The Book of History (Vol. 1 of 18) A History of All Nations from the Earliest Times to the Present (part 2 of 3)
Some of these giant’s chambers, which were originally enclosed in mounds or barrows, are still preserved at the present day, and splendidly too. Very often the chamber was quite covered with earth outside; it then formed the centre of what was generally a circular barrow, often regular small hills ten to fifteen feet high and frequently over ninety feet in circumference.
The corpses were buried, not cremated. They were frequently in a crouching attitude, or that of a sleeper lying sideways with the legs drawn up to the body. The smaller graves often represent single interments; the larger or largest ones are mostly family tombs, in which numerous corpses were interred one after the other at different times. But this repeated use of the graves is found also with smaller ones, and even with stone cists. Only the last corpse then lies in a normal position, while, through the repeated opening of the grave and the later interments, the skeletons belonging to previously interred corpses appear more or less disturbed or intentionally put aside. The skulls of the corpses interred in the Neolithic graves are well formed, their size indicating a very considerable brain development. The corpses were no bigger than the present inhabitants of the same districts, and the form of the head corresponds partly with that of the present population of those countries. Nor do the skeletons otherwise differ from those of modern men.
In America, also, gigantic structures were erected by the aborigines who lived in the Stone Age, to commemorate and to protect their dead. They consist partly of large mounds of stones and earth, which are likewise often regular small hills, and partly of stone structures reminding one of the giants’ chambers. The majority of the mounds were doubtless mainly sepulchral; others may have been temple-hills or sacrificial mounds, defensive works or observatories.
The objects buried with the occupants belong mostly to the Neolithic Period, and consist chiefly of stone weapons and tools, some rude, but others finely worked and polished. Some are of pure natural copper, which was beaten into shape cold with stone hammers. Besides these, and ornaments and pottery, an American specialty is found in the form of tobacco-pipes carved from stone, some of which give interesting representations of men and animals; this seems to prove that tobacco also played a part in the American funeral rites of those times.
The graves of the Neolithic Period not only indicate that mankind generally was endowed with the same gifts as regards the first principles of the art of building, but they also afford us a glimpse of the mental life of that period of civilisation which at a more or less distant period was spread over the whole earth. What is so characteristic is the affectionate care for the corpse, for whose protection no amount of labour and trouble appeared too great. We can have no doubt that this reverence was based on a belief in the immortality of the soul--a belief which we find also at the present day among the most backward and abandoned “savages.” That the prehistoric men of the Stone Age held this belief is proved by the ornaments, weapons, implements, and food placed with the dead for use in the next world. Their burial customs certainly express a kind of worship of departed souls which has played and still plays so important a part in the religious ideas of all primitive peoples, and is one of the oldest fundamental notions common to mankind.
WHEN HISTORY WAS DAWNING
The discovery of Drift Man, his distinction from man of the later Stone Age, the investigation of the Palæolithic and Neolithic strata of culture of Europe and of the whole earth, and the scientific reconstruction of the earliest forms of civilisation based on these, are due solely to the natural-science method of research.
It was only when the exact methods of palæontology and geology had been brought to bear with all their rigour on the study of ancient man by savants schooled in natural science that solid results were obtained. On this sure foundation the science of history now continues building, and uses, even for the later periods, so far as recorded information is not available, and to supplement it, the same methods of palæontology and natural science which were applied so successfully to the earliest stages of the evolution of mankind.
[Sidenote: Time-Table of Prehistoric Periods]
The first point is to collect the relics of the periods of the evolution of culture which follow on the later Stone Age, and to separate them according to geological strata, uninfluenced by those older pseudo-historic fancies by which the deepening of our historical knowledge has so long been hindered. By carefully separating and tracing the earth’s strata till we come to those that furnish remains of times recorded in history, it has been possible to establish first a relative chronology of the so-called later prehistoric periods of Central Europe, whose offshoots pass immediately into recorded history.
By digging, after the same method of palæontological science, through stratum after stratum in the oldest centres of culture, especially in the Mediterranean countries, and by arranging the products by strata--uninfluenced by historical hypotheses--after the same natural-science method of research which has produced such remarkable results in Central Europe, the most surprising conformity in the evolution of culture in widely remote regions has been shown. It was found that in the Mediterranean countries, and also in Egypt and Babylonia, forms of culture already belong to the time of real history which were first recognised in Central Europe as preliminary prehistoric stages of historical strata; so that it was possible also to establish an absolute historical chronology for those instead of the relative prehistoric one.
[Sidenote: Europe’s Prehistoric Night]
Thus times which, as regards Central Europe, were hitherto wrapped in prehistoric night are enlightened by history. Although, as regards Central and Northern Europe, we cannot name the peoples who were the bearers of those forms of culture, and although we disdain to give them a premature nomenclature of hypothetical names, yet their conditions of life and culture and the progressive development of these, in manifold contact and intercourse with neighbouring and even far remote historic peoples and periods, have risen from the darkness of thousands of years; and their relation in time to the latter has been recognised.
Thus prehistoric times have themselves become history. The historical account of every single region has henceforth to begin with the description of the oldest antiquities of the soil that tell of man’s habitation, in order thereby to obtain the chronological connection with the evolution of the history of mankind generally. That is the palæontological method of historical research.
[Sidenote: Landmarks of Early Culture]
The palæontology of man has proved the Stone Age to be a general primary stage of culture for the whole human race. All further general progress in culture was affected by the discovery of the art of metal-working--the extraction of the metals from their ores and the casting and forging of them. The later and latest eras of culture are the Metal Ages, as opposed to the Stone Ages. It is not the use of metal in itself, but the above-mentioned metallurgical arts, that form the criterion of the advance of culture beyond the bounds of the Stone Age. Where, as in some parts of America, native copper was found in abundance, this red malleable mineral could probably be worked in the same way as stone, without any further progress necessarily developing therefrom. The same may apply to meteor-iron, which is said to have been used for arrows, together with stone points, by American tribes who were otherwise in the age of stone and but poorly civilised.
In civilised lands it is chiefly metal casting and the forging of the heated metal which have made it possible to produce better weapons and tools and more valuable ornaments. The worked metals are first copper, then the alloy of copper and tin that bears the name of classical bronze, and to these are soon added gold and--especially in districts rich in the metal, as in Spain--silver. Later on the extraction of iron from its ores and the forging of that metal are discovered.
According to this course of metallurgical progress the first metal period is distinguished as the Bronze Period, which is begun by a Copper Period lasting more or less long in different places. The second or later metal period is the Iron Period, in which we are living at the present day. In the course of time, by gradually displacing bronze and copper from the rank of metals worked for weapons and tools, this Iron Age has developed to its present stage.
In Central Europe the pile-dwellings in the lakes of Western Switzerland again present us with specially clear and uninterrupted series of illustrations of the progress of culture from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Ending the Stone Age, we find first a period of transition, in which, while stone continued to be principally employed, a few ornaments, weapons, and tools of metal began to be used. This metal is at first almost exclusively copper, with only very little bronze; iron is quite absent. Copper objects have been found in Western Switzerland by Victor Gross, most extensively in Fenel’s lake-dwelling station, which otherwise still belongs to the Stone Age. The majority of these are small daggers, formed after the pattern of the flint daggers; some already possess rivetings for fastening the blade to a handle. There are also chisels and small awls in bone handles, beads, and small ornamental leaves, and hatchets of the form of the simplest stone hatchets, with the edge hammered out and broadened. Much has proved the existence of a Copper Period corresponding to this description in the lake-dwelling in the Mond See in Austria, and in Hungary the remains of a Copper Period are particularly frequent. Parallel cases also occur in many other parts of Europe, particularly, as Virchow has proved, in the Spanish Peninsula, and in the Stone Age graves of Cujavia in Prussian Poland. These are the more important as they are most closely related to the conditions of culture discovered in the ancient strata of Hissarlik-Troy. Further unmistakable analogies occur with very ancient finds in Cyprus, and probably even with the oldest remains of Babylonian culture hitherto known. Here, too, we may include the finds of copper in the Stone Age of America.
[Sidenote: The Passing of the Stone Age]
So that in the normal and complete evolution of culture there seems to be first a stratum of copper as the connecting link between the Stone and Metal Ages; and this must be missing in those regions in which progress from the stone to the metal culture was only brought about at a relatively later period by external influences. This applies not only to all modern races in an age of stone, who obtained metal in recent times only through contact with European nations who had been living in the Iron Period for thousands of years, but, curiously enough, also to the greater part of Africa, where the use of iron was prevalent at a prehistoric period.
Just as the modern Stone races passed straight from the Stone Age into the most highly-developed Iron Age of the most advanced culture, so also the stone stratum of Central and South Africa is immediately overlaid by a stratum of iron culture, which was brought there in ancient times, probably direct from Egypt. As there is in Egypt and throughout North Africa a regular development from the Copper-bronze Period to the complete iron culture, corresponding to the progress of the metal cultures of Europe and Asia, the point of time is thus chronologically fixed at which this important element of culture was transmitted from Europe to the blacks of Central and South Africa.
[Sidenote: Advancing Civilisation in Bronze Age]
In Western Switzerland the transition period of copper is followed without a gap in the development by the Bronze Period proper. With the introduction of bronze all the conditions of life were more highly developed in the sense of increased culture. With better tools the stations of the Bronze Age could be erected at a greater distance from the bank, often two hundred to three hundred yards; the space they take up is also much greater. The piles are not only better preserved, according as the time of their being driven in more nearly approaches our own, but they are also better worked, are often square, and the points that are rammed into the lake-bottom are better cut. The settlements of the Bronze Age often cover an area of several hundred square yards, and are no longer comparatively mean villages, as in the Stone Age; the pile settlements of the Bronze Age are well-organised market towns and even flourishing small cities, where a certain luxury already prevails. The products of their industry are graced by that beauty and elegance of form that only an advanced civilisation can create. As in the Stone Age, so also in the Bronze Age of Central and Northern Europe, the most important working-implement, which was, however, also used as a weapon, was the axe, or celt. The most primitive forms of axes, like the above-mentioned copper axes, still resemble the simple stone axes: like these, they have no special contrivance for fastening the handle. In more developed forms of axes such contrivances for fastening the handle appear first in the form of slight flanges, which become wider and wider; finally they develop into regular wings, which, by curving towards one another, develop into two almost closed lateral semi-canals on the upper side of the celt. In the hollow celts a simple socket for the handle was cast in the making; an additional means of fastening the handle was provided in a loop, which also occurs on winged celts. Besides the celt, or axe-blade, broad and narrow chisels of bronze occur in various forms for working wood. A second chief type of instrument is the one-edged bronze knife with elegantly curved back and a handle tongue.
The manner in which iron was found in the lake-dwellings, as mentioned above, shows the gradual development of a period of transition between a Bronze and an Iron Age. In spite of the difference in the material which the lake-dwellers used for making their weapons and tools in the periods of transition, they still imitate the old forms received from their forefathers. Just as the first metal axes of copper are copies of the stone axes, so also, when iron first became known, were weapons made of this metal which corresponded in form to the bronze weapons that had hitherto been used.
