developed their peculiar culture independently of foreign influences, and thence spread gradually southwards to the whole of China proper, extirpating, absorbing, or driving to the encircling western and southern uplands the ruder aborigines of the Yang-tse-Kiang and Si-Kiang basins.

In direct opposition to this view the new school, championed especially by T. de Lacouperie[472], holds that the present inhabitants of China are late intruders from south-western Asia, and that they arrived not as rude aborigines, but as a cultured people with a considerable knowledge of letters, science, and the arts, all of which they acquired either directly or indirectly from the civilised Akkado-Sumerian inhabitants of Babylonia.

Not merely analogies and resemblances, but what are called actual identities, are pointed out between the two cultures, and even between the two languages, sufficient to establish a common origin of both, Mesopotamia being the fountain-head, whence the stream flowed by channels not clearly defined to the Hoang-ho valley. Thus the Chin. yu, originally go, is equated with Akkad gu, to speak; ye with ge, night, and so on. Then the astronomic and chronologic systems are compared, Berossus and the cuneiform tablets dividing the prehistoric Akkad epoch into 10 periods of 10 kings, lasting 120 Sari, or 432,000 years, while the corresponding Chinese astronomic myth also comprises 10 kings (or dynasties) covering the same period of 432,000 years. The astronomic system credited to the emperor Yao (2000 B.C.) similarly corresponds with the Akkadian, both having the same five planets with names of like meaning, and a year of 12 months and 30 days, with the same cycle of intercalated days, while several of the now obsolete names of the Chinese months answer to those of the Babylonians. Even the name of the first Chinese emperor who built an observatory, Nai-Kwang-ti, somewhat resembles that of the Elamite king, Kuder-na-hangti, who conquered Chaldaea about 2280 B.C.

All this can hardly be explained away as a mere series of coincidences; nevertheless neither Sinologues nor Akkadists are quite convinced, and it is obvious that many of the resemblances may be due to trade or intercourse both by the old overland caravan routes, and by the seaborne traffic from Eridu at the head of the Persian Gulf, which was a flourishing emporium 4000 or 5000 years ago.

But, despite some verbal analogies, an almost insurmountable difficulty is presented by the Akkadian and Chinese languages, which no philological ingenuity can bring into such relation as is required by the hypothesis. T. G. Pinches has shown that at a very early period, say some 5000 years ago, Akkadian already consisted, "for the greater part, of words of one syllable," and was "greatly affected by phonetic decay, the result being that an enormous number of homophones were developed out of roots originally quite distinct[473]." This Akkadian scholar sends me a number of instances, such as tu for tura, to enter; ti for tila, to live; du for dumu, son; du for dugu, good, as in Eridu, for Gurudugu, "the good city," adding that "the list could be extended indefinitely[474]." But de Lacouperie's Bak tribes, that is, the first immigrants from south-west Asia, are not supposed to have reached North China till about 2500 or 3000 B.C., at which time the Chinese language was still in the untoned agglutinating state, with but few monosyllabic homophones, and consequently quite distinct from the Akkadian, as known to us from the Assyrian syllabaries, bilingual lists, and earlier tablets from Nippur or Lagash.

Hence the linguistic argument seems to fail completely, while the Babylonian origin of the Chinese writing system, or rather, the derivation of Chinese and Sumerian from some common parent in Central Asia, awaits further evidence. Many of the Chinese and Akkadian "line forms" collated by C. J. Ball[475] are so simple and, one might say, obvious, that they seem to prove nothing. They may be compared with such infantile utterances as pa, ma, da, ta, occurring in half the languages of the world, without proving a connection or affinity between any of them. But even were the common origin of the two scripts established, it would prove nothing as to the common origin of the two peoples, but only show cultural influences, which need not be denied.

But if Chinese origins cannot be clearly traced back to Babylonia, Chinese culture may still, in a sense, claim to be the oldest in the world, inasmuch as it has persisted with little change from its rise some 4500 years ago down to present times. All other early civilisations--Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Hellenic--have perished, or live only in their monuments, traditions, oral or written records. But the Chinese, despite repeated political and social convulsions, is still as deeply rooted in the past as ever, showing no break of continuity from the dim echoes of remote prehistoric ages down to the last revolution, and the establishment of the Republic. These things touch the surface only of the great ocean of Chinese humanity, which is held together, not by any general spirit of national sentiment (all sentiment is alien from the Chinese temperament), nor by any community of speech, for many of the provincial dialects differ profoundly from each other, but by a prodigious power of inertia, which has hitherto resisted all attempts at change either by pressure from without, or by spontaneous impulse from within.

What they were thousands of years ago, the Chinese still are, a frugal, peace-loving, hard-working people, occupied mainly with tillage and trade, cultivating few arts beyond weaving, porcelain and metal work, but with a widely diffused knowledge of letters, and a writing system which still remains at the cumbrous ideographic stage, needing as many different symbols as there are distinct concepts to be expressed. Yet the system has one advantage, enabling those who speak mutually unintelligible idioms to converse together, using the pencil instead of the tongue. For this very reason the attempts made centuries ago by the government to substitute a phonetic script had to be abandoned. It was found that imperial edicts and other documents so written could not be understood by the populations speaking dialects different from the literary standard, whereas the hieroglyphs, like our ciphers 1, 2, 3 ..., could be read by all educated persons of whatever allied form of speech.

Originally the Chinese system, whether developed on the spot or derived from Akkadian or any other foreign source, was of course pictographic or ideographic, and it is commonly supposed to have remained at that stage ever since, the only material changes being of a graphic nature. The pictographs were conventionalised and reduced to their present form, but still remained ideograms supplemented by a limited number of phonetic determinants. But de Lacouperie has shown that this view is a mistake, and that the evolution from the pictograph to the phonetic symbol had been practically completed in China many centuries before the new era. The Ku-wen style current before the ninth century B.C. "was really the phonetic expression of speech[476]." But for the reason stated it had to be discontinued, and a return made to the earlier ideographic style. The change was effected about 820 B.C. by She Choeu, minister of the Emperor Sueen Wang, who introduced the Ta-chuen style in which "he tried to speak to the eye and no longer to the ear," that is, he reverted to the earlier ideographic process, which has since prevailed. It was simplified about 227 B.C. (Siao Chuen style), and after some other modifications the present caligraphic form (Kiai Shu) was introduced by Wang Hi in 350 A.D. Thus one consequence of the "Expansion of China" was a reversion to barbarism, in respect at least of the national graphic system, by which Chinese thought and literature have been hampered for nearly 3000 years.

Written records, though at first mainly of a mythical character, date from about 3000 B.C.[477] Reference is made in the early documents to the rude and savage times, which in China as elsewhere certainly preceded the historic period. Three different prehistoric ages are even discriminated, and tradition relates how Fu-hi introduced wooden, Thin-ming stone, and Shi-yu metal implements[478]. Later, when their origin and use were forgotten, the jade axes, like those from Yunnan, were looked on as bolts hurled to the earth by the god of thunder, while the arrow-heads, supposed to be also of divine origin, were endowed in the popular fancy with special virtues and even regarded as emblems of sovereignty. Thus may perhaps be explained the curious fact that in early times, before the twelfth century B.C., tribute in flint weapons was paid to the imperial government by some of the reduced wild tribes of the western uplands.

These men of the Stone and Metal Ages are no doubt still largely represented, not only amongst the rude hill tribes of the southern and western borderlands, but also amongst the settled and cultured lowlanders of the great fluvial valleys. The "Hundred Families," as the first immigrants called themselves, came traditionally from the north-western regions beyond the Hoang-ho. According to the Yu-kung their original home lay in the south-western part of Eastern Turkestan, whence they first migrated east to the oases north of the Nan-Shan range, and then, in the fourth millennium before the new era, to the fertile valleys of the Hoang-ho and its Hoei-ho tributary. Thence they spread slowly along the other great river valleys, partly expelling, partly intermingling with the aborigines, but so late as the seventh century B.C. were still mainly confined to the region between the Pei-ho and the lower Yang-tse-Kiang. Even here several indigenous groups, such as the Hoei, whose name survives in that of the Hoei river, and the Lai of the Shantong Peninsula, long held their ground, but all were ultimately absorbed or assimilated throughout the northern lands as far south as the left bank of the Yang-tse-Kiang.

Beyond this river many were also merged in the dominant people continually advancing southwards; but others, collectively or vaguely known as Si-fans, Mans, Miao-tse, Pai, Tho, Y-jen[479], Lolo, etc., were driven to the south-western highlands which they still occupy. Even some of the populations in the settled districts, such as the Hok-los[480], and Hakkas[481], of Kwang-tung, and the Pun-ti[482] of the Canton district, are scarcely yet thoroughly assimilated. They differ greatly in temperament, usages, appearance, and speech from the typical Chinese of the Central and Northern provinces, whom in fact they look upon as "foreigners," and with whom they hold intercourse through "Pidgin English[483]," the lingua franca of the Chinese seaboard[484].

Nevertheless a general homogeneous character is imparted to the whole people by their common political, social, and religious institutions, and by that principle of convergence in virtue of which different ethnical groups, thrown together in the same area and brought under a single administration, tend to merge in a uniform new national type. This general uniformity is conspicuous especially in the religious ideas which, except in the sceptical lettered circles, everywhere underlie the three recognised national religions, or "State Churches," as they might almost be called: ju-kiao, Confucianism; tao-kiao, Taoism; and fo-kiao, Buddhism (Fo = Buddha). The first, confined mainly to the educated upper classes, is not so much a religion as a philosophic system, a frigid ethical code based on the moral and matter-of-fact teachings of Confucius[485]. Confucius was essentially a social and political reformer, who taught by example and precept; the main inducement to virtue being, not rewards or penalties in the after-life, but well- or ill-being in the present. His system is summed up in the expression "worldly wisdom," as embodied in such popular sayings as: A friend is hardly made in a year, but unmade in a moment; When safe remember danger, in peace forget not war; Filial father, filial son, unfilial father, unfilial son; In washing up, plates and dishes may get broken; Don't do what you would not have known; Thatch your roof before the rain, dig the well before you thirst; The gambler's success is his ruin; Money goes to the gambling den as the criminal to execution (never returns); Money hides many faults; Stop the hand, stop the mouth (stop work and starve); To open a shop is easy, to keep it open hard; Win your lawsuit and lose your money.

Although he instituted no religious system, Confucius nevertheless enjoined the observance of the already existing forms of worship, and after death became himself the object of a widespread cult, which still persists. "In every city there is a temple, built at the public expense, containing either a statue of the philosopher, or a tablet inscribed with his titles. Every spring and autumn worship is paid to him in these temples by the chief official personages of the city. In the schools also, on the first and fifteenth of each month, his title being written on red paper and affixed to a tablet, worship is performed in a special room by burning incense and candles, and by prostrations[486]."

Taoism, a sort of pantheistic mysticism, called by its founder, Lao-tse (600 B.C.), the Tao, or "way of salvation," was embodied in the formula "matter and the visible world are merely manifestations of a sublime, eternal, incomprehensible principle." It taught, in anticipation of Sakya-Muni, that by controlling his passions man may escape or cut short an endless series of transmigrations, and thus arrive by the Tao at everlasting bliss--sleep? unconscious rest or absorption in the eternal essence? Nirvana? It is impossible to tell from the lofty but absolutely unintelligible language in which the master's teachings are wrapped.

But it matters little, because his disciples have long forgotten the principles they never understood, and Taoism has almost everywhere been transformed to a system of magic associated with the never-dying primeval superstitions. Originally there was no hierarchy of priests, the only specially religious class being the Ascetics, who passed their lives absorbed in the contemplation of the eternal verities. But out of this class, drawn together by their common interests, was developed a kind of monasticism, with an organised brotherhood of astrologers, magicians, Shamanists, somnambulists, "mediums," "thought-readers," charlatans and impostors of all sorts, sheltered under a threadbare garb of religion.

Buddhism also, although of foreign origin, has completely conformed to the national spirit, and is now a curious blend of Hindu metaphysics with the primitive Chinese belief in spirits and a deified ancestry. In every district are practised diverse forms of worship between which no clear dividing line can be drawn, and, as in Annam, the same persons may be at once followers of Confucius, Lao-tse, and Buddha. In fact such was the position of the Emperor, who belonged ex officio to all three of these State religions, and scrupulously took part in their various observances. There is even some truth in the Chinese view that "all three make but one religion," the first appealing to man's moral nature, the second to the instinct of self-preservation, the third to the higher sphere of thought and contemplation.

But behind, one might say above it all, the old animism still prevails, manifested in a multitude of superstitious practices, whose purport is to appease the evil and secure the favour of the good spirits, the Feng-shui or Fung-shui, "air and water" genii, who have to be reckoned with in all the weightiest as well as the most trivial occurrences of daily life. These with the ghosts of their ancestors, by whom the whole land is haunted, are the bane of the Chinaman's existence. Everything depends on maintaining a perfect balance between the Fung-shui, that is, the two principles represented by the "White Tiger" and the "Azure Dragon," who guard the approaches of every dwelling, and whose opposing influences have to be nicely adjusted by the well-paid professors of the magic arts. At the death of the emperor Tung Chih (1875) a great difficulty was raised by the State astrologers, who found that the realm would be endangered if he were buried, according to rule, in the imperial cemetery 100 miles west of Pekin, as his father reposed in the other imperial cemetery situated the same distance east of the capital. For some subtle reason the balance would have been disturbed between Tiger and Dragon, and it took nine months to settle the point, during which, as reported by the American Legation, the whole empire was stirred, councils of State agitated, and L50,000 expended to decide where the remains of a worthless and vicious young man should be interred.

Owing to the necessary disturbance of the ancestral burial places, much trouble has been anticipated in the construction of the railways, for which concessions have now been granted to European syndicates. But an Englishman long resident in the country has declared that there will be no resistance on the part of the people. "The dead can be removed with due regard to Fung Shui; a few dollars will make that all right." This is fully in accordance with the thrifty character of the Chinese, which overrides all other considerations, as expressed in the popular saying: "With money you may move the gods; without it you cannot move men." But the gods may even be moved without money, or at least with spurious paper money, for it is a fixed belief of their votaries that, like mortals, they may be outwitted by such devices. When rallied for burning flash notes at a popular shrine, since no spirit-bank would cash them, a Chinaman retorted: "Why me burn good note? Joss no can savvy." In a similar spirit the god of war is hoodwinked by wooden boards hung on the ramparts of Pekin and painted to look like heavy ordnance.