The Bronze Period was first proved to have been a complete form of culture in the North of Europe--in North Germany and Scandinavia. We have now succeeded in establishing the fact that it was a preliminary stage of the Iron Age, in locally original development, in all ancient centres of culture. It is very remarkable that the civilised states of the New World also employed only copper and bronze as working metals. Thus the Peruvians did not know iron any more than the other American peoples until they came in contact with European influences. Besides copper and bronze they had tin and lead, gold and silver. The Peruvian bronzes contain silver to the extent of five to ten per cent. There are axes or celts of bronze similar to the rudest of the first European beginnings in metal corresponding in form to the simple stone axe. Many of the other forms of weapons and implements familiar in the Bronze Age of the Old World were also made of bronze or copper in America; semi-lunar knives with a handle in the middle, lance-heads and arrow-heads, swords, war-clubs like morning stars, etc. At the same time weapons and implements of stone still remained in use.
In the Old World progress beyond bronze is everywhere due to iron.
One place has been found and most completely investigated after the method of palæontological research, with all the help afforded by archæological and historical science, where, in overlying geological strata, the evidences have been found of a progressive development of culture from the end of the Stone Age down to the brilliant days of Græco-Roman history. There the chronological connection has been obtained, not only for the metal periods, but also for the end of the Neolithic Period. This most important place is Troy, the citadel-hill of Hissarlik, by the excavation of which Henry Schliemann has won immortal fame. Schliemann’s excavations, supplemented and completed in decisive manner by Dörpfeld, have brought about the most important advancement of the history of mankind that our age can show.
Virchow’s name is inseparably associated with Schliemann’s. Furtwängler, in his account, based on personal observation, of the results of the excavations at Troy, has accomplished the great service of exactly determining the chronological connections of the prehistoric with the historic eras, and thereby linking the former to history.
On the spot on which tradition placed Homeric Troy (says Furtwängler) there really has stood a stately citadel, which was contemporaneous with the golden age of Mycenæ, the epoch of the Agamemnon of legend, was intimately related to Mycenæan culture, and at the same time corresponds most exactly to the idea of Troy underlying the old epic.
[Sidenote: Seven Towns on One Hill]
The citadel-hill of Troy terminates a ridge of heights stretching westward from Mount Ida, almost parallel to the Hellespont, and slopes steeply into the Trojan plain or the valley of the Scamander. The natural hill itself is not very high, but it was overlaid by enormous layers of ruins of buildings and walls, whereby it has been considerably increased not only in height, but also in breadth. Stratum after stratum lies one upon the other like the leaves of a bud, so that the history of the habitation of this venerable place from the most ancient times can be read from these strata which have been opened up by Schliemann and Dörpfeld, as from the leaves of a book. The original ground of the hill-plateau now lies some sixty feet above the plain, but the latter may have been raised something like sixteen to twenty feet by alluvial deposits since the Trojan War. The whole stratum of ruins lying on the original ground of the hill, which Schliemann opened up, amounts to about fifty-two and a half feet. Schliemann distinguished seven or eight different layers or strata, corresponding to as many towns which were successively built on this hill, one on the ruins of the other.
The lowest stratum, lying immediately on the original ground, belongs accordingly to the oldest, or first town, on the citadel-hill of Troy. Furtwängler says:
[Sidenote: The First Town of Troy]
By moderate computation this settlement must belong to the first half of the third millennium before Christ, but it may very well date back even to the fourth millennium. The inhabitants already used copper implements in addition to stone ones. Their whole culture is most closely connected with that which prevailed in Central Europe during the Copper Period. Clay vessels of the Copper Period from Lake Mond, in Austria, agree completely with those of the first Trojan town. Troy represents only an offshoot of Central European culture, and its inhabitants were in all probability of European origin.
We have already learned that the Copper Period is the end of the Neolithic Period and the beginning of the Metal Age. In the first Trojan town there is still extraordinarily little metal used, the axes, hatchets, knives, and saws still being of stone, of the familiar Central European types, and of the same materials, among which nephrite is particularly frequent. Other materials are serpentine, diorite, porphyry, hematite, flint, etc.
[Sidenote: The First Period of Troy’s Glory]
The forms of these implements correspond entirely to those of the later Stone Age of Europe. The character of the ceramics also conforms in many respects, according to Virchow, to that of the European Stone Age; and the Stone Age finds at Butmir, in Bosnia, and similar ones in Transylvania seem especially to offer close analogies. It would be a highly important step toward connecting history with the Neolithic Period if the first town could be even more closely investigated, and perhaps more sharply divided from that second stratum which lies between it and the stratum described by Schliemann as the second or burnt city, and which Schliemann afterward separated into two strata, corresponding to two towns. Perhaps the metal comes only from the second or higher stratum under the burnt city. In that case the oldest would belong purely to the Stone Age. The ceramics would seem to contradict this. Furtwängler continues:
High above the first town, a deep layer of débris, is the level surface of the second town, which must at least be dated back to the second half of the third millennium before Christ. It was the first period of Troy’s glory. Mighty walls protected the citadel. Three different building periods may be distinguished. The walls were brought out a long way and strengthened, and magnificent new gates were built. During the third period of this second city a prince, fond of splendour, had the old narrow gateway replaced by magnificent propylæa and a large hall-erection with a vestibule. A great conflagration destroyed his citadel. A treasure was found by Schliemann--he called it Priam’s treasure--in the upper part of the citadel wall, which was made of straw bricks. The tools of the second city are still partly of stone, but also partly of bronze, so that they already belong to the Bronze Age.
[Sidenote: The Early Culture of Troy]
The general character of culture is, according to Furtwängler, still essentially Central European. And yet many an individuality has developed, and the influence of Babylonian culture is everywhere apparent, although it does not go very deep. To this influence our authority chiefly attributes the occurrence of a few pots turned on the wheel, especially flat dishes; for the potter’s wheel was still quite unknown at that time in Europe, and even at a post so far advanced toward the East as Cyprus, while in Egypt and Babylonia it had been in use from the earliest times. In this period also Troy inclines more to Central Europe as its centre of gravity, but remains far behind the peculiar development that bronze work attained there; in the metal tools no advance is made on the forms of the Copper Period. Into any close relation with Cyprus it does not come; only the basis of their culture is common to both. But this basis had a wide range, relics from German districts being often more closely related to the Trojan ones than are those from Cyprus.
The brilliant period of the second city is followed by a long period of decline for Troy. Ruins are piled upon ruins, walls rise upon walls, but each poorer than the others; no new citadel walls, no gates, no palaces belong to this period, in which three strata--the third, fourth, and fifth towns--are distinguished. The first half of the second millennium before Christ must at least be regarded as the time of this deposit. The inhabitants evidently remained the same, and their culture is that of the second city. But no progress was made; nothing but stagnation; the same forms of vessels continue to be made, the same decorated whorls. Naturally, no active intercourse with abroad could develop in this period. And yet this was the time when an active civilised life began to develop on the islands of the Ægean Sea and on the east coast of Greece, which was to bloom in all its splendour in the following period. To this time the finds at Thera belong, where the pottery, all turned on the wheel, is already painted with a so-called varnish colour which shines like metal, and in which plants, flowers, and animals are treated in quite a new and promising naturalistic style hitherto unheard of in Europe. In Cyprus, too, the decoration of pottery developed exceedingly in wealth and variety in this period of the Bronze Age. Troy, on the other hand, is poor and degenerate.
But a new period of prosperity arrived for Troy, too; this is the sixth town. Rich and powerful princes again ruled in this citadel. They enlarged it far beyond its former compass. They built strong new walls--the old ones had long since sunk in ruins--not of small stones and straw bricks as before, but of large, smooth blocks, and gates and turrets. They did not have the sloping mound of ruins levelled, as the lords of the second city had done; they let the new buildings rise in terraces, on the ruins of the old; stately mansions with wide, deep halls, covered the acropolis. Constant intercourse existed with the princes of Greece, who at that time--the second half of the second millennium before Christ--built their citadels with cyclopean walls. The Trojans employed the same peculiar, constantly-recurring small projections in their walls that we find in a Mycenæan town on Lake Copaïs in Bœotia.
And, above all, the Trojans now provided themselves with those beautiful vessels painted with shining colour that characterise Mycenæan culture in Greece, and whose natural style had so wonderfully developed there on the basis of the attempts that we found at Thera. In Troy these things caused some imitation, but the results remained far behind the originals. The living, imaginative conception of the natural was closed to the Trojan; the home-made pottery kept, on the whole, to its unpainted vessels, although these were now almost entirely made on the wheel.
Yet what chiefly interests us is the historical. The sixth town, too, was suddenly given up, destroyed, and burnt. What follows it are again only poor settlements. Its destruction must have taken place about the end of the Mycenæan epoch of culture. The seventh town, which is built immediately on the ruins of the sixth, shows, already, other and later culture. It had long been suspected that a historical kernel was concealed in the legend of Troy--now we have the monumental confirmation. There really was a Troy, which was strong and great at the same time as the rulers of Mycenæ, rich in gold and treasure, held way in Greece. And that Troy was destroyed--we may now safely affirm, from this agreement between relics and legend--by Greek princes of the Mycenæan epoch, whom the legend calls Agamemnon and his men.
The seventh and eighth towns, built soon after the destruction of the sixth, show an interruption in the intercourse with Greece. There the Mycenæan period was broken by the displacement of peoples known as the Doric migration, and that rich civilised life was replaced by a relapse into the semi-barbaric conditions of the North. In Troy, too, we perceive a period of decline, “a relapse into a stage long since past; black hand-made vessels, which in their form and decoration are strikingly like the home-made pots usual in Italy, especially Etruria and Latium, in the first part of the first millennium before Christ.” Finally, the seventh town also furnishes inferior imported Greek vases with painting, though coming not from Greece itself, but from the coast of Asia Minor, where Greeks had settled in connection with the Doric migration. “The Æolic colonisation of Troas brought Ilium no fresh prosperity. Other places rose, Troy remained a miserable village. In the Hellenistic period the sky clears over Troy. What Alexander intended, Lysimachus carried out; he restores Ilium to the place of a real city with new walls, and erects a magnificent temple to Athene on the top of the acropolis.... Yet artistic creation came to no real perfection. It was only when the great men of Rome, mindful of their Trojan ancestors, began to interest themselves in the place, that new life bloomed on Troy’s ruins.”
* * * * *
Thus the geological-archæological method relates history, merely relying upon the monuments of the soil, without requiring written evidences. Pre-history has here attained its end; it has become history.