In fact appearance, outward show, observance of the "eleventh commandment," in a word "face" as it is called, is everything in China. "To understand, however imperfectly, what is meant by 'face,' we must take account of the fact that as a race the Chinese have a strong dramatic instinct. Upon very slight provocation any Chinese regards himself in the light of an actor in a drama. A Chinese thinks in theatrical terms. If his troubles are adjusted he speaks of himself as having 'got off the stage' with credit, and if they are not adjusted he finds no way to 'retire from the stage.' The question is never of facts, but always of form. Once rightly apprehended, 'face' will be found to be in itself a key to the combination-lock of many of the most important characteristics of the Chinese[487]."

Of foreign religions Islam, next to Buddhism, has made most progress. Introduced by the early Arab and Persian traders, and zealously preached throughout the Jagatai empire in the twelfth century, it has secured a firm footing especially in Kan-su, Shen-si, and Yunnan, and is of course dominant in Eastern (Chinese) Turkestan. Despite the wholesale butcheries that followed the repeated insurrections between 1855 and 1877, the Hoei-Hoei, Panthays, or Dungans, as the Muhammadans are variously called, were still estimated, in 1898, at about 22,000,000 in the whole empire.

Islam was preceded by Christianity, which, as attested by the authentic inscription of Si-ngan-fu, penetrated into the western provinces under the form of Nestorianism about the seventh century. The famous Roman Catholic missions with headquarters at Pekin date from the close of the sixteenth century, and despite internal dissensions have had a fair measure of success, the congregations comprising altogether over one million members. Protestant missions date from 1807 (London Missionary Society) and in 1910 claimed over 200,000 church members and baptized Christians, the total having more than doubled since 1900[488].

The above-mentioned dissensions arose out of the practices associated with ancestry worship, offerings of flowers, fruits and so forth, which the Jesuits regarded merely as proofs of filial devotion, but were denounced by the Dominicans as acts of idolatry. After many years of idle controversy, the question was at last decided against the Jesuits by Clement XI in the famous Bull, Ex illa die (1715), and since then, neophytes having to renounce the national cult of their forefathers, conversions have mainly been confined to the lower classes, too humble to boast of any family tree, or too poor to commemorate the dead by ever-recurring costly sepulchral rites.

In China there are no hereditary nobles, indeed no nobles at all, unless it be the rather numerous descendants of Confucius who dwell together and enjoy certain social privileges, in this somewhat resembling the Shorfa (descendants of the Prophet) in Muhammadan lands. If any titles have to be awarded for great deeds they fall, not on the hero, but on his forefathers, and thus at a stroke of the vermilion pencil are ennobled countless past generations, while the last of the line remains unhonoured until he goes over to the majority. Between the Emperor, "patriarch of his people," and the people themselves, however, there stood an aristocracy of talent, or at least of Chinese scholarship, the governing Mandarin[489] class, which was open to the highest and the lowest alike. All nominations to office were conferred exclusively on the successful competitors at the public examinations, so that, like the French conscript with the hypothetical Marshal's baton in his knapsack, every Chinese citizen carried the buttoned cap of official rank in his capacious sleeve. Of these there are nine grades, indicated respectively in descending order by the ruby, red coral, sapphire, opaque blue, crystal, white shell, gold (two), and silver button, or rather little globe, on the cap of office, with which correspond the nine birds--manchu crane, golden pheasant, peacock, wild goose, silver pheasant, egret, mandarin duck, quail, and jay--embroidered on the breast and back of the State robe.

Theoretically the system is admirable, and at all events is better than appointments by Court favour. But in practice it was vitiated, first by the narrow, antiquated course of studies in the dry Chinese classics, calculated to produce pedants rather than statesmen, and secondly by the monopoly of preference which it conferred on a lettered caste to the exclusion of men of action, vigour, and enterprise. Moreover, appointments being made for life, barring crime or blunder, the Mandarins, as long as they approved themselves zealous supporters of the reigning dynasty, enjoyed a free hand in amassing wealth by plunder, and the wealth thus acquired was used to purchase further promotion and advancement, rather than to improve the welfare of the people.

They have the reputation of being a courteous people, as punctilious as the Malays themselves; and they are so amongst each other. But their attitude towards strangers is the embodiment of aggressive self-righteousness, a complacent feeling of superiority which nothing can disturb. Even the upper classes, with all their efforts to be at least polite, often betray the feeling in a subdued arrogance which is not always to be distinguished from vulgar insolence. "After the courteous, kindly Japanese, the Chinese seem indifferent, rough, and disagreeable, except the well-to-do merchants in the shops, who are bland, complacent, and courteous. Their rude stare, and the way they hustle you in the streets and shout their 'pidjun' English at you is not attractive[490]." But the stare, the hustling and the shouting may not be due to incivility. No doubt the Chinaman regards the foreigner as a "devil" but he has reason, and he never ceases to be astonished at foreign manners and customs "extremely ferocious and almost entirely uncivilised[491]."

FOOTNOTES:

[375] Ethnology, p. 300.

[376] Geogr. Journ., May, 1898, p. 491. This statement must of course be taken as having reference only to the historical Malays and their comparatively late migrations.

[377] For the desiccation of Asia see P. Kropotkin, Geogr. Journ. XXIII. 1904; E. Huntington, The Pulse of Asia, 1907.

[378] See J. Cockburn's paper "On Palaeolithic Implements," etc., in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1887, p. 57 sq.

[379] "Le type. primitif des Mongols est pour nous dolichocephale" (Les Aryens au Nord et au Sud de l'Hindou-Kouch, 1896, p. 50).

[380] Thus Risley's Tibetan measurements were all of subjects from Sikkim and Nepal (Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Calcutta, 1896, passim). In the East, however, Desgodins and other French missionaries have had better opportunities of studying true Tibetans amongst the Si-fan ("Western Strangers"), as the frontier populations are called by the Chinese.

[381] Op. cit. p. 319.

[382] Op. cit. p. 327. Here we are reminded that, though the Sacae are called "Scythians" by Herodotus and other ancient writers, under this vague expression were comprised a multitude of heterogeneous peoples, amongst whom were types corresponding to all the main varieties of Mongolian, western Asiatic, and eastern European peoples. "Aujourd'hui l'ancien type sace, adouci parmi les melanges, reparait et constitue le type si caracteristique, si complexe et si different de ses voisins que nous appelons le type balti" (p. 328).

[383] W. W. Rockhill, our best living authority, accepts none of the current explanations of the widely diffused term bod (bhot, bhot), which appears to form the second element in the word Tibet (Stod-Bod, pronounced Teu-Beu, "Upper Bod," i.e. the central and western parts in contradistinction to Maen-Bod, "Lower Bod," the eastern provinces). Notes on the Ethnology of Tibet, Washington, 1895, p. 669. This writer finds the first mention of Tibet in the form Tobbat (there are many variants) in the Arab Istakhri's works, about 590 A.H., while T. de Lacouperie would connect it with the Tatar kingdom of Tu-bat (397-475 A.D.). This name might easily have been extended by the Chinese from the Tatars of Kansu to the neighbouring Tanguts, and thus to all Tibetans.

[384] Hbrog-pa, Drok-pa, pronounced Dru-pa.

[385] The Mongols apply the name Tangut to Tibet and call all Tibetans Tangutu, "which should be discarded as useless and misleading, as the people inhabiting this section of the country are pure Tibetans" (Rockhill, p. 670). It is curious to note that the Mongol Tangutu is balanced by the Tibetan Sok-pa, often applied to all Mongolians.

[386] Notes on the Ethnology of Tibet, 1895, p. 675; see also S. Chandra Das, Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet, 1904; F. Grenard, Tibet: the Country and its Inhabitants, 1904; G. Sandberg, Tibet and the Tibetans, 1906; and L. A. Waddell, Lhasa and its Mysteries, with a record of the Expedition of 1903-1904, 1905.

[387] Isvestia, XXI. 3.

[388] Ethnology, p. 305.

[389] Abor, i.e. "independent," is the name applied by the Assamese to the East Himalayan hill tribes, the Minyong, Padam and Hrasso, who are the Slo of the Tibetans. These are all affiliated by Desgodins to the Lho-pa of Bhutan (Bul. Soc. Geogr., October, 1877, p. 431), and are to be distinguished from the Bori (i.e. "dependent") tribes of the plains, all more or less Hinduized Bhotiyas (Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 22 sq.). See A. Hamilton, In Abor Jungles, 1912.

[390] Not to be confused with the Khas, as the wild tribes of the Lao country (Siam) are collectively called. Capt. Eden Vansittart thinks in Nepal the term is an abbreviation of Kshatriya, or else means "fallen." This authority tells us that, although the Khas are true Gurkhas, it is not the Khas who enlist in our Gurkha regiments, but chiefly the Magars and Gurungs, who are of purer Bhotiya race and less completely Hinduized ("The Tribes, Clans, and Castes of Nepal," in Journ. As. Soc. Bengal; LXIII. I, No. 4).

[391] Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama, p. 350 sq.

[392] "Voila, je crois, le vrai Tibetain des pays cultives du sud, qui se regarde comme bien plus civilise que les pasteurs ou bergers du nord" (Le Thibet, p. 253).

[393] Notes on the Ethnology, etc., p. 677. It may here be remarked that the unfriendliness of which travellers often complain appears mainly inspired by the Buddhist theocracy, who rule the land and are jealous of all "interlopers."

[394] Ibid. p. 678.

[395] With it may be compared the Chinese province of Kan-su, so named from its two chief towns Kan-chau and Su-chau (Yule's Marco Polo, I. p. 222).

[396] "Buddhist Turks," says Sir H. H. Howorth (Geogr. Journ. 1887, p. 230).

[397] E. Delmar Morgan, Geogr. Journ. 1887, p. 226.

[398] "Whatever may have been the origin of polyandry, there can be no doubt that poverty, a desire to keep down population, and to keep property undivided in families, supply sufficient reason to justify its continuance. The same motives explain its existence among the lower castes of Malabar, among the Jat (Sikhs) of the Panjab, among the Todas, and probably in most other countries in which this custom prevails" (Rockhill, p. 726).

[399] T. Rice Holmes, Ancient Britain, 1907, pp. 110 and 465-6.

[400] At least no reference is made to the Bonbo practice in his almost exhaustive monograph on The Swastika, Washington, 1896. The reversed form, however, mentioned by Max Mueller and Burnouf, is figured at p. 767 and elsewhere.

[401] Sarat Chandra Das, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1881-2.

[402] This point, so important in the history of linguistic evolution, has I think been fairly established by T. de Lacouperie in a series of papers in the Oriental and Babylonian Record, 1888-90. See G. A. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India, III. Tibeto-Burman Family, 1906, by Sten Konow.

[403] Ladak, London, 1854.

[404] G. B. Mainwaring, A Grammar of the Rong (Lepcha) Language, etc., Calcutta, 1876, pp. 128-9.

[405] Outline Grammar of the Angami-Naga Language, Calcutta, 1887, pp. 4, 5. For an indication of the astonishing number of distinct languages in the whole of this region see Gertrude M. Godden's paper "On the Naga and other Frontier Tribes of North-East India," in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1897, p. 165. Under the heading Tibeto-Burman Languages Sten Konow recognises Tibetan, Himalayan, North Assam, Bodo, Naga, Kuki-Chin, Meitei and Kachin. The Naga group comprises dialects of very different kinds; some approach Tibetan and the North Assam group, others lead over to the Bodo, others connect with Tibeto-Burman. Meitei lies midway between Kuki-Chin and Kachin, and these merge finally in Burmese. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. III. 1903-6.

[406] Almost hopeless confusion continues to prevail in the tribal nomenclature of these multitudinous hill peoples. The official sanction given to the terms Kuki and Lushai as collective names may be regretted, but seems now past remedy. Kuki is unknown to the people themselves, while Lushai is only the name of a single group proud of their head-hunting proclivities, hence they call themselves, or perhaps are called Lu-Shai, "Head-Cutters," from lu head, sha to cut (G. H. Damant). Other explanations suggested by C. A. Soppitt (Kuki-Lushai Tribes, with an Outline Grammar of the Rangkhol-Lushai Language, Shillong, 1887) cannot be accepted.

[407] Op. cit.

[408] See G. A. Grierson and Sten Konow in Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. III. Part II. Bodo, N[=a]g[=a] and Kachin, 1903, Part III. Kuki-Chin and Burma, 1904.

[409] The N[=a]ga Tribes of Manipur, 1911, p. 2. Cf. J. Shakespear, "The Kuki-Lushai Clans," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XXXIX. 1909.

[410] Op. cit. p. 5.

[411] Op. cit. p. 122. A custom of human sacrifice among the Naga is described in the Journal of the Burma Research Society, 1911, "Human Sacrifices near the Upper Chindwin."

[412] It is a curious phonetic phenomenon that the combinations kl and tl are indistinguishable in utterance, so that it is immaterial whether this term be written Kling or Tling, though the latter form would be preferable, as showing its origin from Telinga.

[413] "The Aboriginal Tribes of Manipur," Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1887, p. 350.

[414] R. Brown, Statistical Account of Manipur, 1874.

[415] T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis, 1908, p. 96.

[416] T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis, 1908, pp. 96-7.

[417] G. Watt, loc. cit. p. 362.

[418] The Chin Hills, etc., Vol. I., Rangoon, 1896.

[419] Op. cit. p. 165.

[420] R. C. Temple, Art. "Burma," Hastings, Ency. Religion and Ethics, 1910.

[421] Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 9.

[422] Prince Henri d'Orleans writes "que les Singphos et les Katchins [Kakhyens] ne font qu'un, que le premier mot est thai et le second birman." Du Tonkin aux Indes, 1898, p. 311. This is how the ethnical confusion in these borderlands gets perpetuated. Singpho is not Thai, i.e. Shan or Siamese, but a native word as here explained.

[423] John Anderson, Mandalay to Momein, 1876, p. 131.

[424] Three skulls discovered by M. Mansuy in a cave at Pho-Binh-Gia (Indo-China) associated with Neolithic culture were markedly dolichocephalic, resembling in some respects the Cro-Magnon race of the Reindeer period. Cf. R. Verneau, L'Anthropologie, XX. 1909.

[425] The Loyal Karens of Burma, 1887.

[426] R. C. Temple, Academy, Jan. 29, 1887, p. 72.

[427] Forbes, Languages of Further India, p. 61.

[428] Ibid. p. 55.

[429] G. W. Bird, Wanderings in Burma, 1897, p. 335.

[430] The Burmese is the most mixed race in the province. "Originally Dravidians of some sort, they seem to have received blood from various sources--Hindu, Musalm[=a]n, Chinese, Sh[=a]n, Talaing, European and others." W. Crooke, "The Stability of Caste and Tribal Groups in India," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc. XLIV. 1914, p. 279, quoting the Ethnographic Survey of India, 1906.

[431] J. G. Scott, Burma, etc., 1886, p. 115.