JOHANNES RANKE
THE GREAT STEPS IN MAN’S DEVELOPMENT
BY PROFESSOR JOSEPH KOHLER
THE MATERIAL PROGRESS OF MANKIND
The opinion that our own circumstances and affairs are the only standard for judging universal history has long been obsolete. Our day, with its conceptions, beliefs, hopes, and endeavours, is but a tiny portion of the past; for thousands of years peoples have existed who have lived in other intellectual spheres than ours, who have pursued other ideals.
The study of history does not consist in an examination of the past projected, as it were, into the present; it is the study of the past considered as a part of the constant coming and going of men. And in order to become qualified as historians we must first of all attain a point of view from which we may, independently of time, behold history with all its great events file by; as though we were men who had ascended to some elevation in the universe from which they could look down upon the whole earth lying as a unity before them. This is rendered possible through the power of abstraction gained from a study of history; it enables us, on the one hand, to adapt ourselves to strange times and beliefs, and, on the other, to look upon our own day--all time to its contemporary men--objectively, as a mere hour of the ages of human development. We must learn to escape from the present, to withdraw ourselves from that which we may call the tyranny of our own time.
From universal history we obtain a picture of the development of humanity--that is, the development of the various active germs or principles inherent in man. By these are meant the active principles innate in mankind in the aggregate, in contradistinction to those which may exist in single individuals or in single races.
The result of development is called “civilisation”--the state of intellectual being, and of outward, material life, attained by a people through evolution. Although spiritual and material culture flow into each other, they may be separated to this extent: as a physical being endowed with senses, man endeavours to obtain satisfaction of his needs, and strives for a position in relation to his environment corresponding with the efforts he has made to obtain welfare; as a feeling, inquiring, spiritual being he contains within him an ever-present desire to fuse the multitude of separate impressions he receives into unity, and to struggle forward until he arrives at a conception of the world and of life.
“Material civilisation” is the mode of life through which the obstacles opposed to humanity may be overcome. By the surmounting of obstacles is meant the conquering of enemies, particularly of hostile animals, the obtaining of means for the preservation of existence, and the employing of these means for the increase of bodily welfare. In respect of material civilisation man passes through stages that differ widely from one another, that vary according to the manner in which the necessities for existence are obtained, and according to the way in which enemies are withstood for the safeguarding of life, welfare, and acquisitions already gained. Races are spoken of as supporting themselves by the chase and fishing, or by cattle-breeding and farming, according to whether they are accustomed to derive subsistence directly from “nature unadorned,” or by means of the cultivation and utilisation of natural products.
No sharp line of distinction, however, may be drawn. It is inadmissible to speak of races as supporting themselves solely by hunting and fishing, for the very same peoples feed on products of the soil wherever they are found and recognised as means of subsistence. They live, it is true, upon flesh and fish, but also upon roots and the fruit of wild trees. While in this state of civilisation, man avails himself only of that which Nature places before him; he neither adapts Nature to his desire, to his needs, or to his manner of living, nor understands how to do it. He can make no further use of Nature than to acquire a knowledge of the sources of supply, of how to seize time and opportunity, and to overcome the obstacles of life in his own territory. He ascertains the haunts of game, discovers how to obtain fish, explores for wild honey or edible roots, learns to climb the tallest trees and to let himself down into the deepest caves; but he lacks the ability to cultivate Nature, to cause her to produce according to his will.
Gradually the one phase amalgamates with the other. It is not seldom that hunting tribes have small tracts of land on which they raise a few edible plants. Observation of Nature teaches them that germs develop from fallen seeds, and leads of itself to the idea that it is not best to allow plants to grow up wild, and that it would be expedient to clear the surrounding ground for their better growth. And when this stage is reached, the next step--not to allow seeds to spring up by chance, but to place them in the soil one’s self--is not very far off; and thus the mere acquisition of Nature’s raw vegetable products gives place to agriculture. Often enough we observe instances of the men of a group carrying on hunting operations, while the women are not only occupied with their domestic employments, but also till the soil; thus the men are hunters and fishers, and the women are agriculturists. Domestic work led the latter to take up the cultivation of plants, even as it led them to the other light feminine handicrafts; while the repairing of weapons and of contrivances used for the capture of animals lay within the province of the men.
The discovery of how to produce fire by artificial means, independently effected in all parts of the world--as was also the discovery of the art of navigation--was of the greatest importance for the entire future. Fire was first a result of chance.
When lightning set a portion of the forest in flames, and caused a multitude of animals or fruits to be roasted, men put it to practical use. They recognised the advantage that fire gave them and sought to preserve it. The retention of the fire which had been sent down from heaven became one of the most weighty and significant of functions. Man learned how to keep wood-fibres smouldering, and how to blow them into flame at will; he also learned that it was possible to convey fire, or the potentiality of fire, along with him in his wanderings. But even then success was uncertain until a lucky chance led him to discover how to produce flames at will, by rubbing two sticks together or by twirling one against the other. These actions were originally performed for other purposes--to bore holes in a piece of wood, or to rub it into fibres; finally, one or the other was carried out with such vigour that a filament began to burn, and the discovery was made. Sparks from flint must have suggested a second method of kindling a fire; certainly the art of igniting soft filaments of wood by means of a spark--thus enabling the very smallest source of combustion to be used for human purposes--was known to man in the earliest times. The obvious results of the use of fire are means of obtaining warmth and of cooking food.
Self-defence had already led to the use of weapons, and, at the same time, the contrivances for hunting and fishing must have become more and more perfect. A very low degree of civilisation is that of races unacquainted with the bow and arrow, and familiar with club or boomerang only--who know how to make use merely of the weight of a substance, or, as in the case of the boomerang, of a peculiar means of imparting motion.
The time previous to the discovery of the art of working in metal was the Age of Stone. It was a natural transition period during which men began to learn to make use of the malleable metals, which could be hammered and beaten into various shapes, and finally discovered how to work in iron. Iron, by being placed in the fire, brought to a white heat, and smelted, was rendered capable of being put to such uses as were impossible in the case of brittle materials--bone or stone, for example. Many races never acquired the art of working even in the softer metals, and procured metallic implements from other peoples. The great importance of metal-working is borne out by the fact that the position of the smith, even in legendary times, has been of the utmost significance. The Ages of Stone and of Metal belong to the most important stages of civilisation.
Having made himself weapons, man did not employ them in fights with animals only; he also used them on his fellow-men, and at the same time arose the necessity for protective coverings--that is, the need for a means of neutralising the effect of weapons on the body. Thus followed the invention of the shield as a portable shelter, of the coat of mail and of the helmet, and of armour in general in all its different forms and varieties.
Together with weapons, utensils are characteristic of material culture. Utensils are implements used in the arts of peace, domestic and industrial; they are instruments which enable us to increase power over Nature. Some utensils have undergone the same transformations as have weapons; others have their own independent history. Just as the edges of shells served as patterns for knife-blades, so did hollow stones, the shells of crustaceans or of tortoises, become models for dishes and basins. From the discovery of the imperviousness of dried earth, the potter’s art developed; it became possible to mould clay into desired shapes while moist, and then, when dry, to employ it in its new form as a vessel for holding liquids; for that which has always been of the greatest importance in the making of utensils has been the taking advantage of two opposite characteristics displayed by a material during the different stages of its manufacture--plasticity, which admits of its first being moulded into various forms, and another quality, which causes it afterward to stiffen into solidity and strength.
[Sidenote: Growth of the Textile Arts]
A further acquisition was the art of braiding and plaiting, the joining together of flexible materials in such a way that they held together by force of friction alone. Thus coherent, durable fabrics may be produced, and by joining together small parts into an aggregate it is also possible to give a definite form to the whole and to adapt it to various uses. The quality of adaptability is especially developed in the products of plaiting, but the quality of imperviousness is lacking. Wickerwork was used not only in the form of baskets, but also in other shapes, as means for protection and shelter, as material for sails, as well as for tying and binding. The art of weaving arises from plaiting, and along with it come methods for spinning thread. It thus becomes possible to make an immense number of different useful articles out of shapeless vegetable material. Fibres are rendered more durable by being bound together, and textures formed from threads are adapted to the most various uses of life. This has an influence on the development of weapons also: bow-strings, slings, and lassos presuppose a rudimentary knowledge, at least, of the textile arts; and as knowledge increases, so are the products improved in turn.
Means for conveyance are also invented, that difficulties arising from distance may be overcome. At first men carry burdens upon their backs, heads, or shoulders, or in the hand, placing whatever they wish to transport in a utensil--a basket or a piece of cloth--thus producing a coherent whole; later, in order to render conveyance still more convenient, handles are invented. Objects are dragged along the ground, and from an effort to save them from injury the idea of sledges develops. Things that are round enough are rolled to their destinations; this leads to the invention of rollers and wheels, materials of required form being brought into combination with rudimentary agents of circular motion, and thus, through a rotary, a horizontal movement is obtained; and so the force of gravity is made use of, consistency of motion procured, and the hindering effect of friction overcome to the greatest possible degree.
Means for carrying inanimate objects once invented, it is not long before they are put to use for the conveyance of man himself; thus methods for the transportation of human beings are discovered in the same manner as the means for the carriage of goods.
[Sidenote: Man’s First Boats]
In primitive times transportation by water is employed to a far greater extent than by land. Man learns how to swim in the same way as other animals do, by discovering how to repress his struggles, transforming them into definite, regular movements. The sight of objects afloat must, through unconscious analysis--experience--have taught men to make light, water-tight structures for the conveyance of goods upon water, and, later, for the use of man himself. The pole by which the first raft was pushed along developed into the rudder. Kayaks and canoes were built of wood, of bark, and of hides. In this connection, moreover, an epoch-marking invention was that of cloths in which to catch the wind--sails; and this, too, was a result of observation and experience. Man had known the effect of the wind upon fluttering cloth, to his loss, long enough before he hit upon the idea of employing it to his advantage. Finally he learned that by adjusting the sails he might make use of winds blowing from any direction.
[Sidenote: Man’s First Houses]
Habitations are structures built in order to facilitate and assure the existence of man and the preservation of his goods. Indeed, the presence of caverns caused men to recognise the protective virtue of roof and wall, and the knowledge thus acquired gave rise in turn to the making of artificial caves. Holes beneath overhanging banks and precipices led to the building of houses with roofs extending beyond the rambling walls. Perhaps the protection afforded by leafy roofs, and the walls formed by the trunks of trees in primeval forests, may also have turned men’s thoughts to the construction of dwellings. Houses of various forms were built, circular and rectangular; some with store-rooms and hearths. The use of dwellings presupposes a certain amount of consistency in the mode of living, the presence of local ties, and a general spirit favouring fixed and permanent residence. Nomadic races use movable or temporary shelters only--waggons, tents, or huts.
[Sidenote: Home and Dress]
The houses of stationary peoples become more and more firm and stable. At first they are built of earth and wickerwork, later of stone, and finally of bricks, as among the Babylonians. Foundations are invented, dwellings are accurately designed as to line and angle; the curved line is introduced, bringing with it arches both round and pointed, as may be seen in the remains of Roman and Etruscan buildings. The structure is adorned, and it becomes a work of art.
But man also dwelt over the water, sometimes erecting his habitations upon rafts and floats, often upon structures that rose from beneath the surface. Thus was he, dwelling in communities of various sizes, secure from the attacks of land enemies. Even to-day there are uncivilised peoples who live over water, constructing their homes upon piles.
[Sidenote: Taming of the Wild]
Clothing, however, was invented partly that in cold climates men might survive the winter, partly for the sake of ornament. In tropical regions man originally had no knowledge of the necessity for clothing: garments are masks, disguises; they bear with them a charm; they are the peculiar property of the medicine-men or of those who in the religious dance invoke the higher powers. Modesty is a derived feeling; it cannot exist until a high state of individualisation has been attained, until each man desires exclusive possession of his wife, and therefore wishes to shield her from the covetousness of other men. With the knowledge of dress, a desire for adornment, the effort to assist Nature in producing certain definite æsthetic effects, arises. Less uniformity in the appearance of the body is wanted, and this brings tattooing and the use of ornament into vogue. Later there is a fusing of these several aims; clothing becomes protection, veil, and ornament in one, fulfilling all three functions at the same time.
Another epoch-marking discovery, often arrived at while races are still in the state of subsistence by hunting, is the domestication of animals. This may have originated in the practice of provoking one beast to attack another in order to vanquish them both the more easily. Further development, bringing with it the idea of totemism and the notion that the soul of an animal dwells in man, drew him nearer to his animal neighbours; and he sought them out as comrades and attendants. The taming of wild creatures arose from two sources--human egoism, and the innate feeling of unity and identification with Nature common to all savages; hence on the one hand, the subjugation of animals, and, on the other, their domestication. Neither employment rendered it by any means less possible for men to hold animals in reverence, or to attribute to them virtue as ancestral spirits.
Such acquisitions of external culture accompany man during the transition from his subsistence by the pure products of Nature to the cultivation of natural resources, cattle-breeding and agriculture--occupations necessitating the greatest unrest and mobility. The simple life in Nature incites men to wander forth that they may discover land adapted for their support; they rove about in search of roots as well as of living prey. The breeding of domestic animals also causes them to travel in the hope of finding ground for pasture; nor does agriculture in its primitive form tend to establish permanence of residence, although it contains within itself latent possibilities of developing a settled life, one of the most important factors in the progress of mankind.
Only fixed, domestic peoples are able to create great and lasting institutions, to store up the results of civilisation for distant later races, and to establish a developed, well-organised commercial and civil life. The transition from nomadism to life in permanent residences has, therefore, been one of the greatest steps in the development of humanity. At the time of the beginnings of agriculture, however, man was still a periodic wanderer. According to the field-grass system of cultivation, seed is sown in hastily-cleared ground, which soon becomes exhausted and is then abandoned. A migration follows and new land is cleared. This system continues until men learn to cultivate part of the land in a district, allowing the remainder to lie fallow for a time in order that the soil may recover; thus they remain fixed in their chosen district. Various circumstances--for example, the danger of enemies from without, and the difficulties attending migration--must have led to this change, the transition to the system of alternation of crops. The wanderings are confined to less extensive regions, the same fields are returned to after a few years, until finally the relation of patches under cultivation to fallow land is reduced to a system, and the time of wandering is past.
[Sidenote: The coming of the Craftsman]
With fixed residence the forms of communities alter. The group settles in a certain district, homes are built close to one another, and the patriarchal organisation gives place to the village, which, with its definite boundaries, is thenceforth the nucleus of the social aggregate. Often several village communities have fields and forests in common, and a common ownership of dams and canals; Nature takes care that they do not become isolated, but unite together in close contact for common defence and protection. With agriculture is associated the working up of raw products. These are fashioned into materials for the support of life and for enjoyment; furniture for dwellings, clothing, tools, utensils, and weapons are made. For, however much agriculture favours a life of peace, so rarely does man live in friendship with his fellows that agricultural peoples also find it necessary to arm themselves for war.
At first manufacture is not separated from farming; the agriculturist himself prepares the natural products, assisted by the members of his family. Later, it is easily seen that some individuals are more skilled than others; it is also recognised that skill may be developed by practice and that employments must be learned. Therefore it is requisite that special individuals of the community should prepare themselves for particular activities in the working up of raw products and pursue these activities in consistency with the needs of the society--trade or craft. The craftsman at first labours for the community; in every village the tailor, cobbler, smith, barber, and schoolmaster is supported by society at large. The craftsman receives his appointed income--that is, his portion of the common supply of food; and, in addition, every one for whom he expends his labour gives him something in compensation, or finds him food while employed about his house, until, finally, a systematic method of exchange is established; and with this another advance--an epoch for civilisation--is arrived at.
[Sidenote: The First Labour Problem]
This is the division of labour. It is found advantageous not only that the craftsman be employed as he is needed, but also that he produce a supply of products peculiar to his trade; for the times of labour do not in the least harmonise with the times of demand. Although during the first periods of industrial life men sought more or less to adjust these factors, in later times they become wholly separate from one another. There is always, in addition, labour ready to be expended on casual needs; in more advanced phases of civilisation this condition of affairs is not avoided; but wherever labour can be disassociated from fortuitous necessity, the capacity for production is greatly increased. Commodities are manufactured during the best seasons for production and are preserved until the times of need; thus men become independent of the moment. Here also, as in other problems of civilisation, it is necessary to surmount the incongruities of chance, and to render all circumstances serviceable to our purposes.
[Sidenote: Crafts and Trades Developing]
Exchange and division of labour are the great factors of the progress of a civilisation based upon industrialism. Crafts and trades develop and improve; greater and greater skill is demanded, and consequently the time of preparation necessary for the master craftsman becomes longer and longer. The worker limits himself to a definite sphere of production and carries his trade forward to a certain perfection. His wares will then be more eagerly sought for than those made by another hand; they are better, yet cheaper, for his labour is lightened by his greater skill. His various fellow craftsmen, and the agriculturist also, must exchange their goods for his; for the more specialised the work of an individual, the more necessary the community is to him, in order that he may satisfy all his various requirements. Exchange is at first natural; that is, commodities are traded outright, each individual giving goods directly in return for the goods he receives. The production of the community as a whole has become far richer, far more perfect. The labour of the organised society produces more than the activity of separate individuals.
Here, again, is shown the impulse of man to free himself from the exigencies of the moment, to lift himself above the fortuitous differences that arise between supply and demand. The more varied the production, the more difficult it becomes to find men who are able to offer the required commodity in exchange for what has been brought to them. An escape from this embarrassment lies in the discovery of a universal measure of exchange value and medium of exchange--money. Money is the means of adjustment which renders traffic between men independent of individual requirements.
Mediums of exchange, particularly necessary for the carrying on of traffic between different communities, which exist in large quantities and can be divided up into parts, make their appearance in very early times. At first their values are more or less empirical, dependent upon the conditions of individual cases, until gradually a medium obtains general recognition and thus becomes money. The same need for surmounting the lack of uniformity in individual requirements has led the most different peoples in the world to the invention of money. Naturally, many different things have been employed as mediums of exchange; these vary according to geographical situations, conditions of civilisation, and the customs of races. Pastoral tribes at first employed cattle; but tobacco, cowries, strings of flat shells, bits of mother-of-pearl, rings, and hides are also used. At last it is found that metal is stable, durable, divisible, and of generally recognised value; and finally the precious metals take precedence of all others. Finally this form of money is adopted by all civilised races.
Division of labour originates in the development of the handicrafts, in the distinction made between the labour of working up the raw material and that of its production. With the help of a currency it leads to a complete transformation, not only of economic relations, but also of the social conditions of men.
[Sidenote: Markets and Prices]
Country becomes city; centres of population which rest upon an industrial basis arise; in many cases growth of the various manufacturing industries is furthered by unfavourable agricultural conditions. Such industrial centres require markets and market-places; it is necessary for the producers of raw materials to come to market from the country with their goods, in order that they may meet together with the craftsmen of the city, and with other producers from the country who offer their wares in turn. The market town is the point of departure for further culture. Here, too, the endeavour to harmonise individual incongruities exists. Fruit is sent to market; each man has his choice; an exchange value is determined by means of comparison, through analysis of the individual prices which themselves do not furnish any rational determination of worth, and therefore expose both buyer and seller to chance. Thus a market-price develops. The city is the living agency promoting industry and exchange; it brings its population into contact with the population of the country by means of the market, and prevents men from separating into isolated, unsympathetic, or even hostile groups.
Here industry flourishes--arts, crafts, and large manufactures. In the latter, division of labour is developed to a maximum degree, and production in factories derives a further impulse through the introduction of machinery. Machines, in contrast to implements and utensils, are inanimate but organised instruments for labour, requiring subordinate human activity only (attendance) so that they may impart force and motion in a manner corresponding with the designs of the inventor. Machinery is originally of simple form, dependent on water or wind for motive power--rude mills, and contrivances for the guiding of water in canals or conduits belong to its primitive varieties.
[Sidenote: The Use of Natural Forces]
But man’s power of invention increases, and in the higher stage of industrial evolution the facilities for labour are enormous. We have but to think of steam and of electricity with all their tremendous developments of power. Finally the discovery of the unity of force leads men to look upon Nature as a storehouse of energy and to devise means by which natural forces may be guided, one form of energy converted into another and transferred from place to place; and thus man becomes almost all-powerful. He is not able to create, it is true, but he may at least mould and shape to his desire that which Nature has already formed. Thus the discovery how to direct the forces of Nature enables us again, according to the principle already cited, to escape the disabilities of human differentiation with its attendant incongruities.
[Sidenote: Boundless Growth of Commerce]
As already stated, division of labour leads to exchange; exchange leads to commerce. Commerce is exchange on a large scale, organised into a system with special regard to the production of a store, or supply. The latter requires a certain knowledge of trade; the centres of demand must be sought out, and the goods transported to these centres. In this way a fruitful reciprocal action develops; and as production influences trade, so may trade influence production, governing it according to the fluctuations of demand, and leading to the creation of stores of commodities for which a future market is to be expected. Thus commerce presupposes special knowledge and special skill; it develops a special technique through which it is enabled to execute its complicated tasks. Men who live by trade become distinct from craftsmen; and the mercantile class results. Merchants are men whose task is to effect an organised exchange of natural and manufactured products. Commerce always displays an impulse to extend itself beyond the borders of single nations--not to remain inland only, but to become a foreign trade also; for the products of foreign countries and climates, however valuable they may be, would be inaccessible except for commerce. Thus trade becomes both import and export. The first step is for the tradesman or his representative to travel about peddling goods, or for an owner of wares or money to offer capital to an itinerant merchant with the object that the latter may divide the profits with him later on. This leads to the sending of merchandise to a middleman, who places it on the market in a distant region--commission business. The establishment of a branch or agency in a foreign country, in order to trade there while in immediate connection with the main business house, follows; and, finally, merchants deal directly with foreign houses without the intervention of middlemen, thus entering into direct export trade. This, of course, presupposes a great familiarity with foreign affairs and confidence in their soundness; consequently it is possible only in a highly developed state of civilisation.