[432] Op. cit. p. 118.

[433] "The Taungbyon Festival, Burma," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc. XLV. 1915, p. 355.

[434] Amongst the Shans, etc., 1885, p. 233.

[435] Cf. the Shans of Yunnan, who are nearly all "tatoues, depuis la ceinture jusqu'au genou, de dessins bleus si serres qu'ils paraissent former une vraie culotte," Pr. Henri d'Orleans, Du Tonkin aux Indes, 1898, p. 83.

[436] For recent literature on Burma and the Burmese consult besides the Ethnographic Survey of India, 1906, and the Census Report of 1911, J. G. Scott, The Burman, 1896, and Burma, 1906; A. Ireland, The Province of Burma, 1907; H. Fielding Hall, The Soul of a People, 1898, and A People at School, 1906.

[437] Probably for Shan-ts[)e], Shan-yen, "highlanders" (Shan, mountain), Shan itself being the same word as Siam, a form which comes to us through the Portuguese Siao.

[438] For the Laos see L. de Reinach, Le Laos, 1902, with bibliography.

[439] Carl Bock, MS. note. This observer notes that many of the Ngiou have been largely assimilated in type to the Burmese and in one place goes so far as to assert that "the Ngiou are decidedly of the same race as the Burmese. I have had opportunities of seeing hundreds of both countries, and of closely watching their features and build. The Ngiou wear the hair in a topknot in the same way as the Burmese, but they are easily distinguished by their tattooing, which is much more elaborate" (Temples and Elephants, 1884, p. 297). Of course all spring from one primeval stock, but they now constitute distinct ethnical groups, and, except about the borderlands, where blends may be suspected, both the physical and mental characters differ considerably. Bock's Ngiou is no doubt the same name as Ngnio, which H. S. Hallett applies in one place to the Mosse Shans north of Zimme, and elsewhere to the Burmese Shans collectively (A Thousand Miles on an Elephant, 1890, pp. 158 and 358).

[440] "Les Pai ne sont autres que des Laotiens" (Prince Henri, p. 42).

[441] One Shan group, the Deodhaings, still persist, and occupy a few villages near Sibsagar (S. E. Peal, Nature, June 19, 1884, p. 169). Dalton also mentions the Kamjangs, a Khamti (Tai) tribe in the Sadiya district, Assam (Ethnology of Bengal, p. 6).

[442] Much unexpected light has been thrown upon the early history of these Ahoms by E. Gait, who has discovered and described in the Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1894, a large number of puthis, or MSS. (28 in the Sibsagar district alone), in the now almost extinct Ahom language, some of which give a continuous history of the Ahom rajas from 568 to 1795 A.D. Most of the others appear to be treatises on religious mysticism or divination, such as "a book on the calculation of future events by examining the leg of a fowl" (ib.).

[443] Op. cit. p. 309.

[444] A. R. Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans, 1885, Introduction, p. lv.

[445] Op. cit. p. 328.

[446] Temples and Elephants, p. 320.

[447] "Der Gesichtsausdruck ueberhaupt naehert sich der kaukasischen Race" (Im fernen Osten, p. 959).

[448] Low's Siamese Grammar, p. 14.

[449] R. G. Woodthorpe, "The Shans and Hill Tribes of the Mekong," in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1897, p. 16.

[450] Op. cit. p. 55.

[451] This omission, however, is partly supplied by T. de Lacouperie, who gives us an account of a wonderful Lolo MS. on satin, red on one side, blue on the other, containing nearly 5750 words written in black, "apparently with the Chinese brush." The MS. was obtained by E. Colborne Baber from a Lolo chief, forwarded to Europe in 1881, and described by de Lacouperie, Journ. R. As. Soc. Vol. XIV. Part I. "The writing runs in lines from top to bottom and from left to right, as in Chinese" (p. 1), and this authority regards it as the link that was wanting to connect the various members of a widely diffused family radiating from India (Harapa seal, Indo-Pali, Vatteluttu) to Malaysia (Batta, Rejang, Lampong, Bugis, Makassar, Tagal), to Indo-China (Lao, Siamese, Lolo), Korea and Japan, and also including the Siao-chuen Chinese system "in use a few centuries B.C." (p. 5). It would be premature to say that all these connections are established.

[452] Op. cit. p. 193.

[453] Beginnings of Writing in Central and Eastern Asia, passim. For the Lolos see A. F. Legendre, "Les Lolos. Etude ethnologique et anthropologique," T'oung Pao II. Vol. X. 1909.

[454] "Quelques-uns de ces Kiou-tses me rappellent des Europeens que je connais." (Op. cit. p. 252).

[455] Deux Ans dans le Haut-Tonkin, etc., Paris, 1896.

[456] With regard to Man (Man-tse) it should be explained that in Chinese it means "untameable worms," that is, wild or barbarous, and we are warned by Desgodins that "il ne faut pas prendre ces mots comme des noms propres de tribus" (Bul. Soc. Geogr. XII. p. 410). In 1877 Capt. W. Gill visited a large nation of Man-tse with 18 tribal divisions, reaching from West Yunnan to the extreme north of Sechuen, a sort of federacy recognising a king, with Chinese habits and dress, but speaking a language resembling Sanskrit (?). These were the Sumu, or "White Man-tse," apparently the same as those visited in 1896 by Mrs Bishop, and by her described as semi-independent, ruled by their own chiefs, and in appearance "quite Caucasian, both men and women being very handsome," strict Buddhists, friendly and hospitable, and living in large stone houses (Letter to Times, Aug. 18, 1896).

[457] "Des paysannes nongs dont les cheveux etaient blonds, quelquefois meme roux." Op. cit.

[458] L'Anthropologie, 1896, p. 602 sq.

[459] "On the Relations of the Indo-Chinese and Inter-Oceanic Races and Languages." Paper read at the Meeting of the Brit. Association, Sheffield, 1879, and printed in the Journ. Anthr. Inst., February, 1880.

[460] In the Javanese annals the invaders are called "Cambojans," but at this time (about 1340) Camboja had already been reduced, and the Siamese conquerors had brought back from its renowned capital, Angkor Wat, over 90,000 captives. These were largely employed in the wars of the period, which were thus attributed to Camboja instead of to Siam by foreign peoples ignorant of the changed relations in Indo-China.

[461] How very dark some of these corners can be may be seen from the sad picture of maladministration, vice, and corruption still prevalent so late as 1890, given by Hallett in A Thousand Miles on an Elephant, Ch. xxxv.; and even still later by H. Warington Smyth in Five Years in Siam, from 1891 to 1896 (1898). This observer credits the Siamese with an undeveloped sense of right and wrong, so that they are good only by accident. "To do a thing because it is right is beyond them; to abstain from a thing because it is against their good name, or involves serious consequences, is possibly within the power of a few; the question of right and wrong does not enter the calculation." But he thinks they may possess a high degree of intelligence, and mentions the case of a peasant, who from an atlas had taught himself geography and politics. P. A. Thompson, Lotus Land, 1906, gives an account of the country and people of Southern Siam.

[462] Probably a corruption of talapat, the name of the palm-tree which yields the fan-leaf constantly used by the monks.

[463] "In conversation with the monks M'Gilvary was told that it would most likely be countless ages before they would attain the much wished for state of Nirvana, and that one transgression at any time might relegate them to the lowest hell to begin again their melancholy pilgrimage" (Hallett, A Thousand Miles on an Elephant, p. 337).

[464] "Le gros orteil est tres developpe et ecarte des autres doigts du pied. A ce caractere distinctif, que l'on retrouve encore aujourd'hui chez les indigenes de race pure, on peut reconnaitre facilement que les Giao-chi sont les ancetres des Annamites" (La Cochinchine francaise en 1878, p. 231). See also a note on the subject by C. F. Tremlett in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1879, p. 460.

[465] Properly An-nan, a modified form of ngan-nan, "Southern Peace."

[466] Cf. Nan-king, Pe-king, "Southern" and "Northern" Courts (Capitals).

[467] La Gazette Geographique, March 12, 1885.

[468] Geogr. Journ., Sept. 1893, p. 194.

[469] "Parmi les citoyens regne la plus parfaite egalite. Point d'esclavage, la servitude est en horreur. Aussi tout homme peut-il aspirer aux emplois, se plaindre aux memes tribunaux que son adversaire" (op. cit. p. 6).

[470] From bonzo, a Portuguese corruption of the Japanese busso, a devout person, applied first to the Buddhist priests of Japan, and then extended to those of China and neighbouring lands.

[471] This name, probably the Chinese jin, men, people, already occurs in Sanskrit writings in its present form: [Sanskrit symbol], China, whence the Hindi [Arabic symbol], Chin, and the Arabo-Persian [Arabic symbol], Sin, which gives the classical Sinae. The most common national name is Chung-kue, "middle kingdom" (presumably the centre of the universe), whence Chung-kue-Jin, the Chinese people. Some have referred China to the Chin (Tsin) dynasty (909 B.C.), while Marco Polo's Kataia (Russian Kitai) is the Khata (North China) of the Mongol period, from the Manchu K'i-tan, founders of the Liao dynasty, which was overthrown 1115 A.D. by the Nue-Ch[)a]n Tatars. Ptolemy's Thinae is rightly regarded by Edkins as the same word as Sinae, the substitution of t for s being normal in Annam, whence this form may have reached the west through the southern seaport of Kattigara.

[472] Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization, from 2300 B.C. to 200 A.D., or Chapters on the Elements Derived from the Old Civilizations of West Asia in the Formation of the Ancient Chinese Culture, London, 1894.

[473] "Observations upon the Languages of the Early Inhabitants of Mesopotamia," in Journ. R. As. Soc. XVI. Part 2.

[474] MS. note, May 7, 1896.

[475] C. J. Ball, Chinese and Sumerian, 1913.

[476] History of the Archaic Chinese Writing and Texts, 1882, p. 5.

[477] The first actual date given is that of Tai Hao (Fu-hi), 2953 B.C., but this ruler belongs to the fabulous period, and is stated to have reigned 115 years. The first certain date would appear to be that of Yau, first of the Chinese sages and reformer of the calendar (2357 B.C.). The date 2254 B.C. for Confucius's model king Shun seems also established. But of course all this is modern history compared with the now determined Babylonian and Egyptian records.

[478] Amongst the metals reference is made to iron so early as the time of the Emperor Ta Yue (2200 B.C.), when it is mentioned as an article of tribute in the Shu-King. F. Hirth, who states this fact, adds that during the same period, if not even earlier, iron was already a flourishing industry in the Liang district (Paper on the "History of Chinese Culture," Munich Anthropological Society, April, 1898). At the discussion which followed the reading of this paper Montelius argued that iron was unknown in Western Asia and Egypt before 1500 B.C., although the point was contested by Hommel, who quoted a word for iron in the earliest Egyptian texts. Montelius, however, explained that terms originally meaning "ore" or "metal" were afterwards used for "iron." Such was certainly the case with the Gk. [Greek: chalkos], at first "copper," then metal in general, and used still later for [Greek: sideros], "iron"; hence [Greek: chalkeus] = coppersmith, blacksmith, and even goldsmith. So also with the Lat. aes (Sanskrit ayas, akin to aurora, with simple idea of brightness), used first especially for copper (aes cyprium, cuprum), and then for bronze (Lewis and Short). For Hirth's later views see his Ancient History of China, 1908 (from the fabulous ages to 221 B.C.).

[479] This term Y-jen (Yi-jen), meaning much the same as Man, Man-tse, savage, rude, untameable, has acquired a sort of diplomatic distinction. In the treaty of Tien-tsin (1858) it was stipulated that it should no longer, as heretofore, be applied in official documents to the English or to any subjects of the Queen.

[480] See J. Edkins, China's Place in Philology, p. 117. The Hok-los were originally from Fo-kien, whence their alternative name, Fo-lo. The lo appears to be the same word as in the reduplicated Lo-lo, meaning something like the Greek and Latin Bar-bar, stammerers, rude, uncultured.

[481] The Hakkas, i.e. "strangers," speak a well-marked dialect current on the uplands between Kwang-tung, Kiang-si, and Fo-kien. J. Dyer Ball, Easy Lessons in the Hakka Dialect, 1884.

[482] Numerous in the western parts of Kwang-tung and in the Canton district. J. Dyer Ball, Cantonese Made Easy, Hongkong, 1884.

[483] In this expression "Pidgin" appears to be a corruption of the word business taken in a very wide sense, as in such terms as talkee-pidgin = a conversation, discussion; singsong pidgin = a concert, etc. It is no unusual occurrence for persons from widely separated Chinese provinces meeting in England to be obliged to use this common jargon in conversation.

[484] For the aboriginal peoples, with bibliography, see M. Kennelly's translation of L. Richard's Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire and its Dependencies, 1908, pp. 371-3.

[485] Kung-tse, "Teacher Kung," or more fully Kung-fu-tse, "the eminent teacher Kung," which gives the Latinised form Confucius.

[486] Kwong Ki Chiu, 1881, p. 875. Confucius was born in 550 and died in 477 B.C., and to him are at present dedicated as many as 1560 temples, in which are observed real sacrificial rites. For these sacrifices the State yearly supplies 26,606 sheep, pigs, rabbits and other animals, besides 27,000 pieces of silk, most of which things, however, become the "perquisites" of the attendants in the sanctuaries.

[487] Arthur H. Smith, Chinese Characteristics, New York, 1895. The good, or at least the useful, qualities of the Chinese are stated by this shrewd observer to be a love of industry, peace, and social order, a matchless patience and forbearance under wrongs and evils beyond cure, a happy temperament, no nerves, and "a digestion like that of an ostrich." See also H. A. Giles, China and the Chinese, 1902; E. H. Parker, John Chinaman and a Few Others, 1901; J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese, 1903; and M. Kennelly in Richard's Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire and its Dependencies, 1908.

[488] See Contemporary Review, Feb. 1908, "Report on Christian Missions in China," by Mr F. W. Fox, Professor Macalister and Sir Alexander Simpson.

[489] A happy Portuguese coinage from the Malay mantri, a state minister, which is the Sanskrit mantrin, a counsellor, from mantra, a sacred text, a counsel, from Aryan root man, to think, know, whence also the English mind.

[490] Miss Bird (Mrs Bishop), The Golden Chersonese, 1883, p. 37.