[Sidenote: Birth of New Trades and Institutions]
Foreign trade is carried on overland by means of caravans, and, in later times, by railways; over sea, through a merchant marine--sailing vessels and steamships. The magnitude of commerce, its peculiar methods, and its manifold, varying phases combine to produce new and surprising phenomena: traffic by sea leads to insurance and to different forms of commercial associations; intercourse by caravan gives rise to the construction of halting-stations, establishments for refreshment and repair, that finally develop into taverns and inns. And that which first arose from necessity is subsequently turned to use for other purposes: insurance is one of the most fruitful ideas of the present day; hotels are an absolute necessity.
Commerce is able to bring further contrivances and institutions into being, here, again, overcoming individual incongruity by means of combination. Trade cannot always be carried on directly between the places of production and of consumption; one district requires more, another less; it would be difficult to supply all from one centre of distribution. Thus an intermediate carrying trade is developed, rendering the surmounting of obstacles less difficult and increasing the stability of the market. The demands of the middleman are compensated for by these advantages.
[Sidenote: Commerce Brings the World Together]
Thus the world’s commerce develops, and that which is accomplished by market traffic in lesser districts is brought about by the concentrative influence of bourses, or exchanges, in the broadest spheres. Here, as in the smaller markets, the tendency is for all prices to seek a level, to become as independent as possible of individual conditions; and so commerce between nations, and the possibility of ordering goods from the most distant lands, bring with them an adjustment: world prices are formed; and to establish these, is the business of the exchanges. The exchange is a meeting together of merchants for the transaction of business by purchase or sale. It has acquired still more the character of a world institution since men have been able to interchange advices by means of telegraph and telephone; it is possible for the bourses of different countries to transact business with one another from moment to moment, so that the ruling prices of the world can be immediately known. It has already been stated that commerce leads to a taking up of residence in foreign countries; it also leads to colonisation, and it is chiefly due to commerce that civilisation is introduced into foreign lands.
[Sidenote: Supply of Human Labour]
In earlier centuries the labour question was settled by means of the legal subjection of certain classes of men, until complete injustice was reached in slavery. The system was rendered still more efficient by making slave-ownership hereditary. Slavery, originated in wars and man-hunting, in times when there were but few domesticated animals and no machines, when utensils, were very imperfect and a more or less developed mode of life could only be conducted by means of the manual labour of individuals. Therefore, in order to obtain labourers, men resorted to force, introducing a slave population of which the individuals were either divided among households or kept in special slave habitations. The industry of the slave was often increased by the promise of definite privileges or private possessions. He was often granted a home and family life, and thus he became a bondman--burdened and taxed and bound to the soil, it is true, but otherwise looked upon as a man possessed of ordinary rights and privileges. Even during the days of slavery there were instances of emancipation, and the possibility was opened up of rising to the social position of a slave-owner.
The evolution of a free working class, with recompense for labour, is one of the most important chapters in the history of modern civilisation. The chief sphere of development is that of the crafts and trades. The power of guilds often induces legislation in their favour; thus they become monopolies, and only such individuals as are members of an association may adopt its particular trade or craft as a profession. Sometimes the unity of a guild is broken, and the individual right to form judgments enters in place of the rules laid down by the corporation. From this results competition, which finally leads up to free competition. Through free competition, the encumbering rigidity of the guilds is avoided; it leads to a high development of the individual, and is therefore a great source of progress; it discloses the secrets of the craft, freeing men from deeply-rooted prejudices in regard to different vocations; and it increases man’s inventive capacity, producing new methods for carrying on trades and new combinations and connections.
THE HIGHER PROGRESS OF MANKIND
Spiritual culture may develop in the directions of knowing and of feeling. These two forms of the manifestation of consciousness are originally not to be separated from each other; but as time goes on, a preponderance of one or the other becomes noticeable. Language is the first result of spiritual culture: the communication of thoughts by means of words (sound pictures of ideas). Language arises from the necessities of life, from the need for communication among the members of a social aggregate.
A much later acquisition, the art of writing, or the fixation of language in a definite, permanent form, stands in close connection with speech. Writing develops according to two systems: the one based on the symbolising or picturing of ideas--picture-writing, hieroglyphics; and the other on the breaking up of the speech-sounds of a language into a notation of syllables or letters--syllabic or letter writing. According to the first method thoughts are directly pictured; according to the second, sounds, not ideas, are represented by symbols--that is, the sounds which stand for the ideas are transformed into signs. The transition from sign to syllabic writing comes about in this manner: if, during its development, a language uses the same sound to express various conceptions, men represent this sound by one sign; and whenever a foreign word is reproduced in writing it is first separated into syllables, and the syllables are then pictured by the same signs as are employed to represent similar sounds--but different ideas--in the native speech. Thus symbols are employed more and more phonetically, and less and less meaning comes to be attached to them. This process must continue its development if the pronunciation changes as time goes on; the old writing, with its national symbol-method, may be retained; but with the changing of speech-sounds the new writing is altered; syllables are now represented by signs, and combinations of syllables are reproduced by means of a combination of their corresponding symbols. Thus phonetic writing was not an invention, but a gradual development. Together with the phonetic symbols, ideograms or hieroglyphs also exist, as in Babylonian. It is especially interesting, and indicative of the unity of the human mind, that the transition to syllabic writing has been arrived at independently by different races; the Aztecs, for example, exhibit a wholly independent development.
[Sidenote: The Spreading of Ideas]
Communication by writing may be either single or private, or general and public; in the latter case plurality is attained through such methods as the affixing of bills and placards, or by means of transcripts or reproductions of the original copy. At first the latter are made in accordance with the ordinary methods of writing; and in slave-holding communities--Rome, for example--slaves who wrote to dictation were employed as scribes. The discovery of a method by which to obtain a plurality of copies through a single mechanical process was epoch-making. The printing-press has performed a far greater service to humanity than have most inventions; for, with the possibility of producing thousands of copies of a communication, the thoughts embodied in it become forces; they may enter the minds of many individuals who are either convinced or actually guided by them. Ideas become active through their suggestion on the masses of the population. This may lead to a one-sided rule of public opinion; but a healthy race will travel intellectually in many directions, and various beliefs supplement one another, struggle together, conquer, and are conquered. In this manner thoughts awaken popular movements, rousing a people to a hitherto unknown degree, and forcing men to think and to join issues. Thus the Press becomes a factor in civilisation of the very first importance. The necessity for periodic communication, together with curiosity that refuses to wait long for information, leads to the establishment of regularly recurrent publications; and thus, in addition to the book-press, the newspaper-press, that has learned how to hold great centres of population under its control, appears. Naturally this method of aiding the progress of civilisation has its disadvantages, as have all other methods; the conception of the world becomes superficial; individuality loses in character; not only a certain levelling of education, but also a levelling of views of life and of modes of thought, results. But, on the whole, knowledge is spread abroad as it never was before.
Man, as a thinking being, craves for a conception of life; and in his inmost thoughts he seeks for an explanation of the double relationship of Man to Nature and of Nature to Man, striving to bring all into harmony. This he finds in religion.
[Sidenote: Man’s Craving for Religion]
[Sidenote: Beginnings of Nature Worship]
[Sidenote: The Realm of Shadows]
Religion is belief in God; that is, belief in spiritual forces inseparable from and interwoven through the universe--forces that render all things distinct and separate, yet make all coalescent and firm, permeating all, and giving to every object its individuality. Man is impelled by Nature to conceive of the universe as divine. This idea exhibits itself universally among primitive folk in the form of animism--a belief that the entire internal and external world is animated, filled with supernatural beings that have originally no determinate nature, but which may appear in the most varied of forms, may vanish and may create themselves anew, as clouds arise from unseen vapour in the air. Spirits are supposed to be not far removed from man; families as well as individuals consider themselves to stand more or less in connection with them; and men, too, have a share in the invisible world when they have cast aside the garment of the body in dream or in death. Thus, every man is thought to have his protecting spirit, his manitou, that reveals itself to him through signs and dreams. Special incarnations, objects in which supernatural beings are inherent or with which they are in some way connected, are called “fetiches”; hence arises fetichism, in regard to which the strangest ideas were held in previous centuries when the science of anthropology was unknown. Trees, rocks, rivers, bits of wood, images of one’s own making--any of these are thought capable of containing beings of divine nature. Naturally, the tree or the fragment of wood or of stone is not worshipped, as men formerly thought, but the spirit that is believed to have entered it. In many cases the belief approaches worship of Nature, especially among agricultural peoples. Divinity is recognised in the shape of factors essential to agriculture--sun, sky, lightning, thunder; these being the beneficent deities, in contrast to whom are the earth-spirits who bring pestilences, earthquakes, and other evils to mankind. Thus the cult is refined; spirits are no longer attached to fetiches, but men worship the heavens, and the earth also. Religion accompanies man from birth to death. Spirits both for good and for evil are supposed to hover about him at his very birth. The soul of some being--perhaps an animal, perhaps an ancestor--enters into the new-born child, and from this spirit he receives his name.
Oftentimes there is a new consecration at the time of marriage; often when an heir-apparent succeeds to the chieftainship. At his decease primitive folk believe that man enters the realm of shadows. At first he hovers over the sea or river of death, and often only after having passed through many hardships does he arrive in the new kingdom, where he either continues to live after the manner of his former existence, or, according to whether his life on earth has been good or evil, inhabits a higher or a lower supernatural sphere. To the dead are consecrated their personal possessions--horses, slaves, wives even--that they may make use of them during the new existence; men go head-hunting in order to send them new helpmates. On the other hand great care is often taken that the spirits of the departed, satisfied with their new existence, may no longer molest the world of the living: propitiative offerings are made; men avoid mentioning the name of the departed, that he may not be tempted to visit them with his presence; they seek to make themselves unrecognisable during the time immediately following his death, wear different clothes, and adopt other dwelling-places. Sometimes the light placed near the deceased for the purpose of guiding him back to his old home is moved further and further away, so that his ghost, unable to find the right path, shall never return.
Thus the belief in spirits encompasses primitive man, following him step by step.
[Sidenote: The Belief in Many Gods]
[Sidenote: Happiness found in Religion]
From animism develops worship of heroes and polytheism, with their attendant mythological narrations. The idea of the unity of the supernatural world becomes lost; and the indefinite forms of spirit become separate, independent beings, that are developed more and more in the direction of the souls either of animals or of men. This splitting up of the deity, which destroys the tendency toward unity in religion, is followed by a reaction that comes about partly through a belief in creation by a father of the gods, partly through acceptance of a historical origin of the mythological world from a single source (theogonic myths), and partly through direct banishment of the plurality of gods and a new formation of the belief in a unity according either to theistic or to pantheistic ideas. In spite of the conception of a world permeated and pervaded by God alone, the belief that certain persons and places are more powerful in respect to the divinity than others is retained; and the appearance from time to time of a Buddha who incarnates and manifests the Supreme Being directly and completely within himself--in a special manner apart from other natural phenomena--is also not looked upon as inconsistent.
Religion is a thing of the emotions, not merely in the sense of having its origin in fear, or in the remembrance of lasting sensations derived from visions or dreams, but emotional in so far that it satisfies the necessity felt by men for a consistent life-conception--not an intellectual but an emotional conception. It is not the matter-of-fact desire for knowledge that finds its expression in religion, but the joy of the heart in a supreme power, the call for help of the needy, and the consciousness of our own insignificance and our mortality. Judgment is not yet abstracted from the other psychic functions; indeed, it really retires behind the emotions.
[Sidenote: The Basis of Worship]
[Sidenote: The Growth of the Priesthood]
When men thus believe in divinity, if the belief have an active influence on the emotions, it follows that the individual must establish some connection between himself and the object of his worship. This is brought about through certain actions, or through the creation of circumstances in which special conditions of consecration are perceived, and therewith the possibility of a close relationship with the Supreme Being. The acts through which this relationship may be brought about, taken collectively, are embraced in the word “worship,” and if performed according to a strict system they are called “rites.” Sacrifice has an important place among the ceremonies observed in accordance with ritual. It is based on a conception of the wants and necessities of the higher beings, and, in later times, is refined into a representation of man’s ethical feelings--unselfishness and gratitude, which give pleasure to the Deity and thus contribute to its happiness. But sacrifice does not retain its unselfish character for any great length of time. Man thinks of himself first: he makes offerings to the good spirits, but more particularly to the evil gods, in order to pacify their fury and appease their evil desires. Sacrifices are also offered to the dead, and from such offerings and memorials is developed the idea of a “family” or “clan,” which outlives the individual.
Thus, emotion is the principal active agent; but intellectual power also must gradually lay its hold on the system of belief. The principles discovered are formulated into a science and the cultivation of this science becomes the special duty of the priesthood, often as a secret art--esoteric system--in which concealment is conducive to the maintenance of the exclusiveness and peculiar power of the priest class. The science becomes partly mythologic-historical, partly dogmatic, and partly ritualistic.
[Sidenote: Out of Religion Came Art]
The artistic instinct develops partly in connection with worship, partly in the direction of its practical application to life; and although no very sharp line of distinction is drawn between the two tendencies, the germ at least of the difference between the fine and the industrial arts is thus in existence from the very earliest times. Worship gives rise to images and pictures, at first of the very roughest form. They are not mere symbols; they are the garments or habitations with which the spirit invests itself. The spirit may take up its abode anywhere according to the different beliefs of man--in a plant, an animal, a stone, above all, in a picture or effigy that symbolically reflects its peculiarities. Therefore, the ghosts of ancestors are embodied in ancestral images. Just as skulls were reverenced in earlier times, in later days the images of the dead (korwar) are worshipped. Such images are the oldest examples of the art of portraiture; and the oldest dolls are the rude puppets which according to the rites of many races--the American Indians, for example--widows must wear about them as tokens, or as the husks or wrappers of their husbands’ doubles.
Religion itself becomes poetry. The belief in the identity of spirits of the departed with animals, and the myths of metamorphosis, take the form of fables and fairy tales; the cosmogonic and theogonic conceptions develop into mythologies; hero sagas become epics; the myths of life in Nature become a glorification of the external world, an expression of unity with Nature, and thus a form of lyric poetry.
[Sidenote: Artistic Expression of Life]
Everyday life, too, demands artistic expression. At first the childish passion for the changing pictures that correspond with different ideas of the imagination joins with the desire to impress others, and finery in dress and ornamentation result. This has developed in every clime. Tattooing arises not only from a religious motive, but also from the desire for ornament. The painting of men’s bodies, the often grotesque ideas, such as artificial deformation of the head, knocking out and blackening of teeth, ear ornaments and mutilation of ears, pegs thrust through the lips, and various methods of dressing the hair, may be in part connected with religious conceptions, for here the most varied of motives co-operate to the same end. Yet, on the other hand, there is no doubt that they are also the outcome of a craving for variation in form and in colour. In the same way the dance is not only an act of worship; it is also a means of giving vent to latent animal spirits: thus, dances are often expressions of the tempestuous sensual instincts of a people.
[Sidenote: The Birth of the Drama]
The dance exhibits a special tendency to represent the ordinary affairs of life in a symbolic manner; thus there are war and hunting dances, and especially animal dances in which each of the participants believes himself to be permeated by the spirit of some animal which throughout the dance he endeavours to mimic. In this way dramatic representation, which is certainly based on the idea of personification, on the notion that a man for the time being may be possessed by the spirit of some other creature that speaks and acts through him, originates. Thus arose the primitive form of masques, in which men dressed themselves up to resemble various creatures, real or imaginary, as in the case of the animal masques of old time; for according to the popular idea the spirit dwells in the external, visible form, and through the imitation or adoption of its outward appearance we become identified with the spirit whose character we assume. Among many races not only masks proper were worn, but also the hides and hair or feathers of the creatures personated. Dramatic representation was furthered by the dream plays--especially popular among the American Indians--in which the events of dreams are adapted for acting and performed. Even as men seek illumination in dreams as to questions both divine and mundane, so do they anticipate through dreams the dramatic representations which shall be performed on holidays as expressions of life.
[Sidenote: Art & Play in the Life of Man]
Play is a degeneration of the dance, and it arises less from the instinct for beauty than from a desire to realise whatever entertainment and excitement may be got from any incident or occurrence. From another special inclination originate those satirical songs of Northern peoples, written in alternating verses, in which the national tribunal and the voice of the people are given expression at the same time. Thus they have a truly educative character. These are the preliminary steps to the free satire and humour that gleam through the lives of civilised peoples, now like the flicker of a candle, now like a purifying lightning flash, freeing men from life’s monotony, and illuminating the night of unsolved questions. Capacity for organised play is a characteristic that lifts man above the lower animals. The expression of individuality without any particular object in view, the elevation of self above the troubles of life, and free activity, uncoerced by the necessities of existence, are characteristic both of play and of art. Thus play, as well as art, exhibits to a pre-eminent degree man’s consciousness of having escaped, if only temporarily, from the coercion of environing nature; being without definite object, it proves that he can find employment when released from the pressure of the outer world--that is, when he is momentarily freed from his endeavour to establish a balance between himself and the necessities of life, with a view to overcoming the latter. Man stands in close connection with his environment and with the immutable laws of nature; but in play and in art he develops his own personality--a development that neither in direction nor in object is influenced by the outer world and its constraint.
[Sidenote: Fall of Man and Rise of the Race]
The step that leads to the overcoming of custom is the recognition of right. “Right” is that which society strictly demands from every individual member. Not all that is customary is exacted by right; a multitude of the requirements of custom may be ignored without opposition from the community as a whole, although, of course, detached individuals may express their displeasure. The aggregate, however, grants immunity to all who do not choose to follow the custom. In other words, the separation of custom from right signifies the development of a sharper line of demarcation between that which is and that which ought to be. In primitive times “is” and “ought to be” are fairly consonant terms; but gradually a spirit of opposition is developed; cases arise in which custom is opposed, in which the actions of men run counter to a previous habit. Man is conscious of the possibility of raising himself above the unreasoning tendencies toward certain modes of conduct, and he takes pleasure in so doing--the good man as well as the evil. Whoever oversteps the bounds of custom, even through sheer egotism, is also a furtherer of human development; without sin the world would never have evolved a civilisation; the Fall of Man was nothing more than the first step toward the historical development of the human race.
This leads to the necessity for extracting from custom such rules as must prove advantageous to mankind, and this collection of axioms--which “ought to be”--becomes law.
[Sidenote: Custom, Right, and Morality]
The distinction between right and custom was an important step. The relativity of custom was exposed with one stroke. Many, and by no means the worst members of communities, emancipate themselves from custom. It is the opening in the wall through which the progress of humanity may pass. Nor do the demands of right remain unalterable and unyielding. A change in custom brings with it a change in right; certain rules of conduct gradually become isolated owing to the recession of custom, and to such an extent that they lose their vitality and decay. And as new customs arise, so are new principles of right discovered. In this manner an alteration in the one is a cause of change in the other--naturally, in conformity with the degree of culture and contemporary social relations. Custom and right mutually further each other, and render it possible for men to adapt themselves to newly acquired conditions of civilisation.
Together with right and custom a third factor appears--morality. This is a comparatively late acquisition. It, too, contains something of the “ought to be,” not because of the social, but by virtue of the divine authority or order based on philosophical conceptions. Morals vary, therefore, as laws vary, according to peoples and to times. The rules of morality form a second code, set above the social law, and they embody a larger aggregate of duties. The reason for this is that men recognise that the social system of rules for conduct is not the only one, that it is only relative and cannot include all the duties of human beings, and that over and beyond the laws of society ethical principles exist.
Naturally conflicts arise between right and morals, and such struggles lead to further development and progress.
The late appearance of ideas of morality proves that ethical considerations were originally foreign to the god-conceptions. The spirits, fetiches, and world-creators of different beliefs are at first neutral so far as morals are concerned; myths and legends are invented partly from creation theories, partly from historic data, and partly through efforts of the imagination. In primitive beliefs there is no trace of an attempt to conceive of deities as being good in the highest--or even in a lower--sense; and it would not be in accordance with scientific ethnology to appraise, or to wish to pass judgment on, religions according to the point of view of ethics. Not until the importance of morality in life is realised, and the profound value of a life of moral purity recognised, do men seek in their religious beliefs for higher beings of ethical significance, for morally perfect personalities among the gods.
Different elements of civilisation vary greatly in their development in different civilised districts; one race may have a greater tendency toward intellectual, another toward material culture. No race has approached the Hindoos in philosophic speculation, yet they are as children in their knowledge of natural science. One people may develop commerce to the highest extent, another poetry and music, a third the freedom of the individual. The language of the American Indians is in many respects richer and more elegant than English. Therefore nothing is farther from the truth than to say that, in case one institution of civilised life is found to exist in a hunting people, another in an agricultural race, or the one in an otherwise higher, and the other in an otherwise lower nation or tribe, the institution in question must have reached a state of perfection corresponding with the general development of the people possessing it. According to this, the monogamic uncivilised races were further advanced than the polygamous Aryans of India and the Mohammedans; and the Polynesians, with their skill in the industrial arts and their dramatic dances, perhaps in a higher state of civilisation than Europeans!
Development fulfils itself in communities of men. Except in a human aggregate it cannot come to pass; for the germs of development which are brought forth by the potentiated activity of the many may exist only in a society of individuals.