[491] H. A. Giles, The Civilisation of China, 1911, p. 237. See especially Chap. XI., "Chinese and Foreigners," for the etiquette of street regulations and the habit of shouting conversation.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

VII. THE OCEANIC MONGOLS

Range of the Oceanic Mongols--The terra "Malay"--The Historical Malays--Malay Cradle--Migrations and Present Range--The Malayans--The Javanese--Balinese and Sassaks--Hindu Legends in Bali--The Malayan Seafarers and Rovers--Malaysia and Pelasgia: a Historical Parallel--Malayan Folklore--Borneo--Punan--Klemantan-- Bahau-Kenyah-Kayan--Iban (Sea Dayak)--Summary--Religion--Early Man and his Works in Sumatra--The Mentawi Islanders--Javanese and Hindu Influences--The Malaysian Alphabets--The Battas: Cultured Cannibals--Hindu and Primitive Survivals--The Achinese--Early Records--Islam and Hindu Reminiscences--Ethnical Relations in Madagascar--Prehistoric Peoples--Oceanic Immigrants--Negroid Element--Arab Element--Uniformity of Language--Malagasy Gothamites--Partial Fusion of Races--Hova Type--Black Element from Africa--Mental Qualities of the Malagasy--Spread of Christianity--Culture--Malagasy Folklore--The Philippine Natives--Effects of a Christian Theocratic Government on the National Character--Social Groups: the Indios, the Infielos, and the Moros--Malayans and Indonesians in Formosa--The Chinese Settlers--Racial and Linguistic Affinities--Formosa a Connecting Link between the Continental and Oceanic Populations--The Nicobarese.

CONSPECTUS.

#Present Range.# Indonesia, Philippines, Formosa, Nicobar Is., Madagascar.

#Hair#, same as Southern Mongols, scant or no beard. #Colour#, yellowish or olive brown, yellow tint sometimes very faint or absent, light leathery hue common in Madagascar.

#Skull#, brachy or sub-brachycephalic (78 to 85). #Jaws#, slightly projecting. #Cheek-bones#, prominent, but less so than true Mongol. #Nose#, rather small, often straight with widish nostrils (mesorrhine). #Eyes#, black, medium size, horizontal or slightly oblique, often with Mongol fold. #Stature#, undersized, from 1.52 m. to 1.65 m. (5 ft. to 5 ft. 5 in.). #Lips#, thickish, slightly protruding, and kept a little apart in repose. #Arms# and #legs#, rather small, slender and delicate; #feet#, small.

#Temperament.# Normally quiet, reserved and taciturn, but under excitement subject to fits of blind fury; fairly intelligent, polite and ceremonious, but uncertain, untrustworthy, and even treacherous; daring, adventurous and reckless; musical; not distinctly cruel, though indifferent to physical suffering in others.

#Speech#, various branches of a single stock language--the #Austronesian# (#Oceanic# or #Malayo-Polynesian#), at different stages of agglutination.

#Religion#, of the primitive Malayans somewhat undeveloped--a vague dread of ghosts and other spirits, but rites and ceremonies mainly absent although human sacrifices to the departed occurred in Borneo; the cultured Malayans formerly Hindus (Brahman and Buddhist), now mostly Moslem, but in the Philippines and Madagascar Christian; belief in witchcraft, charms, and spells everywhere prevalent.

#Culture#, of the primitive Malayans very low--head-hunting, mutilation, common in Borneo; hunting, fishing; no agriculture; simple arts and industries; the Moslem and Christian Malayans semi-civilised; the industrial arts--weaving, dyeing, pottery, metal-work, also trade, navigation, house and boat-building--well developed; architecture formerly flourishing in Java under Hindu influences; letters widespread even amongst some of the rude Malayans, but literature and science rudimentary; rich oral folklore.

#Malayans (Proto-Malays)#: Lampongs, Rejangs, Battas, Achinese, and Palembangs in Sumatra; Sundanese, Javanese proper, and Madurese in Java; Dayaks in Borneo; Balinese; Sassaks (Lombok); Bugis and Mangkassaras in Celebes; Tagalogs, Visayas, Bicols, Ilocanos and Pangasinanes in Philippines; Aborigines of Formosa; Nicobar Islanders; Hovas, Betsimisarakas, and Sakalavas in Madagascar.

#Malays Proper# (Historical Malays): Menangkabau (Sumatra); Malay Peninsula; Pinang, Singapore, Lingga, Bangka; Borneo Coastlands; Tidor, Ternate; Amboina; Parts of the Sulu Archipelago.

* * * * *

In the Oceanic domain, which for ethnical purposes begins at the neck of the Malay Peninsula, the Mongol peoples range from Madagascar eastwards to Formosa and Micronesia, but are found in compact masses chiefly on the mainland, in the Sunda Islands (Sumatra, Java, Bali, Lombok, Borneo, Celebes) and in the Philippines. Even here they have mingled in many places with other populations, forming fresh ethnical groups, in which the Mongol element is not always conspicuous. Such fusions have taken place with the Negrito aborigines in the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines; with Papuans in Micronesia, Flores, and other islands east of Lombok; with dolichocephalic Indonesians in Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, Halmahera (Jilolo), parts of the Philippines[492], and perhaps also Timor and Ceram; and with African negroes (Bantu) in Madagascar. To unravel some of these racial entanglements is one of the most difficult tasks in anthropology, and in the absence of detailed information cannot yet be everywhere attempted with any prospect of success.

The problem has been greatly, though perhaps inevitably complicated by the indiscriminate extension of the term "Malay" to all these and even to other mixed Oceanic populations farther east, as, for instance, in the expression "Malayo-Polynesian," applied by many writers not only in a linguistic, but also in an ethnical sense, to most of the insular peoples from Madagascar to Easter Island, and from Hawaii to New Zealand. It is now of course too late to hope to remedy this misuse of terms by proposing a fresh nomenclature. But much of the consequent confusion will be avoided by restricting Malayo-Polynesian[493] altogether to linguistic matters, and carefully distinguishing between Indonesian, the pre-Malay dolichocephalic element in Oceania[494], Malayan or Proto-Malayan, collective name of all the Oceanic Mongols, who are brachycephals, and Malay, a particular branch of the Malayan family, as fully explained in Ethnology, pp. 326-30[495].

The essential point to remember is that the true Malays--who call themselves Orang-Malayu, speak the standard but quite modern Malay language, and are all Muhammadans--are a historical people who appear on the scene in relatively recent times, ages after the insular world had been occupied by the Mongol peoples to whom their name has been extended, but who never call themselves Malays. The Orang-Malayu, who have acquired such an astonishing predominance in the Eastern Archipelago, were originally an obscure tribe who rose to power in the Menangkabau district, Sumatra, not before the twelfth century, and whose migrations date only from about the year 1160 A.D. At this time, according to the native records[496], was founded the first foreign settlement, Singapore, a pure Sanskrit name meaning the "Lion City," from which it might be inferred that these first settlers were not Muhammadans, as is commonly assumed, but Brahmans or Buddhists, both these forms of Hinduism having been propagated throughout Sumatra and the other Sunda Islands centuries before this time. It is also noteworthy that the early settlers on the mainland are stated to have been pagans, or to have professed some corrupt form of Hindu idolatry, till their conversion to Islam by the renowned Sultan Mahmud Shah about the middle of the thirteenth century. It is therefore probable enough that the earlier movements were carried out under Hindu influences, and may have begun long before the historical date 1160. Menangkabau, however, was the first Mussulman State that acquired political supremacy in Sumatra, and this district thus became the chief centre for the later diffusion of the cultured Malays, their language, usages, and religion, throughout the Peninsula and the Archipelago. Here they are now found in compact masses chiefly in south Sumatra (Menangkabau, Palembang, the Lampongs); in all the insular groups between Sumatra and Borneo; in the Malay Peninsula as far north as the Kra Isthmus, here intermingling with the Siamese as "Sam-Sams," partly Buddhists, partly Muhammadans; round the coast of Borneo and about the estuaries of that island; in Tidor, Ternate, and the adjacent coast of Jilolo; in the Banda, Sula, and Sulu groups; in Batavia, Singapore, and all the other large seaports of the Archipelago. In all these lands beyond Sumatra the Orang-Malayu are thus seen to be comparatively recent arrivals[497], and in fact intruders on the other Malayan populations, with whom they collectively constitute the Oceanic branch of the Mongol division. Their diffusion was everywhere brought about much in the same way as in Ternate, where A. R. Wallace tells us that the ruling people "are an intrusive Malay race somewhat allied to the Macassar people, who settled in the country at a very early epoch, drove out the indigenes, who were no doubt the same as those of the adjacent island of Gilolo, and established a monarchy. They perhaps obtained many of their wives from the natives, which will account for the extraordinary language they speak--in some respects closely allied to that of the natives of Gilolo, while it contains much that points to a Malayan [Malay] origin. To most of these people the Malay language is quite unintelligible[498]."

The Malayan populations, as distinguished from the Malays proper, form socially two very distinct classes--the Orang Benua, "Men of the Soil," rude aborigines, numerous especially in the interior of the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Celebes, Jilolo, Timor, Ceram, the Philippines, Formosa, and Madagascar; and the cultured peoples, formerly Hindus but now mostly Muhammadans, who have long been constituted in large communities and nationalities with historical records, and flourishing arts and industries. They speak cultivated languages of the Austronesian family, generally much better preserved and of richer grammatical structure than the simplified modern speech of the Orang-Malayu. Such are the Achinese, Rejangs, and Passumahs of Sumatra; the Bugis, Mangkassaras and some Minahasans of Celebes[499]; the Tagalogs and Visayas of the Philippines; the Sassaks and Balinese of Lombok and Bali (most of these still Hindus); the Madurese and Javanese proper of Java; and the Hovas of Madagascar. To call any of these "Malays[500]," is like calling the Italians "French," or the Germans "English," because of their respective Romance and Teutonic connections.

Preeminent in many respects amongst all the Malayan peoples are the Javanese--Sundanese in the west, Javanese proper in the centre, Madurese in the east--who were a highly civilised nation while the Sumatran Malays were still savages, perhaps head-hunters and cannibals like the neighbouring Battas. Although now almost exclusively Muhammadans, they had already adopted some form of Hinduism probably over 2000 years ago, and under the guidance of their Indian teachers had rapidly developed a very advanced state of culture. "Under a completely organised although despotic government, the arts of peace and war were brought to considerable perfection, and the natives of Java became famous throughout the East as accomplished musicians and workers in gold, iron and copper, none of which metals were found in the island itself. They possessed a regular calendar with astronomical eras, and a metrical literature, in which, however, history was inextricably blended with romance. Bronze and stone inscriptions in the Kavi, or old Javanese language, still survive from the eleventh or twelfth century, and to the same dates may be referred the vast ruins of Brambanam and the stupendous temple of Boro-budor in the centre of the island. There are few statues of Hindu divinities in this temple, but many are found in its immediate vicinity, and from the various archaeological objects collected in the district it is evident that both the Buddhist and Brahmanical forms of Hinduism were introduced at an early date.

"But all came to an end by the overthrow of the chief Hindu power in 1478, after which event Islam spread rapidly over the whole of Java and Madura. Brahmanism, however, still holds its ground in Bali and Lombok, the last strongholds of Hinduism in the Eastern Archipelago[501]."

On the obscure religious and social relations in these Lesser Sundanese Islands much light has been thrown by Capt. W. Cool, an English translation of whose work With the Dutch in the East was issued by E. J. Taylor in 1897. Here it is shown how Hinduism, formerly dominant throughout a great part of Malaysia, gradually yielded in some places to a revival of the never extinct primitive nature-worship, in others to the spread of Islam, which in Bali alone failed to gain a footing. In this island a curious mingling of Buddhist and Brahmanical forms with the primordial heathendom not only persisted, but was strong enough to acquire the political ascendancy over the Mussulman Sassaks of the neighbouring island of Lombok. Thus while Islam reigns exclusively in Java--formerly the chief domain of Hinduism in the Archipelago--Bali, Lombok, and even Sumbawa, present the strange spectacle of large communities professing every form of belief, from the grossest heathendom to pure monotheism.

As I have elsewhere pointed out[502], it is the same with the cultures and general social conditions, which show an almost unbroken transition from the savagery of Sumbawa to the relative degrees of refinement reached by the natives of Lombok and especially of Bali. Here, however, owing to the unfavourable political relations, a retrograde movement is perceptible in the crumbling temples, grass-grown highways, and neglected homesteads. But it is everywhere evident enough that "just as Hinduism has only touched the outer surface of their religion, it has failed to penetrate into their social institutions, which, like their gods, originate from the time when Polynesian heathendom was all powerful[503]."

A striking illustration of the vitality of the early beliefs is presented by the local traditions, which relate how these foreign gods installed themselves in the Lesser Sundanese Islands after their expulsion from Java by the Muhammadans in the fifteenth century. Being greatly incensed at the introduction of the Koran, and also anxious to avoid contact with the "foreign devils," the Hindu deities moved eastwards with the intention of setting up their throne in Bali. But Bali already possessed its own gods, the wicked Rakshasas, who fiercely resented the intrusion, but in the struggle that ensued were annihilated, all but the still reigning Mraya Dewana. Then the new thrones had to be erected on heights, as in Java; but at that time there were no mountains in Bali, which was a very flat country. So the difficulty was overcome by bodily transferring the four hills at the eastern extremity of Java to the neighbouring island. Gunong Agong, highest of the four, was set down in the east, and became the Olympus of Bali, while the other three were planted in the west, south, and north, and assigned to the different gods according to their respective ranks. Thus were at once explained the local theogony and the present physical features of the island.

Despite their generally quiet, taciturn demeanour, all these Sundanese peoples are just as liable as the Orang-Malayu himself, to those sudden outbursts of demoniacal frenzy and homicidal mania called by them m[)e]ng-amok, and by us "running amok." Indeed A. R. Wallace tells us that such wild outbreaks occur more frequently (about one or two every month) amongst the civilised Mangkassaras and Bugis of south Celebes than elsewhere in the Archipelago. "It is the national and therefore the honourable mode of committing suicide among the natives of Celebes, and is the fashionable way of escaping from their difficulties. A Roman fell upon his sword, a Japanese rips up his stomach, and an Englishman blows out his brains with a pistol. The Bugis mode has many advantages to one suicidically inclined. A man thinks himself wronged by society--he is in debt and cannot pay--he is taken for a slave or has gambled away his wife or child into slavery--he sees no way of recovering what he has lost, and becomes desperate. He will not put up with such cruel wrongs, but will be revenged on mankind and die like a hero. He grasps his kris-handle, and the next moment draws out the weapon and stabs a man to the heart. He runs on, with bloody kris in his hand, stabbing at everyone he meets. 'Amok! Amok!' then resounds through the streets. Spears, krisses, knives and guns are brought out against him. He rushes madly forward, kills all he can--men, women, and children--and dies overwhelmed by numbers amid all the excitement of a battle[504]."