It has therefore been a significant fact that from the very beginning men have joined together in social aggregates, partly on account of an instinctive impulse, partly because of the necessity for self-defence. Thus it came about that primitive men lived together in wandering, predatory hordes, or packs. The individuals were bound to one another very closely; there was no private life; and the sex-relationships were promiscuous. Men not only dwelt together in groups, but the groups themselves assimilated with one another, inasmuch as marriages were reciprocally entered into by them. So far as we are able to determine, one of the earliest of social institutions was that of group-marriage. Individuals did not first unite in pairs, and then join together in groups--such would soon have fallen asunder; on the contrary, group-marriage itself created the bond that held the community together; the most violent instinct of mankind not only united the few but the many, indeed, complete social aggregates.
Group-marriage is the form of union established by the association of two hordes, or packs, according to which the men of one group marry the women of the other; not a marriage of individual men with individual women, but a promiscuous relationship, each man of one group marrying all the women of the other group--at least in theory--and vice versâ; not a marriage of individuals, but of aggregates. Certainly with such a sex-relationship established, sooner or later regulations develop from within the community, through which the marital relationships of individuals are adjusted in a consistent manner; but the principle first followed was, as community in property, so community in marriage; and this must of itself lead to kinships entirely different from those with which we are familiar.
Group-marriage was closely bound up with religious conceptions; single hordes, or packs, considered themselves the embodiment of a single spirit. And since at that time spirits were only conceived of as things that existed in nature, the horde felt itself to be a single class of natural object--some animal or plant, for example; and the union of one pack with another was analogous to the union of one animal with another. Each group believed itself to be permeated by the spirit of a certain species of animal, borrowed its name thence and the animal species itself was looked upon as the protecting spirit. The ancestral spirit was worshipped in the animal, and the putting to death or injuring of an individual of the species was a serious offence.
Such a belief is called Totemism. “Totem”--a word borrowed from the language of the Massachusetts Indians--is the natural object or animal assumed as the emblem of the horde or tribe, and correspondingly the group symbolised by the class of animal or natural object is called a Totem-group.
This belief led to a close union of all who were partakers of the spirit of the same animal; it also strictly determined which groups could associate with one another. And as the totem-group mimicked the animal in its dances, and fancied itself to be possessed by its spirit, it also ordered the methods of partaking of food, and all marriage, birth, and death ceremonies in accordance with this conception. It is said that, the totem being exogamous, marriages were not possible within the totem, but only without it. Precisely so; for the original conception was not that individuals formed unions, but that the whole totem entered the marriage relationship; a single marriage would have been considered an impossibility.
To which totem the children belonged--to the mother’s, to the father’s, or to a third totem--was a question that offered considerable difficulty. All three possibilities presented themselves; the last mentioned, however, only in case the child belonged to another group, a sub-totem, and in that event its descendants could return to the original totem.
[Sidenote: The First Ideas of Kinship]
Descent in the male or in the female line occasioned in later times the rise of important distinctions between nations. If a child follow the mother’s totem, we speak of “maternal kinship”; conversely, of “paternal kinship” in case of heredity through the father. Which of these is the more primitive, or did tribes from the very first adopt either one or the other system, thus making them of equal antiquity, is a much-vexed question. There is reason to believe that maternal kinship is the more primitive form, and that races have either passed with more or less energy and rapidity to the system of descent through males, or have kept to the original institution of maternal succession. There are many peoples among whom both forms of kinship exist, and in such instances the maternal is undoubtedly the more primitive; from this it appears very probable that development has thus taken place, the more so since there are traces of maternal kinship to be found in races whose established form is paternal.
[Sidenote: Growth of Marriage]
As time passed, marriage of individuals developed from group-marriage or totemism. Such unions may be polygamous--one man having several wives--or polyandrous--one woman having several husbands. Both forms have been represented in mankind, and, indeed, polygamy is the general rule among all races, excepting Occidental civilised peoples. The form of marriage toward which civilisation is advancing is certainly monogamy; through it a complete individual relationship is established between man and wife; and although both individualities may have independent expression, each is reconciled to the other through the loftier association of both. Nearly associated with monogamy is the belief in union after death; it arises from the religious beliefs prevalent among many peoples. Among other races there is at least the custom of a year of mourning, sometimes for husband, sometimes for wife, often for both.
Marriage of individuals has developed in different ways from group or totem marriage: sometimes it was brought about through lack of subsistence occasioned by many men dwelling together; sometimes it arose from other causes. One factor was the practice of wife-capture: whoever carried off a wife freed her, as it were, from the authority of the community, and established a separate marriage for himself. Marriage by purchase was an outcome of marriage by capture and of the paying of an indemnity to the relatives of the bride; men also learned to agree beforehand as to the equivalent to be paid. The practice of acquiring wives by purchase developed in various directions, especially in that of trading wives and in the earning of wives by years of service. Gradually the purchase became merely a feigned transaction; and a union of individuals has evolved--now sacerdotal, now civil in form--from which every trace of traffic and of exchange has disappeared.
[Sidenote: Religion Ennobles Marriage]
Thus already in early times marriage had become ennobled through religion. It is a widespread idea that through partaking of food in common, blood-brotherhood, or similar procedures, a mystic communion of soul may be established; and in case of marriages brought about by the mediation of a priesthood the priest invokes the divine consecration. Marriage is thereby raised above the bulk of profane actions of life; it receives a certain guarantee of permanency; indeed, in many cases, by reason of the mystic communion of souls, it is looked upon as absolutely indissoluble.
The ownership of property also was originally communistic, and the idea of individual possession has been a gradual development. The idea of the ownership of land, especially when developed by agricultural peoples, is of a communistic nature; and, from common possession, family and individual ownership gradually comes into being. It is brought about in various ways, chiefly through the division of land among separate families: at first only temporary, held only until the time for a succeeding division arrives; later, owned in perpetuity. Nor was it a rare method of procedure to grant land to any one who desired to cultivate it--an estate that should be his so long as he remained upon it and cultivated the soil, but which reverted to the community, on his leaving it. There gradually developed a constant relationship between land and cultivator as agriculture became more extended and lasting improvements were effected on the soil. Land became the permanent property of the individual; it also became an article of commerce.
Ownership of movable property even was at first of communistic character. Clothing and weapons, enchantments effectual for the individual alone, such as medicine-bags or amulets, were, to be sure, assigned to individuals in very early times; but all property obtained by labour, the products of the chase or of fishing, originally belonged to the community, until in later days each family was allowed to claim the fruits of its own toil, and was only pledged to share with the others under certain conditions. Finally, individuals were permitted to retain or to barter property which they had produced by labour; and exchange, especially exchange between individuals, attained special significance through the division of labour.
The individualisation of the ownership of movable property was especially furthered by members of families performing other labour, outside the family, in addition to their work within the family circle. Although the fruit of all labour accomplished within the family was shared by the members in common, the results of work done outside became the property of the particular individual who had performed the labour. Consequent expansion of the conception of labour led men to one of the greatest triumphs of justice, to the idea of establishing individual rights in ideas and in combinations of ideas, to the recognition of intellectual or immaterial property--right of author or inventor--one of the chief incentives to modern civilisation.
On the other hand, individual rights in transactions led to conceptions concerning obligations and debts. Exchange, either direct or on terms of credit, brought with it duties and liabilities for which originally the persons and lives of the individuals concerned were held in pledge, until custody of the body--which also included possession of the corpse of a debtor--was succeeded by public imprisonment for debt, and finally by the mere pledging of property, imprisonment for debt having been abolished--a course of development through which the most varied of races have passed.
[Sidenote: Rights of Property]
The relation of the individual to his possessions led men at first to place movable property in graves, in order that it might be of service to the departed owner during the life beyond; hence the universal custom of burning on funeral pyres, not only weapons and utensils, but animals, slaves, and even wives. In later times men were satisfied with symbolic immolations, or possessions were released from the ban of death and put into further use. The property of the deceased reverted to his family, and thus the right of inheritance arose. There was no right of inheritance during the days of communism; on the death of a member of the family a mere general consolidation of property resulted; with individual property arose the reversion of possessions to the family from which they had been temporarily separated. Thus property either reverted to the family taken as a whole, or to single heirs, certain members of the family; hence a great variety of procedure arose. Up to the present day inheritance by all the children, or inheritance by one alone, exists in Eastern Asia as in Western nations.
In like manner criminal responsibility was originally collective; the family or clan was held responsible for the actions of all its individual members except those who were renounced and made outcasts. Such methods of collective surety still exist among many exceedingly developed peoples; but the system is gradually dying away, the tendency being for the entire responsibility to rest upon the individual alone.
[Sidenote: Beginning of the Community]
The state is a development of tribal, or patriarchal, society. The tribal group is a community of intermarried families, all claiming descent from a common ancestor. From tribal organisation the principle is developed that participation in the community is open only to such individuals as belong to one or other of the families of which it is composed; and the political body thus made up of individuals related either by blood or through marriage is called a patriarchal, or tribal, state. This form of community was enlarged even in very early times, advantage being taken of the possibility of adopting strangers into the circle of related families, and of amalgamating with them. Still, the fundamental idea that the community is composed of related families always remains uppermost in the minds of uncivilised peoples. The tribal state gradually develops into the territorial state. The connection of the community with a definite region becomes closer; strange tribes settle in the same district; they are permitted to remain provided tribute is paid and services are performed, and are gradually absorbed into the community, the strangers and the original inhabitants--plebeians and patricians--united together into one aggregate. Thus arises the conception of a state which any man may join without his being a member of any one of the original clans or families.
[Sidenote: Growth of the Idea of a State]
In this way the idea of a state becomes distinct from that of a people bound together by kinship, the latter being especially distinguished by a certain unity of external appearance, custom, character, and manner of thought. This is not intended to suggest that an amalgamation of different race elements in a state and an assimilation of different modes of thought and of feeling are not desirable, or that a spirit analogous to the sense of unity in members of the same family is not to be sought for; such a condition is most likely to be attained if a certain tribe or clan take precedence of the others, as the most progressive, to which the various elements of the people annex themselves.
[Sidenote: Tribes and their Chiefs]
The tribal state has a fixed form of government. The chiefs or patriarchs of the various families stand at the head of affairs, the position of chief being either hereditary or elective. In most cases, however, it is determined by a combination of both methods, a blood descendant being chosen provided he is able to give proof of his competence. In addition there is often the popular assembly. In later times many innovations are introduced. Passion for power united to a strong personality often leads to a chieftainship in which all rights and privileges are absorbed or united in the person of one individual; so that he appears as the possessor of all prerogatives and titles, those of other men being entirely secondary, and all being more or less dependent upon his will. Religious conceptions, especially, have had great influence in this connection. Nowhere is this so clearly shown as in “teknonymy,” an institution formerly prevalent in the South Pacific islands, according to which the soul of the father is supposed to enter the body of his eldest son at the birth of the latter, and that therefore, immediately from his birth, the son becomes master, the father continuing the management of affairs merely as his proxy. Other peoples have avoided such consequences as these by supposing the child to be possessed by the soul of his grandfather, therefore naming first-born males after their grandfathers instead of after their fathers. Another outcome of the institution of chieftainship is the chaotic order of affairs which rules among many peoples on the death of the chieftain, continuing until a successor is seated on the throne--a lawless interval of anarchy followed by a regency.