Possibly connected with this blind impulse may be the strange nervous affection called latah, which is also prevalent amongst the Malayans, and which was first clearly described by the distinguished Malay scholar, Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham[505]. No attempt has yet been made thoroughly to diagnose this uncanny disorder[506], which would seem so much more characteristic of the high-strung or shattered nervous system of ultra-refined European society, than of that artless unsophisticated child of nature, the Orang-Malayu. Its effects on the mental state are such as to disturb all normal cerebration, and Swettenham mentions two latah-struck Malays, who would make admirable "subjects" at a seance of theosophic psychists. Any simple device served to attract their attention, when by merely looking them hard in the face they fell helplessly in the hands of the operator, instantly lost all self-control, and went passively through any performance either verbally imposed or even merely suggested by a sign.

A peculiar feminine strain has often been imputed to the Malay temperament, yet this same Oceanic people displays in many respects a curiously kindred spirit with the ordinary Englishman, as, for instance, in his love of gambling, boxing, cock-fighting, field sports[507], and adventure. No more fearless explorers of the high seas, formerly rovers and corsairs, at all times enterprising traders, are anywhere to be found than the Menangkabau Malays and their near kinsmen, the renowned Bugis "Merchant Adventurers" of south Celebes. Their clumsy but seaworthy praus are met in every seaport from Sumatra to the Aru Islands, and they have established permanent trading stations and even settlements in Borneo, the Philippines, Timor, and as far east as New Guinea. On one occasion Wallace sailed from Dobbo in company with fifteen large Makassar praus, each with a cargo worth about L1000, and as many of the Bugis settle amongst the rude aborigines of the eastern isles, they thus cooperate with the Sumatran Malays in extending the area of civilising influences throughout Papuasia.

Formerly they combined piracy with legitimate trade, and long after the suppression of the North Bornean corsairs by Keppel and Brooke, the inland waters continued to be infested especially by the Bajau rovers of Celebes, and by the Balagnini of the Sulu Archipelago, most dreaded of all the Orang-Laut, "Men of the Sea," the "Sea Gypsies" of the English. These were the "Cellates" (Orang-Selat, "Men of the Straits") of the early Portuguese writers, who described them as from time immemorial engaged in fishing and plundering on the high seas[508].

In those days, and even in comparatively late times, the relations in the Eastern Archipelago greatly resembled those prevailing in the Aegean Sea at the dawn of Greek history, while the restless seafaring populations were still in a state of flux, passing from island to island in quest of booty or barter before permanently settling down in favourable sites[509]. With the Greek historian's philosophic disquisition on these Pelasgian and proto-Hellenic relations may be compared A. R. Wallace's account of the Batjan coastlands when visited by him in the late fifties. "Opposite us, and all along this coast of Batchian, stretches a row of fine islands completely uninhabited. Whenever I asked the reason why no one goes to live in them, the answer always was 'For fear of the Magindano pirates[510].' Every year these scourges of the Archipelago wander in one direction or another, making their rendezvous on some uninhabited island, and carrying devastation to all the small settlements around; robbing, destroying, killing, or taking captive all they meet with. Their long, well-manned praus escape from the pursuit of any sailing vessel by pulling away right in the wind's eye, and the warning smoke of a steamer generally enables them to hide in some shallow bay, or narrow river, or forest-covered inlet, till the danger is passed[511]." Thus, like geographical surroundings, with corresponding social conditions, produce like results in all times amongst all peoples.

This fundamental truth receives further illustration from the ideas prevalent amongst the Malayans regarding witchcraft, the magic arts, charms and spells, and especially the belief in the power of certain malevolent human beings to transform themselves into wild beasts and prey upon their fellow-creatures. Such superstitions girdle the globe, taking their local colouring from the fauna of the different regions, so that the were-wolf of medieval Europe finds its counterpart in the human jaguar of South America, the human lion or leopard of Africa[512], and the human tiger of the Malay Peninsula. Hugh Clifford, who relates an occurrence known to himself in connection with a "were-tiger" story of the Perak district, aptly remarks that "the white man and the brown, the yellow and the black, independently, and without receiving the idea from one another, have all found the same explanation for the like phenomena, all apparently recognising the truth of the Malay proverb, that we are like unto the taman fish that preys upon its own kind[513]." The story in question turns upon a young bride, whose husband comes home late three nights following, and the third time, being watched, is discovered by her in the form of a full-grown tiger stretched on the ladder, which, as in all Malay houses, leads from the ground to the threshold of the door. "Patimah gazed at the tiger from a distance of only a foot or two, for she was too paralysed with fear to move or cry out, and as she looked a gradual transformation took place in the creature at her feet. Slowly, as one sees a ripple of wind pass over the surface of still water, the tiger's features palpitated and were changed, until the horrified girl saw the face of her husband come up through that of the beast, much as the face of a diver comes up to the surface of a pool. In another moment Patimah saw that it was Haji Ali who was ascending the ladder of his house, and the spell that had hitherto bound her was snapped."

These same Malays of Perak, H. H. Rajah Dris tells us, are still specially noted for many strange customs and superstitions "utterly opposed to Muhammadan teaching, and savouring strongly of devil-worship. This enormous belief in the supernatural is possibly a relic of the pre-Islam State[514]."

We do not know who were the primitive inhabitants of Borneo. One would expect to find Negritoes in the interior, but despite the assertion of A. de Quatrefages[515] it is impossible to overlook the conclusions of A. B. Meyer[516] that no authoritative evidence of their occurrence is forthcoming, and A. C. Haddon[517] confidently states that there are none in Sarawak. It might be supposed that the Pre-Dravidian element found in Sumatra and Celebes might occur also in Borneo, but the only indication of such influence is the "black skin" noticed among certain Ulu Ayar of the Upper Kapuas in Western Dutch Borneo[518]. With the exception of certain peoples such as Europeans, Indians, Chinese, and Orang-Malayu, whose foreign origin is obvious, the population as a whole may be regarded as being composed of two main races, the Indonesian and Proto-Malay. Probably all tribes are of mixed origin, but some, such as the Murut, Dusun, Kalabit, and Land Dayak are more Indonesian while the Iban (Sea Dayak) are distinctly Proto-Malay. The Land Dayak have doubtless been crossed with Indo-Javans.

Scattered over a considerable part of the jungle live the nomad Punan and Ukit. They are a slender pale people with a slightly broad head. They are grouped in small communities and inhabit the dense jungle at the head waters of the principal rivers of Borneo. They live on whatever they can find in the jungle, and do not cultivate the soil, nor live in permanent houses. Their few wants are supplied by barter from friendly settled peoples, or in return for iron implements, calico, beads, tobacco, etc., they offer jungle produce, mainly gutta, indiarubber, camphor, dammar and ratans. They are very mild savages, not head-hunters, they are generous to one another, moderately truthful, kind to the women and very fond of their children.

Hose and Haddon have introduced the term Klemantan (Kalamantan) for the weak agricultural tribes such as the Murut, Kalabit, Land Dayak, Sebop, Barawan, Milanau, etc.[519] Brook Low[520], who knew the Land Dayak well, gives a very favourable account of the people and this opinion has been confirmed by other travellers. They are described as amiable, honest, grateful, moral and hospitable. Crimes of violence, other than head-hunting, are unknown. The circular panga is a "house set apart for the residence of young unmarried men, in which the trophy-heads are kept, and here also all ceremonial receptions take place[521]." The baloi of the Ot Danom of the Kahajan river is very similar[522]. The very energetic and dominating Bahau-Kenyah-Kayan group are rather short in stature, with slightly broad heads. They occupy the best tracts of land which lie in the undulating hills at the upper reaches of the rivers, between the swampy low country and the mountains. The Kayan more especially have almost exterminated some of the smaller tribes. The Klemantan and Kenyah-Kayan tribes are agriculturalists. They clear the jungle off the low hills that flank the tributaries of the larger rivers, but always leave a few scattered trees standing; irrigation is attempted by the Kalabits only, as padi rice is grown like any other cereals on dry ground; swamp padi is also grown on the low land. In their gardens they grow yams, pumpkins, sugar cane, bananas, and sometimes coconuts and other produce. They hunt all land animals that serve as food, and fish, usually with nets, in the rivers, or spear those fish that have been stupefied with tuba; river prawns are also a favourite article of diet.

They all live in long communal houses which are situated on the banks of the rivers. Among the Klemantan tribes the headman has not much influence, unless he is a man of exceptional power and energy, but among the larger tribes and especially among the Kayan and Kenyah the headmen are the real chiefs and exercise undisputed sway. The Kenyah are perhaps the most advanced in social evolution, holding their own by superior solidarity and intelligence against the turbulent Kayan.

All the agricultural tribes are artistic, but in varying degrees; they are also musical and sing delightful chorus songs. In some tribes the ends of the beams of the houses are carved to represent various animals, in some the verandah is decorated with boldly carved planks, or with painted boards and doors. The bamboo receptacles carved in low relief, the bone handles of their swords and the minor articles of daily life, are decorated in a way that reveals the true artistic spirit. Both Kenyah and Kayan smelt iron and make spear heads and sword blades, the former being especially noted for their good steel. The forge with two bellows is the form widely spread in Malaysia.

The truculent Iban (Sea Dayak) have spread from a restricted area in Sarawak[523]. They are short and have broader heads than the other tribes; the colour is on the whole darker than among the cinnamon coloured inland tribes. They have the same long, slightly wavy, black hair showing a reddish tinge in certain lights, that is characteristic of the Borneans generally. Most of the Iban inhabit low lying land; they prefer to live on the low hills, but as this is not always practicable they plant swamp padi; all those who settle at the heads of rivers plant padi on the hills in the same manner as the up-river natives. They also cultivate maize, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, gourds, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, mustard, ginger and other vegetables. Generally groups of relations work together in the fields. Although essentially agricultural, they are warlike and passionately devoted to head-hunting. The Iban of the Batang Lupar and Saribas in the olden days joined the Malays in their large war praus on piratical raids along the coast and up certain rivers and they owe their name of Sea Dayaks to this practice. The raids were organised by Malays who went for plunder but they could always ensure the aid of Iban by the bribe of the heads of the slain as their share. The Iban women weave beautiful cotton cloths on a very simple loom. Intricate patterns are made by tying several warp strands with leaves at varying intervals, then dipping the whole into the dye which does not penetrate the tied portions. This process is repeated if a three-colour design is desired. The pattern is produced solely in the warp, the woof threads are self-coloured and are not visible in the fabric, which is therefore a cotton rep. Little tattooing is seen among the Iban women though the men have adopted the custom from the Kayan.

It is probable that the Iban belong to the same stock as the original Malay and if so, their migration may be regarded as the first wave of the movement that culminated in the Malay Empire. The Malays must have come to Borneo not later than the early part of the fifteenth century as Brunei was a large and wealthy town in 1521. Probably the Malays came directly from the Malay Peninsula, but they must have mixed largely with the Kadayan, Milanau and other coastal people. The Sarawak and Brunei Malays are probably mainly coastal Borneans with some Malay blood, but they have absorbed the Malay culture, spirit and religion.

From the sociological point of view the Punan, living by the chase and on exploitation of jungle produce, represent the lowest grade of culture in Borneo. Without social organisation they are alike incapable of real endemic improvement or of seriously affecting other peoples. The purely agricultural tribes that cultivate padi on the low hills or in the swamps form the next social stratum. These indigenous tillers of the soil have been hard pressed by various swarms of foreigners.

The Kenyah-Kayan migration was that of a people of a slightly higher grade of culture. They were agriculturalists, but the social organisation was firmer and they were probably superior in physique. If they introduced iron weapons, this would give them an enormous advantage. These immigrant agricultural artisans, directed by powerful chiefs, had no difficulty in taking possession of the most desirable land.

From an opposite point of the compass in early times came another agricultural people who strangely enough have strong individualistic tendencies, the usually peaceable habits of tillers of the soil having been complicated by a lust for heads and other warlike propensities. But the Iban do not appear to have gained much against the Kenyah and Kayan. Conquest implies a strong leader, obedience to authority and concerted action. The Iban appear to be formidable only when led and organised by Europeans.

The Malay was of a yet higher social type. His political organisation was well established, and he had the advantage of religious enthusiasm, for Islam has no small share in the expansion of the Malay. He is a trader, and still more an exploiter, having a sporting element in his character not altogether compatible with steady trade. Then appeared on the scene the Anglo-Saxon overlord. The quality of firmness combined with justice made itself felt. At times the lower social types hurled themselves, but in vain, against the instrument that had been forged and tempered in a similar turmoil of Iberian, Celt, Angle and Viking in Northern Europe. Now they acknowledge that safety of life and property and almost complete liberty are fully worth the very small price that they have to pay for them[524].

The cult of omen animals, most frequently birds, is indigenous to Borneo. These are possessed with the spirit of certain invisible beings above, and bear their names, and are invoked to secure good crops, freedom from accident, victory in war, profit in exchange, skill in discourse and cleverness in all native craft. The Iban have a belief in Ngarong or spirit-helpers, somewhat resembling that of the Manitu of North America. The Ngarong is the spirit of a dead relative who visits a dreamer, who afterwards searches for the outward and visible sign of his spiritual protector, and finds it in some form, perhaps a natural object, or some one animal, henceforth held in special respect[525].

In Sumatra there occur some remains of Hindu temples[526], as well as other mysterious monuments in the Passumah lands inland from Benkulen, relics of a former culture, which goes back to prehistoric times. They take the form of huge monoliths, which are roughly shaped to the likeness of human figures, with strange features very different from the Malay or Hindu types. The present Sarawi natives of the district, who would be quite incapable of executing such works, know nothing of their origin, and attribute them to certain legendary beings who formerly wandered over the land, turning all their enemies into stone. Further research may possibly discover some connection between these relics of a forgotten past and the numerous prehistoric monuments of Easter Island and other places in the Pacific Ocean. Of all the Indonesian peoples still surviving in Malaysia, none present so many points of contact with the Eastern Polynesians, as do the natives of the Mentawi Islands which skirt the south-west coast of Sumatra. "On a closer inspection of the inhabitants the attentive observer at once perceives that the Mentawi natives have but little in common with the peoples and tribes of the neighbouring islands, and that as regards physical appearance, speech, customs, and usages they stand almost entirely apart. They bear such a decided stamp of a Polynesian tribe that one feels far more inclined to compare them with the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands[527]."

The survival of an Indonesian group on the western verge of Malaysia is all the more remarkable since the Nias islanders, a little farther north, are of Mongol stock, like most if not all of the inhabitants of the Sumatran mainland. Here the typical Malays of the central districts (Menangkabau, Korinchi, and Siak) merge southwards in the mixed Malayo-Javanese peoples of the Rejang, Palembang, and Lampong districts. Although Muhammadans probably since the thirteenth century, all these peoples had been early brought under Hindu influences by missionaries and even settlers from Java, and these influences are still apparent in many of the customs, popular traditions, languages, and letters of the South Sumatran settled communities. Thus the Lampongs, despite their profession of Islam, employ, not the Arabic characters, like the Malays proper, but a script derived from the peculiar Javanese writing system. This system itself, originally introduced from India probably over 2000 years ago, is based on some early forms of the Devanagari, such as those occurring in the rock inscriptions of the famous Buddhist king As'oka (third century B.C.)[528]. From Java, which is now shown beyond doubt to be the true centre of dispersion[529], the parent alphabet was under Hindu influences diffused in pre-Muhammadan times throughout Malaysia, from Sumatra to the Philippines.

But the thinly-spread Indo-Javanese culture, in few places penetrating much below the surface, received a rude shock from the Muhammadan irruption, its natural development being almost everywhere arrested, or else either effaced or displaced by Islam. No trace can any longer be detected of graphic signs in Borneo, where the aborigines have retained the savage state even in those southern districts where Buddhism or Brahmanism had certainly been propagated long before the arrival of the Muhammadan Malays. But elsewhere the Javanese stock alphabet has shown extraordinary vitality, persisting under diverse forms down to the present day, not only amongst the semi-civilised Mussulman peoples, such as the Sumatran Rejangs[530], Korinchi, and Lampongs, the Bugis and Mangkassaras of Celebes, and the (now Christian) Tagalogs and Visayas of the Philippines, but even amongst the somewhat rude and pagan Palawan natives, the wild Manguianes of Mindoro, and the cannibal Battas[531] of North Sumatra.

These Battas, however, despite their undoubted cannibalism[532], cannot be called savages, at least without some reserve. They are skilful stock-breeders and agriculturists, raising fine crops of maize and rice; they dwell together in large, settled communities with an organised government, hereditary chiefs, popular assemblies, and a written civil and penal code. There is even an effective postal system, which utilises for letter-boxes the hollow tree-trunks at all the cross-roads, and is largely patronised by the young men and women, all of whom read and write, and carry on an animated correspondence in their degraded Devanagari script, which is written on palm-leaves in vertical lines running upwards and from right to left. The Battas also excel in several industries, such as pottery, weaving, jewellery, iron work, and house-building, their picturesque dwellings, which resemble Swiss chalets, rising to two stories above the ground-floor reserved for the live stock. For these arts they are no doubt largely indebted to their Hindu teachers, from whom also they have inherited some of their religious ideas, such as the triune deity--Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer--besides other inferior divinities collectively called diebata, a modified form of the Indian devate[533].

In the strangest contrast to these survivals of a foreign culture which had probably never struck very deep roots, stand the savage survivals from still more ancient times. Conspicuous amongst these are the cannibal practices, which if not now universal still take some peculiarly revolting forms. Thus captives and criminals are, under certain circumstances, condemned to be eaten alive, and the same fate is or was reserved for those incapacitated for work by age or infirmities. When the time came, we are told by the early European observers and by the reports of the Arabs, the "grandfathers" voluntarily suspended themselves by their arms from an overhanging branch, while friends and neighbours danced round and round, shouting, "when the fruit is ripe it falls." And when it did fall, that is, as soon as it could hold on no longer, the company fell upon it with their krisses, hacking it to pieces, and devouring the remains seasoned with lime-juice, for such feasts were generally held when the limes were ripe[534].

Grouped chiefly round about Lake Toba, the Battas occupy a very wide domain, stretching south to about the parallel of Mount Ophir, and bordering northwards on the territory of the Achin people. These valiant natives, who have till recently stoutly maintained their political independence against the Dutch, were also at one time Hinduized, as is evident from many of their traditions, their Malayan language largely charged with Sanskrit terms, and even their physical appearance, suggesting a considerable admixture of Hindu as well as of Arab blood. With the Arab traders and settlers came the Koran, and the Achinese people have been not over-zealous followers of the Prophet since the close of the twelfth century. The Muhammadan State, founded in 1205, acquired a dominant position in the Archipelago early in the sixteenth century, when it ruled over about half of Sumatra, exacted tribute from many vassal princes, maintained powerful armaments by land and sea, and entered into political and commercial relations with Egypt, Japan, and several European States.

There are two somewhat distinct ethnical groups, the Orang-Tunong of the uplands, a comparatively homogeneous Malayan people, and the mixed Orang-Baruh of the lowlands, who are described by A. Lubbers[535] as taller than the average Malay (5 feet 5 or 6 in.), also less round-headed (index 80.5), with prominent nose, rather regular features, and muscular frames; but the complexion is darker than that of the Orang-Malayu, a trait which has been attributed to a larger infusion of Dravidian blood (Klings and Tamuls) from southern India. The charge of cruelty and treachery brought against them by the Dutch may be received with some reserve, such terms as "patriot" and "rebel" being interchangeable according to the standpoints from which they are considered. In any case no one denies them the virtues of valour and love of freedom, with which are associated industrious habits and a remarkable aptitude for such handicrafts as metal work, jewellery, weaving, and ship-building. The Achinese do not appear to be very strict Muhammadans; polygamy is little practised, their women are free to go abroad unveiled, nor are they condemned to the seclusion of the harem, and a pleasing survival from Buddhist times is the Kanduri, a solemn feast, in which the poor are permitted to share. Another reminiscence of Hindu philosophy may perhaps have been an outburst of religious fervour, which took the form of a pantheistic creed, and was so zealously preached, that it had to be stamped out with fire and sword by the dominant Moslem monotheists[536].

Since the French occupation of Madagascar, the Malagasy problem has naturally been revived. But it may be regretted that so much time and talent have been spent on a somewhat thrashed-out question by a number of writers, who did not first take the trouble to read up the literature of the subject.

By what race Madagascar was first peopled it is no longer possible to say. The local reports or traditions of primitive peoples, either extinct or still surviving in the interior, belong rather to the sphere of Malagasy folklore than to that of ethnological research. In these reports mention is frequently made of the Kimos, said to be now or formerly living in the Bara country, and of the Vazimbas, who are by some supposed to have been Gallas (Ba-Simba)--though they had no knowledge of iron--whose graves are supposed to be certain monolithic monuments which take the form of menhirs disposed in circles, and are believed by the present inhabitants of the land to be still haunted by evil spirits, that is, the ghosts of the long extinct Vazimbas.

Much of the confusion prevalent regarding the present ethnical relations may be avoided if certain points (ably summarised by T. A. Joyce[537]) are borne in mind. The greater part of the population is negroid; the language spoken over the whole of the island and many institutions and customs are Malayo-Polynesian. A small section (Antimerina commonly called Hovas)--forming the dominant people in the nineteenth century--is of fairly pure Malay (or Javanese) blood, but is composed of sixteenth-century immigrants, whereas the language belongs to a very early branch of the Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian) family. It would be natural to suppose that the negroid element was African[538], for in later times large numbers of Africans have been brought over by Arabs and other slavers; but there are several objections to this view. In the first place, the natives of the neighbouring coast are not seamen, and the voyage to Madagascar offers peculiar difficulties owing to the strong currents. In the second place, it seems impossible that the first inhabitants, supposing them to be African, should have abandoned their own language in favour of one introduced by a small minority of immigrants; the few Bantu words found in Madagascar may well have been adopted from the slaves. In the third place, the culture exhibits no distinctively African features, but is far more akin to that of south-east Asia. There is much to be said, therefore, for the view that the earliest and negroid inhabitants of Madagascar were Oceanic negroids, who have always been known as expert seamen.

Since the coming of the negroid population, which probably arrived in very early days, various small bands of immigrants or castaways have landed on the shores of Madagascar and imposed themselves as reigning dynasties on the surrounding villages, each thus forming the nucleus of what now appears as a tribe. Among these were immigrants from Arabia, and J. T. Last, who identifies Madagascar with the island of Menuthias described by Arrian in the third century A.D.[539], suggests the "possibility that Madagascar may have been reached by Arabs before the Christian era." This "possibility" is converted almost into a certainty by the analysis of the Arabo-Malagasy terms made by Dahle, who clearly shows that such terms "are comparatively very few," and also "very ancient," in fact that, as already suggested by Fleischer of Leipzig, many, perhaps the majority of them, "may be traced back to Himyaritic influence[540]," that is, not merely to pre-Muhammadan, but to pre-Christian times, just like the Sanskritic elements in the Oceanic tongues.

The evidence that Malagasy is itself one of these Oceanic tongues, and not an offshoot of the comparatively recent standard Malay is overwhelming, and need not here detain us[541]. The diffusion of this Austronesian language over the whole island--even amongst distinctly Negroid Bantu populations, such as the Betsileos and Tanalas--to the absolute exclusion of all other forms of speech, is an extraordinary linguistic phenomenon more easily proved than explained. There are, of course, provincialisms and even what may be called local dialects, such as that of the Antankarana people at the northern extremity of the island who, although commonly included in the large division of the western Sakalavas, really form a separate ethnical group, speaking a somewhat marked variety of Malagasy. But even this differs much less from the normal form than might be supposed by comparing, for instance, such a term as maso-mahamay, sun, with the Hova maso-andro, where maso in both means "eye," mahamay in both = "burning," and andro in both = "day." Thus the only difference is that one calls the sun "burning eye," while the Hovas call it the "day's eye," as do so many peoples in Malaysia[542].

So also the fish-eating Anorohoro people, a branch of the Sihanakas in the Alaotra valley, are said to have "quite a different dialect from them[543]." But the statement need not be taken too seriously, because these rustic fisherfolk, who may be called the Gothamites of Madagascar, are supposed, by their scornful neighbours, to do everything "contrariwise." Of them it is told that once when cooking eggs they boiled them for hours to make them soft, and then finding they got harder and harder threw them away as unfit for food. Others having only one slave, who could not paddle the canoe properly, cut him in two, putting one half at the prow, the other at the stern, and were surprised at the result. It was not to be expected that such simpletons should speak Malagasy properly, which nevertheless is spoken with surprising uniformity by all the Malayan and Negro or Negroid peoples alike.

In Madagascar, however, the fusion of the two races is far less complete than is commonly supposed. Various shades of transition between the two extremes are no doubt presented by the Sakalavas of the west, and the Betsimisarakas, Sitanakas, and others of the east coast. But, strange to say, on the central tableland the two seem to stand almost completely apart, so that here the politically dominant Hovas still present all the essential characteristics of the Oceanic Mongol, while their southern neighbours, the Betsileos, as well as the Tanalas and Ibaras, are described as "African pure and simple, allied to the south-eastern tribes of that continent[544]."

Specially remarkable is the account given by a careful observer, G. A. Shaw, of the Betsileos, whose "average height is not less than six feet for the men, and a few inches less for the women. They are large-boned and muscular, and their colour is several degrees darker than that of the Hovas, approaching very close to a black. The forehead is low and broad, the nose flatter, and the lips thicker than those of their conquerors, whilst their hair is invariably crisp and woolly. No pure Betsileo is to be met with having the smooth long hair of the Hovas. In this, as in other points, there is a very clear departure from the Malayan type, and a close approximation to the Negro races of the adjacent continent[545]."

Now compare these brawny negroid giants with the wiry undersized Malayan Hovas. As described by A. Vouchereau[546], their type closely resembles that of the Javanese--short stature, yellowish or light leather complexion, long, black, smooth and rather coarse hair, round head (85.25), flat and straight forehead, flat face, prominent cheek-bones, small straight nose, tolerably wide nostrils, small black and slightly oblique eyes, rather thick lips, slim lithesome figure, small extremities, dull restless expression, cranial capacity 1516 c.c., superior to both Negro and Sakalava[547].

Except in respect of this high cranial capacity, the measurements of three Malagasy skulls in the Cambridge University Anatomical Museum, studied by W. L. H. Duckworth[548], correspond fairly well with these descriptions. Thus the cephalic index of the reputed Betsimisaraka (Negroid) and that of the Betsileo (Negro) are respectively 71 and 72.4, while that of the Hova is 82.1; the first two, therefore, are long-headed, the third round-headed, as we should expect. But the cubic capacity of the Hova (presumably Mongoloid) is only 1315 as compared with 1450 and 1480 of two others, presumably African Negroes. Duckworth discusses the question whether the black element in Madagascar is of African or Oceanic (Melanesian-Papuan) origin, about which much diversity of opinion still prevails, and on the evidence of the few cranial specimens available he decides in favour of the African.

Despite the low cubic capacity of Duckworth's Hova, the mental powers of these, and indeed of the Malagasy generally, are far from despicable. Before the French occupation the London Missionary Society had succeeded in disseminating Christian principles and even some degree of culture among considerable numbers both in the Hova capital and surrounding districts. The local press had been kept going by native compositors who had issued quite an extensive literature both in Malagasy and English. Agricultural and industrial methods had been improved, some engineering works attempted, and the Hova craftsmen had learnt to build but not to complete houses in the European style, because, although they could master European processes, they could not, Christians though they were, get the better of the old superstitions, one of which is that the owner of a house always dies within a year of its completion. Longevity is therefore ensured by not completing it, with the curious result that the whole city looks unfinished or dilapidated. In the house where Mrs Colvile stayed, "one window was framed and glazed, the other nailed up with rough boards; part of the stair-banister had no top-rail; outside only a portion of the roof had been tiled; and so on throughout[549]."

The culture has been thus summarised by T. A. Joyce[550]. Clothing is entirely vegetable, and the Malay sarong is found throughout the east; bark-cloth in the south-east and west. Hairdressing varies considerably, and among the Bara and Sakalava is often elaborate. Silver ornaments are found amongst the Antimerina and some other eastern tribes, made chiefly from European coins dating from the sixteenth century. Circumcision is universal. In the east the tribes are chiefly agricultural; in the north, west and south, pastoral. Fishing is important among those tribes situated on coast, lake or river. Houses are all rectangular and pile-dwellings are found locally. Rice is the staple crop and the cattle are of the humped variety. The Antimerina excel the rest in all crafts. Weaving, basket-work (woven variety) and iron-working are all good; the use of iron is said to have been unknown to the Bara and Vazimba until comparatively recent times. Pottery is poor. Carvings in the round (men and animals) are found amongst the Sakalava and Bara, in relief (arabesques, etc.) among the Betsileo and others. Before the introduction of firearms, the spear was the universal weapon; bows are rare and possibly of late introduction; slings and the blowgun are also found. Shields are circular, made of wood covered with hide. The early system of government was patriarchal, and villages were independent; the later immigrants introduced a system of feudal monarchy with themselves as a ruling caste. Thus the Antimerina have three main castes; Andriana or nobles (i.e. pure-blooded descendants of the conquerors), Hova, or freemen (descendants of the incorporated Vazimba more or less mixed with the conquerors), and Andevo or slaves. The king was regarded almost as a god. An institution thoroughly suggestive of Malayo-Polynesian sociology is that of fadi or tabu, which enters into every sphere of human activity. An indefinite creator-god was recognized, but more important were a number of spirits and fetishes, the latter with definite functions. Signs of tree worship and of belief in transmigration are sporadic. At the present time, half the population of the island is, at least nominally, Christian.

A good deal of fancy is displayed in the oral literature, comprising histories, or at least legends, fables, songs, riddles, and a great mass of folklore, much of which has already been rescued from oblivion by the "Malagasy Folklore Society." Some of the stories present the usual analogies to others in widely separated lands, stories which seem to be perennial, and to crop up wherever the surface is a little disturbed by investigators. One of those in Dahle's extensive collection, entitled the "History of Andrianarisainaboniamasoboniamanoro" might be described as a variant of our "Beauty and the Beast." Besides this prince with the long name, called Bonia "for short," there is a princess "Golden Beauty," both being of miraculous birth, but the latter a cripple and deformed, until found and wedded by Bonia. Then she is so transfigured that the "Beast" is captivated and contrives to carry her off. Thereupon follows an extraordinary series of adventures, resulting of course in the rescue of Golden Beauty by Bonia, when everything ends happily, not only for the two lovers, but for all other people whose wives had also been abducted. These are now restored to their husbands by the hero, who vanquishes and slays the monster in a fierce fight, just as in our nursery tales of knights and dragons.

In the Philippines, where the ethnical confusion is probably greater than in any other part of Malaysia, the great bulk of the inhabitants appear to be of Indonesian and proto-Malayan stocks. Except in the southern island of Mindanao, which is still mainly Muhammadan or heathen, most of the settled populations have long been nominal Roman Catholics under a curious theocratic administration, in which the true rulers are not the civil functionaries, but the priests, and especially the regular clergy[551]. One result has been over three centuries of unstable political and social relations, ending in the occupation of the archipelago by the United States (1898). Another, with which we are here more concerned, has been such a transformation of the subtle Malayan character that those who have lived longest amongst the natives pronounce their temperament unfathomable. Having to comply outwardly with the numerous Christian observances, they seek relief in two ways, first by making the most of the Catholic ceremonial and turning the many feast-days of the calendar into occasions of revelry and dissipation, connived at if not even shared in by the padres[552]; secondly by secretly cherishing the old beliefs and disguising their true feelings, until the opportunity is presented of throwing off the mask and declaring themselves in their true colours. A Franciscan friar, who had spent half his life amongst them, left on record that "the native is an incomprehensible phenomenon, the mainspring of whose line of thought and the guiding motive of whose actions have never yet been, and perhaps never will be, discovered. A native will serve a master satisfactorily for years, and then suddenly abscond, or commit some such hideous crime as conniving with a brigand band to murder the family and pillage the house[553]."

In fact nobody can ever tell what a Tagal, and especially a Visaya, will do at any moment. His character is a succession of surprises; "the experience of each year brings one to form fresh conclusions, and the most exact definition of such a kaleidoscopic creature is, after all, hypothetical."

After centuries of misrule, it was perhaps not surprising that no kind of sympathy was developed between the natives and the whites. Foreman fells us that everywhere in the archipelago he found mothers teaching their little ones to look on their white rulers as demoniacal beings, evil spirits, or at least something to be dreaded. "If a child cries, it is hushed by the exclamation, Castila! (Spaniard); if a white man approaches a native dwelling, the watchword always is Castila! and the children hasten to retreat from the dreadful object."

For administrative purposes the natives were classed in three social divisions--Indios, Infieles, and Moros--which, as aptly remarked by F. H. H. Guillemard, is "an ecclesiastical rather than a scientific classification[554]." The Indios were the Christianized and more or less cultured populations of all the towns and of the settled agricultural districts, speaking a distinct Malayo-Polynesian language of much more archaic type than the standard Malay. According to the census of 1903 the total population of the islands was 7,635,428, of whom nearly 7,000,000 were classed as civilised, and the rest as wild, including 23,000 Negritoes (Aeta, see p. 156). At the time of the Spanish occupation in the sixteenth century the Visayas of the central islands and part of Mindanao were the most advanced among the native tribes, but this distinction is now claimed for the Tagalogs, who form the bulk of the population in Manila and other parts of Luzon, and also in Mindanao, and whose language is gradually displacing other dialects throughout the archipelago. Other civilised tribes are the Ilocano, Bicol, Pangasinan, Pampangan and Cagayan, all of Luzon. Less civilised tribes are the Manobo, Mandaya, Subano and Bagobo of Mindanao, the Bukidnon of Mindanao and the central islands, the Tagbanua and Batak of Palawan, and the Igorots of Luzon, some of whom are industrious farmers, while among others, head-hunting is still prevalent. These have been described by A. E. Jenks in a monograph[555]. The head form is very variable. Of 32 men measured by Jenks the extremes of cephalic index were 91.48 and 67.48. The stature is always low, averaging 1.62 m. (5 ft. 4 in.) but with an appearance of greater height. The hair is black, straight, lank, coarse and abundant but "I doubt whether to-day an entire tribe of perfectly straight-haired primitive Malayan people exists in the archipelago[556]."

Under Moros ("Moors") are comprised the Muhammadans exclusively, some of whom are Malayans (chiefly in Mindanao, Basilan, and Palawan), some true Malays (chiefly in the Sulu archipelago). Many of these are still independent, and not a few, if not actually wild, are certainly but little removed from the savage state. Yet, like the Sumatran Battas, they possess a knowledge of letters, the Sulu people using the Arabic script, as do all the Orang-Malayu, while the Palawan natives employ a variant of the Devanagari prototype derived directly from the Javanese, as above explained. They number nearly 280,000, of whom more than one half are in Mindanao, and they form the bulk of the population in some of the islands of the Sulu archipelago.

Some of these Sulu people, till lately fierce sea-rovers, get baptized now and then; but, says Foreman, "they appeared to be as much Christian as I was Mussulman[557]." They keep their harems all the same, and when asked how many gods there are, answer "four," presumably Allah plus the Athanasian Trinity. So the Ba-Fiots of Angola add crucifying to their "penal code," and so in King M'tesa's time the Baganda scrupulously kept two weekly holidays, the Mussulman Friday, and the Christian Sunday. Lofty creeds superimposed too rapidly on primitive beliefs are apt to get "mixed"; they need time to become assimilated.

That in the aborigines of Formosa are represented both Mongol (proto-Malayan) and Indonesian elements may now probably be accepted as an established fact. The long-standing reports of Negritoes also, like the Philippine Aeta, have never been confirmed, and may be dismissed from the present consideration. Probably five-sixths of the whole population are Chinese immigrants, amongst whom are a large number of Hakkas and Hok-los from the provinces of Fo-Kien and Kwang-tung[558]. They occupy all the cultivated western lowlands, which from the ethnological standpoint may be regarded as a seaward outpost of the Chinese mainland. The rest of the island, that is, the central highlands and precipitous eastern slopes, may similarly be looked on as a north-eastern outpost of Malaysia, being almost exclusively held by Indonesian and Malayan aborigines from Malaysia (especially the Philippines), with possibly some early intruders both from Polynesia and from the north (Japan). All are classed by the Chinese settlers after their usual fashion in three social divisions:--

1. The Pepohwans of the plains, who although called "Barbarians," are sedentary agriculturists and quite as civilised as their Chinese neighbours themselves, with whom they are gradually merging in a single ethnical group. The Pepohwans are described by P. Ibis as a fine race, very tall, and "fetishists," though the mysterious rites are left to the women. Their national feasts, dances, and other usages forcibly recall those of the Micronesians and Polynesians. They may therefore, perhaps, be regarded as early immigrants from the South Sea Islands, distinct in every respect from the true aborigines.

2. The Sekhwans, "Tame Savages[559]," who are also settled agriculturists, subject to the Chinese (since 1895 to the Japanese) administration, but physically distinct from all the other Formosans--light complexion, large mouth, thick lips, remarkably long and prominent teeth, weak constitution. P. Ibis suspects a strain of Dutch blood dating from the seventeenth century. This is confirmed by the old books and other curious documents found amongst them, which have given rise to so much speculation, and, it may be added, some mystification, regarding a peculiar writing system and a literature formerly current amongst the Formosan aborigines[560].

3. The Chinhwans, "Green Barbarians"--that is, utter savages--the true independent aborigines, of whom there are an unknown number of tribes, but regarding whom the Chinese possess but little definite information. Not so their Japanese successors, one of whom, Kisak Tamai[561], tells us that the Chinhwans show a close resemblance to the Malays of the Malay Peninsula and also to those of the Philippines, and in some respects to the Japanese themselves. When dressed like Japanese and mingling with Japanese women, they can hardly be distinguished from them. The vendetta is still rife amongst many of the ruder tribes, and such is their traditional hatred of the Chinese intruders that no one can either be tattooed or permitted to wear a bracelet until he has carried off a Celestial head or two. In every household there is a frame or bracket on which these heads are mounted, and some of their warriors can proudly point to over seventy of such trophies. It is a relief to hear that with their new Japanese masters they have sworn friendship, these new rulers of the land being their "brothers and sisters." The oath of eternal alliance is taken by digging a hole in the ground, putting a stone in it, throwing earth at each other, then covering the stone with the earth, all of which means that "as the stone in the ground keeps sound, so do we keep our word unbroken."

It is interesting to note that this Japanese ethnologist's remarks on the physical resemblances of the aborigines are fully in accord with those of European observers. Thus to Hamy "they recalled the Igorrotes of North Luzon, as well as the Malays of Singapore[562]." G. Taylor also, who has visited several of the wildest groups in the southern and eastern districts[563] (Tipuns, Paiwans, Diaramocks, Nickas, Amias and many others), traces some "probably" to Japan (Tipuns); others to Malaysia (the cruel, predatory Paiwan head-hunters); and others to the Liu-Kiu archipelago (the Pepohwans now of Chinese speech). He describes the Diaramocks as the most dreaded of all the southern groups, but doubts whether the charge of cannibalism brought against them by their neighbours is quite justified.

Whether the historical Malays from Singapore or elsewhere, as above suggested, are really represented in Formosa may be doubted, since no survivals either of Hindu or Muhammadan rites appear to have been detected amongst the aborigines. It is of course possible that they may have reached the island at some remote time, and since relapsed into savagery, from which the Orang-laut were never very far removed. But in the absence of proof, it will be safer to regard all the wild tribes as partly of Indonesian, partly of proto-Malayan origin.

This view is also in conformity with the character of the numerous Formosan dialects, whose affinities are either with the Gyarung and others of the Asiatic Indonesian tongues, or else with the Austronesian organic speech generally, but not specially with any particular member of that family, least of all with the comparatively recent standard Malay. Thus Arnold Schetelig points out that only about a sixth part of the Formosan vocabulary taken generally corresponds with modern Malay[564]. The analogies of all the rest must be sought in the various branches of the Oceanic stock language, and in the Gyarung and the non-Chinese tongues of Eastern China[565]. Formosa thus presents a curious ethnical and linguistic connecting link between the Continental and Oceanic populations.

In the Nicobar archipelago are distinguished two ethnical groups, the coast people, i.e. the Nicobarese[566] proper, and the Shom Pen, aborigines of the less accessible inland districts in Great Nicobar. But the distinction appears to be rather social than racial, and we may now conclude with E. H. Man that all the islanders belong essentially to the Mongolic division, the inlanders representing the pure type, the others being "descended from a mongrel Malay stock, the crosses being probably in the majority of cases with Burmese and occasionally with natives of the opposite coast of Siam, and perchance also in remote times with such of the Shom Pen as may have settled in their midst[567]."

Among the numerous usages which point to an Indo-Chinese and Oceanic connection are pile-dwellings; the chewing of betel, which appears to be here mixed with some earthy substance causing a dental incrustation so thick as even to prevent the closing of the lips; distention of the ear-lobe by wooden cylinders; aversion from the use of milk; and the couvade, as amongst some Bornean Dayaks. The language, which has an extraordinarily rich phonetic system (as many as 25 consonantal and 35 vowel sounds), is polysyllabic and untoned, like the Austronesian, and the type also seems to resemble the Oceanic more than the Continental Mongol subdivision. Mean height 5 ft. 3 in. (Shom Pen one inch less); nose wide and flat; eyes rather obliquely set; cheekbones prominent; features flat, though less so than in the normal Malayan; complexion mostly a yellowish or reddish brown (Shom Pen dull brown); hair a dark rusty brown, rarely quite black, straight, though not seldom wavy and even ringletty, but Shom Pen generally quite straight.

On the other hand they approach nearer to the Burmese in their mental characters; in their frank, independent spirit, inquisitiveness, and kindness towards their women, who enjoy complete social equality, as in Burma; and lastly in their universal belief in spirits called iwi or siya, who, like the nats of Indo-China, cause sickness and death unless scared away or appeased by offerings. Like the Burmese, also, they place a piece of money in the mouth or against the cheek of a corpse before burial, to help in the other world.

One of the few industries is the manufacture of a peculiar kind of rough painted pottery, which is absolutely confined to the islet of Chowra, 5 miles north of Teressa. The reason of this restriction is explained by a popular legend, according to which in remote ages the Great Unknown decreed that, on pain of sudden death, an earthquake, or some such calamity, the making of earthenware was to be carried on only in Chowra, and all the work of preparing the clay, moulding and firing the pots, was to devolve on the women. Once, a long time ago, one of these women, when on a visit in another island, began, heedless of the divine injunction, to make a vessel, and fell dead on the spot. Thus was confirmed the tradition, and no attempt has since been made to infringe the "Chowra monopoly[568]."

All things considered, it may be inferred that the archipelago was originally occupied by primitive peoples of Malayan stock now represented by the Shom Pen of Great Nicobar, and was afterwards re-settled on the coastlands by Indo-Chinese and Malayan intruders, who intermingled, and either extirpated or absorbed, or else drove to the interior the first occupants. Nicobar thus resembles Formosa in its intermediate position between the continental and Oceanic Mongol populations. Another point of analogy is the absence of Negritoes from both of these insular areas, where anthropologists had confidently anticipated the presence of a dark element like that of the Andamanese and Philippine Aeta.

FOOTNOTES:

[492] Here E. T. Hamy finds connecting links between the true Malays and the Indonesians in the Bicols of Albay and the Bisayas of Panay ("Les Races Malaiques et Americaines," in L'Anthropologie, 1896, p. 136). Used in this extended sense, Hamy's Malaique corresponds generally to our Malayan as defined presently.

[493] Ethnically Malayo-Polynesian is an impossible expression, because it links together the Malays, who belong to the Mongol, and the Polynesians, who belong to the Caucasic division. But as both undoubtedly speak languages of the same linguistic stock the expression is permitted in philology, although, as P. W. Schmidt points out, "Malay" and "Polynesian" are not of equal rank: and the combination is as unbalanced as "Indo-Bavarian" for "Indo-Germanic"; it is best therefore to adopt Schmidt's term Austronesian for this family of languages (Die Mon-Khmer Voelker, 1906, p. 69).

[494] Indonesian type: undulating black hair, often tinged with red; tawny skin, often rather light; low stature, 1.54 m.-1.57 m. (5 ft. 0-1/2 in.-5 ft. 1-3/4 in.); mesaticephalic head (76-78) probably originally dolichocephalic; cheek-bones sometimes projecting; nose often flattened, sometimes concave. It is difficult to isolate this type as it has almost everywhere been mixed with a brachycephalic Proto-Malay stock, but the Muruts of Borneo (cranial index 73) are probably typical (A. C. Haddon, The Races of Man, 1909, p. 14).

[495] Recent literature on this area includes F. A. Swettenham, The Real Malay, 1900, British Malaya, 1906; W. W. Skeat, Malay Magic, 1900; N. Annandale and H. C. Robinson, Fasciculi Malayenses, 1903; W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, 1903.

[496] J. Leyden, Malay Annals, 1821, p. 44.

[497] In some places quite recent, as in Rembau, Malay Peninsula, whose inhabitants are mainly immigrants from Sumatra in the seventeenth century; and in the neighbouring group of petty Negri Sembilan States, where the very tribal names, such as Anak Acheh, and Sri Lemak Menangkabau, betray their late arrival from the Sumatran districts of Achin and Menangkabau.

[498] The Malay Archipelago, p. 310.

[499] For Celebes see Von Paul und Fritz Sarasin, Reisen in Celebes ausgefuehrt in den Jahren 1893-6 und 1902-3, 1905, and Versuch einer Anthropologie der Insel Celebes, 1905.

[500] In 1898 a troop of Javanese minstrels visited London, and one of them, whom I addressed in a few broken Malay sentences, resented in his sleepy way the imputation that he was an Orang-Malayu, explaining that he was Orang Java, a Javanese, and (when further questioned) Orang Solo, a native of the Solo district, East Java. It was interesting to notice the very marked Mongolic features of these natives, vividly recalling the remark of A. R. Wallace, on the difficulty of distinguishing between a Javanese and a Chinaman when both are dressed alike. The resemblance may to a small extent be due to "mixture with Chinese blood" (B. Hagen, Jour. Anthrop. Soc. Vienna, 1889); but occurs over such a wide area that it must mainly be attributed to the common origin of the Chinese and Javanese peoples.

[501] A. H. Keane, Eastern Geography, 2nd ed. 1892, p. 121.

[502] Academy, May 1, 1897, p. 469.

[503] Cool, p. 139.

[504] The Malay Archipelago, p. 175.

[505] In Malay Sketches, 1895.

[506] Cf. M. A. Czaplicka on Arctic Hysteria in Aboriginal Siberia, 1914, p. 307.

[507] On these national pastimes see Sir Hugh Clifford, In Court and Kampong, 1897, p. 46 sq.

[508] Cujo officio he rubar e pescar, "whose business it is to rob and fish" (Barros). Many of the Bajaus lived entirely afloat, passing their lives in boats from the cradle to the grave, and praying Allah that they might die at sea.

[509] Thucydides, Pel. War, I. 1-16.

[510] These are the noted Illanuns, who occupy the south side of the large Philippine island of Mindanao, but many of whom, like the Bajaus of Celebes and the Sulu Islanders, have formed settlements on the north-east coast of Borneo. "Long ago their warfare against the Spaniards degenerated into general piracy. Their usual practice was not to take captives, but to murder all on board any boat they took. Those with us [British North Borneo] have all settled down to a more orderly way of life" (W. B. Pryer, Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1886, p. 231).

[511] The Malay Archipelago, p. 341.

[512] In Central Africa "the belief in 'were' animals, that is to say in human beings who have changed themselves into lions or leopards or some such harmful beasts, is nearly universal. Moreover there are individuals who imagine they possess this power of assuming the form of an animal and killing human beings in that shape." Sir H. H. Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 439.

[513] In Court and Kampong, p. 63.

[514] Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1886, p. 227. The Rajah gives the leading features of the character of his countrymen as "pride of race and birth, extraordinary observance of punctilio, and a bigoted adherence to ancient custom and tradition."

[515] The Pygmies (Translation), 1895, p. 26, fig. 15.

[516] The Distribution of the Negritos, 1899, p. 50.

[517] In the Appendix to C. Hose and W. McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, 1912, p. 311.

[518] J. H. Kohlbrugge, L'Anthropologie, IX. 1898.

[519] A. C. Haddon, "A Sketch of the Ethnography of Sarawak," Archivio per l'Antropologia e l'Etnologia, XXXI. 1901; C. Hose and W. McDougall, The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, 1912, Appendix, p. 314.

[520] H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, 1896.

[521] O. Beccari, Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo, 1904, p. 54.

[522] Schwaner, in H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak, etc., 1896.

[523] A. C. Haddon, Head-Hunters, Black, White and Brown, 1901, p. 324.

[524] A. C. Haddon, Head-Hunters, Black, White and Brown, 1901, pp. 327-8.

[525] For further literature on Borneo see W. H. Furness, The Home-life of the Borneo Head-Hunters, 1902; A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo, 1904; E. H. Gomes, Seventeen Years among the Sea-Dyaks of Borneo, 1911; C. Hose and W. McDougall, Journ. Anthr. Inst., XXXI. 1901, and The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, 1912.

[526] Not only in the southern districts for centuries subject to Javanese influences, but also in Battaland, where they were first discovered by H. von Rosenberg in 1853, and figured and described in Der Malayische Archipel, Leipzig, 1878, Vol. I. p. 27 sq. "Nach ihrer Form und ihren Bildwerken zu urtheilen, waren die Gebaeude Tempel, worin der Buddha-Kultus gefeiert wurde" (p. 28). These are all the more interesting since Hindu ruins are otherwise rare in Sumatra, where there is nothing comparable to the stupendous monuments of Central and East Java.

[527] Von Rosenberg, op. cit. Vol. I. p. 189. Amongst the points of close resemblance may be mentioned the outriggers, for which Mentawi has the same word (abak) as the Samoan (va'r = vaka); the funeral rites; taboo; the facial expression; and the language, in which the numerical systems are identical; cf. Ment. limongapula with Sam. limagafulu, the Malay being limapulah (fifty), where the Sam. infix ga (absent in Malay) is pronounced gna, exactly as in Ment.

[528] See Fr. Mueller, Ueber den Ursprung der Schrift der Malaiischen Voelker, Vienna, 1865; and my Appendix to Stanford's Australasia, First Series, 1879, p. 624.

[529] Die Mangianenschrift von Mindoro, herausgegeben von A. B. Meyer u. A. Schadenberg, speciell bearbeitet von W. Foy, Dresden, 1895; see also my remarks in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1896, p. 277 sq.

[530] The Rejang, which certainly belongs to the same Indo-Javanese system as all the other Malaysian alphabets, has been regarded by Sayce and Renan as "pure Phoenician," while Neubauer has compared it with that current in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. The suggestion that it may have been introduced by the Phoenician crews of Alexander's admiral, Nearchus (Archaeol. Oxon. 1895, No. 6), could not have been made by anyone aware of its close connection with the Lampong of South, and the Batta of North Sumatra (see also Prof. Kern, Globus, 70, p. 116).

[531] Sing. Batta, pl. Battak, hence the current form Battaks is a solecism, and we should write either Battas or Battak. Lassen derives the word from the Sanskrit b'hata, "savage."

[532] Again confirmed by Volz and H. von Autenrieth, who explored Battaland early in 1898, and penetrated to the territory of the "Cannibal Pakpaks" (Geogr. Journ., June, 1898, p. 672); not however "for the first time," as here stated. The Pakpaks had already been visited in 1853 by Von Rosenberg, who found cannibalism so prevalent that "Niemand Anstand nimmt das essen von Menschenfleisch einzugestehen" (op. cit. 1. p. 56).

[533] It is interesting to note that by the aid of the Lampong alphabet, South Sumatra, John Mathew reads the word Daibattah in the legend on the head-dress of a gigantic figure seen by Sir George Grey on the roof of a cave on the Glenelg river, North-west Australia ("The Cave Paintings of Australia," etc., in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1894, p. 44 sq.). He quotes from Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus the statement that "the Battas of Sumatra believe in the existence of one supreme being, whom they name Debati Hasi Asi. Since completing the work of creation they suppose him to have remained perfectly quiescent, having wholly committed the government to his three sons, who do not govern in person, but by vakeels or proxies." Here is possibly another confirmation of the view that early Malayan migrations or expeditions, some even to Australia, took place in pre-Muhammadan times, long before the rise and diffusion of the Orang-Malayu in the Archipelago.

[534] Memoir of the Life etc. of Sir T. S. Raffles, by his widow, 1830.

[535] "Anthropologie des Atjehs," in Rev. Med., Batavia, XXX. 6, 1890.

[536] See C. Snouck Hurgronje, The Achenese, 1906.

[537] Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections, British Museum, 1910, p. 245.

[538] This opinion is still held by many competent authorities. Cf. J. Deniker, The Races of Man, 1900, p. 469 ff.

[539] "His remarks would scarcely apply to any other island off the East African coast, his descriptions of the rivers, crocodiles, land-tortoises, canoes, sea-turtles, and wicker-work weirs for catching fish, apply exactly to Madagascar of the present day, but to none of the other islands" (Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1896, p. 47).

[540] Loc. cit. p. 77. Thus, to take the days of the week, we have:--Malagasy alahady, alatsinainy; old Arab. (Himyar.) al-ahadu, al-itsnani; modern Arab. el-ahad, el-etnen (Sunday, Monday), where the Mal. forms are obviously derived not from the present, but from the ancient Arabic. From all this it seems reasonable to infer that the early Semitic influences in Madagascar may be due to the same Sabaean or Minaean peoples of South Arabia, to whom the Zimbabwe monuments in the auriferous region south of the Zambesi were accredited by Theodore Bent.

[541] Those who may still doubt should consult M. Aristide Marre, Les Affinites de la Langue Malgache, Leyden, 1884; Last's above quoted Paper in the Journ. Anthr. Inst. and R. H. Codrington's Melanesian Languages, Oxford, 1885.

[542] Malay mata-ari; Bajau mata-lon; Menado mata-ro[=u]; Salayer mato-allo, all meaning literally "day's eye" (mata, mato = Malagasy maso = eye; ari, allo, etc. = day, with normal interchange of r and l).

[543] J. Sibree, Antananarivo Annual, 1877, p. 62.

[544] W. D. Cowan, The Bara Land, Antananarivo, 1881, p. 67.

[545] "The Betsileo, Country and People," in Antananarivo Annual, 1877, p. 79.

[546] "Note sur l'Anthropologie de Madagascar," etc., in L'Anthropologie, 1897, p. 149 sq.

[547] The contrast between the two elements is drawn in a few bold strokes by Mrs Z. Colvile, who found that in the east coast districts the natives (Betsimisarakas chiefly) were black "with short, curly hair and negro type of feature, and showed every sign of being of African origin. The Hovas, on the contrary, had complexions little darker than those of the peasantry of Southern Europe, straight black hair, rather sharp features, slim figures, and were unmistakably of the Asiatic type" (Round the Black Man's Garden, 1893, p. 143). But even amongst the Hovas a strain of black blood is betrayed in the generally rather thick lips, and among the lower classes in the wavy hair and dark skin.

[548] Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1897, p. 285 sq.

[549] Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1897, p. 153.

[550] Handbook to the Ethnological Collection, British Museum, 1910, pp. 246-7.

[551] Augustinians, Dominicans, Recollects (Friars Minor of the Strict Observance), and Jesuits.

[552] In fact there is no great parade of morality on either side, nor is it any reflection on a woman to have children by the priest.

[553] J. Foreman, The Philippine Islands, 1899, p. 181.

[554] Australasia, 1894, II. p. 49.

[555] The Bontoc Igorot, Eth. Survey Pub. Vol. I. 1904. Further information concerning the Philippines is published in the Census Report in 1903, 1905; Ethnological Survey Publications, 1904- ; C. A. Koeze, Crania Ethnica Philippinica, ein Beitrag zur Anthropologie der Philippinen, 1901- ; Henry Gannett, People of the Philippines, 1904; R. B. Bean, The Racial Anatomy of the Philippine Islanders, 1910; Fay-Cooper Cole, Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao, 1913.

[556] A. E. Jenks, The Bontoc Igorot, 1904, p. 41.

[557] Op. cit. p. 247.

[558] Girard de Rialle, Rev. d'Anthrop., Jan. and April, 1885. These studies are based largely on the data supplied by M. Paul Ibis and earlier travellers in the island. Nothing better has since appeared except G. Taylor's valuable contributions to the China Review (see below). The census of 1904 gave 2,860,574 Chinese, 51,770 Japanese and 104,334 aborigines.

[559] Lit. "ripe barbarians" (barbares murs, Ibis).

[560] See facsimiles of bilingual and other MSS. from Formosa in T. de Lacouperie's Formosa Notes on MSS., Languages, and Races, Hertford, 1887. The whole question is here fully discussed, though the author seems unable to arrive at any definite conclusion even as to the bona or mala fides of the noted impostor George Psalmanazar.

[561] Globus, 70, p. 93 sq.

[562] "Les Races Malaiques," etc., in L'Anthropologie, 1896.

[563] "The Aborigines of Formosa," in China Review, XIV. p. 198 sq., also xvi. No. 3 ("A Ramble through Southern Formosa"). The services rendered by this intelligent observer to Formosan ethnology deserve more general recognition than they have hitherto received. See also the Report on the control of the Aborigines of Formosa, Bureau of Aboriginal Affairs, Formosa, 1911.

[564] "Sprachen der Ureinwohner Formosa's," in Zeitschr. f. Voelkerpsychologie, etc., v. p. 437 sq. This anthropologist found to his great surprise that the Polynesian and Maori skulls in the London College of Surgeons presented striking analogies with those collected by himself in Formosa. Here at least is a remarkable harmony between speech and physical characters.

[565] De Lacouperie, op. cit. p. 73.

[566] The natives of course know nothing of this word, and speak of their island homes as Mattai, a vague term applied equally to land, country, village, and even the whole world.

[567] "The Nicobar Islanders," in Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1889, p. 354 sq. Cf. C. B. Kloss, In the Andamans and Nicobars, 1903.

[568] E. H. Man, Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1894, p. 21.

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