The power of a chieftain is, however, usually limited by class rights; that is, by the rights of sub-chieftains of especially distinguished families, and of the popular assembly, among which elements the division of power and of jurisdiction is exceedingly varied. These primitive institutions are rude prototypes of future varieties of coercive government, of kingship, either of aristocratic or of republican form, in which the primitive idea of chieftainship as the absorption of all private privileges is given up, and in its place the various principles of rights and duties of government enter.
[Sidenote: Growth of Military Classes]
Class-differentiation with attendant privileges and prerogatives is especially developed in warlike races, and in nations which must be ever prepared to resist the attacks of enemies, by the establishment of a militant class. The militant class occupies an intermediate position between the governing, priest, and scholar classes on the one hand, and the industrial class--agriculturists, craftsmen, merchants--on the other. Employment in warfare, necessary discipline, near association with the chieftain, and the holding of fiefs for material support give to this class a unique position. Thus the warrior castes developed in India, the feudal and military nobility in Japan, the nobility in Germany, with obligations and service to feudal superiors and to the Court. This system survives for many years, until at last feudal tenure gradually disappears, and its attendant prerogatives are swallowed up by all classes through a universal subjection to military service; although even yet a distinct class of professional soldiers remains at the head of military affairs and operations, and will continue to do so as long as there is a possibility of internal or external warfare. However, here too the militant class is absorbed into a general body of officials. Officials are citizens who not only occupy the usual position of members of the state, but to whom in addition is appointed the execution of the life functions of the nation, as its organs; in other words, such functions as are peculiar to the civic organisation in contradistinction to the general functions exercised and actions performed by individual citizens as independent units. Officialism includes to a special degree duty to its calling and to the public trust, and there are also special privileges granted to officials within the sphere appointed for them.
[Sidenote: The Birth of Parliaments]
In a society governed by a chieftain, as well as in a monarchy, there is a popular assembly or consultative body; either an unorganised meeting of individuals, or an organised convention of estates founded on class right. A modern development, that certainly had its prototype in the patriarchal state, is the representative assembly, an assembly of individuals chosen to represent the people in place of the popular gathering. The English Government, with its representative legislative bodies, is a typical example in modern civilisation.
One of the chief problems encountered not only in a society ruled by a chieftain, but also in states of later development, whether governed by a potentate or by an aristocracy, is the relation of temporal to spiritual power. Sometimes both are united in the head of the state, as in the cases of the Incas of Peru and of the Caliphate. Sometimes the spiritual head is distinct and separate from the temporal; frequently the two forces are nearly associated, a member of the imperial family being chosen for the office of high-priest, as among the Aztecs. Often, however, the two functions are completely independent of each other, as among many African races, the medicine-man occupying a position entirely independent of the chieftain. Such separation may, of course, lead to friction and civil war; it may also become an element furthering to civilisation, a source of new ideas, opening the way to alliances between nations, and setting bounds to the tyranny of individuals, as exemplified in the relation of the Papacy to the Holy Roman Empire.
[Sidenote: State Justice a Momentous Step Forward]
The form of state in which the functions of government are exercised by a chieftain contributes greatly to state control and enforcement of justice. The realisation of right had been from the first a social function; but its enforcement was incumbent on the unit group of individuals (families or tribes bound together by friendship). The acquisition by the state of the power to dispense justice and to make and enforce law is one of the greatest events of the world’s history. The idea of all right being incorporated in the chieftain (and social classes) played an important part in bringing about this condition of affairs; for as soon as this conception receives general acceptance, the chieftain, and with him the state, become interested in the preservation and enforcement of justice, even in its lower forms in the common rights of the subjects. On the other hand, not only the interests of chieftainship, but also those of agriculture and commerce, are furthered by the preservation of internal peace; and internal peace calls for state control of justice and enforcement of law.
Moreover the religious element worked to the same end. Wickedness was held to be an injury to the deity, whose anger would be visited upon the entire land--a conception that lasted far into the Middle Ages, and according to which the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah was held to be typical of the effect of the curse of God. Already in primitive times religion led to a strange idea of justice--secret societies consecrated by the deity took upon themselves the function of enforcing right, instituting reigns of terror in their districts, maintaining order in society, and claiming authorisation from the god with whose spirit they were permeated. Later, influenced by all these causes, the social aggregate took over the control of justice. It was already considered to be the upholder of right, the servant of the deity, the maintainer of public peace, the dispenser of atoning sacrifices, etc.; and so the various elements conceived of as justice, which had previously been distributed among the single families, tribes, associations, and societies, were combined, and placed under state control.
[Sidenote: Terror & Tyranny of Religion]
[Sidenote: The Ordeal and the Curse]
Certain forms for the dispensation of justice, judging of crimes, and determining of punishments were developed. Thus arose the different forms of judicial procedure, which, for a long time bore a religious character. The deity was called upon to decide as to right and wrong--divinity in the form of natural forces. Hence the judgments of God through trial by water, fire, poison, serpents, scales, or--especially in Germany during the Middle Ages--combat, or decision by the divining eye, that was closely allied to the so-called trial by hazard. A peculiar variety of ordeal is that of the bier, according to which the body of a murdered man is called into requisition, the soul of the victim assisting in the discovery of the murderer. Ordeals are undergone sometimes by one individual, sometimes by two. An advance in progress is the curse, which takes the place of the ordeal, the curse of God being called down upon an individual and his family in case of wrongdoing or of perjury. The curse may be uttered by an individual in co-operation with the members of families. Thus arise ordeals by invocation and by oath with compurgators. Originally a certain period of time was allowed to pass--a month, for example--for the fulfilment of the curse. In later times, whoever took the oath--oath of innocence--was held guiltless. Witnesses succeeded to conjurers; divining looks were replaced by circumstantial evidence; and, instead of a mystic, a rational method of obtaining testimony was adopted. The development was not attained without certain attendant abuses; and the abolition of ordeal by God was among many peoples--notably the inhabitants of Eastern Asia, the American Indians, and the Germans of the Middle Ages--succeeded by the introduction of torture. In many lands torture stood in close connection with the judgment of God; in others it originated either directly or indirectly in slavery. According to the method of obtaining evidence by torture, the accused was forced through physical pain to disclosures concerning himself and his companions, and, in case he himself were considered guilty, to a confession. However barbarous and irrational, this system was employed in Latin and Germanic nations excepting England, until the eighteenth century, in some instances even until the nineteenth.
[Sidenote: The Slow Building up of Law]
[Sidenote: Evolution of the Modern State]
Judgment was first pronounced in the name of God; in later times, in the name of the people or of the ruler who appeared as the representative of God. The principles of justice, the validity of which at first depends upon custom, are in later times proclaimed and fixed as commands of God. Thus systems of fixed right come into being first in the form of sacred justice, then as commands of God, and finally as law. Law is a conception of justice expressed in certain rules and principles. Originally there were no laws; the standard for justice was furnished to each individual by his own feelings; only isolated cases were recorded. As time advanced, and great men who strove to bring about an improvement in justice arose above the generality of mankind; when the ruling class became differentiated from the other classes; when it was found necessary to root out certain popular customs--then, in addition to the original collection of precedents, there arose law of a higher form: law that stood above precedent, that altered custom, and opened up new roads to justice. Great codes of law have not been compilations only; they have led justice into new paths. Originally a law was looked upon as an inviolable command of God, as unalterable and eternal; its interpretation alone was earthly and transitory. As years passed, men learned to recognise that laws themselves were transitory; and it became a principle that later enactments could alter earlier rules. The relations of later statutes to already established law, and how the laws of different nations influence one another, are difficult, much-vexed questions for the solution of which special sciences have developed--transitory and international law. Judgment and law are intimately concerned with justice, the conception of right as evolved from the double action of life and custom. To this development of justice is united an endeavour of the state or government not only to further welfare by means of the creation and administration of law, but also to take under its control civilising institutions of all sorts. This was originally a feature of justice itself; certain practices inimical to civilisation were interdicted and made punishable offences. Already in the Middle Ages systems of police played a great part among governmental institutions, especially in the smaller states. Subsequently the idea was developed that not only protection through the punishment of crime, but also superintendence of and promotion of the public weal, should be administered by law; and thus the modern state developed with its policy of national welfare. With this arose the necessity for a sharper distinction to be drawn between justice and the various actions of an administration; and thus in modern times men have come to the system--based on Montesquieu--of the separation of powers and independence of justice.
Justice varies according to the development of civilisation, and according to the function that it must perform in this development; in like manner every age creates its own material and spiritual culture. Every poet is a poet of his own time.
[Sidenote: Right Way to View History]
The notion of natural right, however unhistorical it was in itself, characterised a period of transition in so far as it enabled men to form a historical conception--a conception of what might be: for, by contrasting actual with ideal justice, we are enabled to escape the bonds of the opinions of a particular time, and to look upon such opinions and views objectively and independently. Yet it is certainly a foolish proceeding to consider an ideal, deduced principally from conceptions and opinions of the present, to be a standard by which to measure the value of historical events of all times, sitting in judgment over the great names of the past with the air of an inspector of morals. The office of the historian as judge of the dead is quite differently constituted. Every age must be judged in accordance with the relation which it bears to the totality of development; and every historical personage is to be looked upon as a bearer of the spirit of his day, as a servant of the ideas of his time. Thus it is quite as wrong to pronounce moral censure on the men of history, as it is wrong to judge an era merely according to its good or evil characteristics. A period must be estimated according to what it has either directly or indirectly accomplished for mankind.
[Sidenote: Conception of a United World]
There are common factors of civilisation shared by nations themselves, through which many contradictions disappear. The religious civilisations of Christianity, Mohammedanism, Judaism, Buddhism and Confucianism have been the determining factors of the intellectual and emotional life, even influencing the course of events, in vast regions. And thus it is also comprehensible that in the judicial life of nations there is an endeavour for a closer approach, and also the existence of equalising tendencies. In spite of countless variations in detail, there is a certain unity of law in the entire Mohammedan world; and although the hope of establishing the unity of Roman canonistic law over the whole of Christendom has not been realised none the less it was a tremendous idea: that of a universal empire founded on the Roman law of the imperators, and placed under the rule of the German emperor, thus ensuring the continuance of the law of the Roman people--an idea that swayed the intellects of the Middle Ages up to the fourteenth, even to the fifteenth century, and according to which the emperor would have been the head of all Europe, the other sovereigns merely his vassals or fief-holders. This idea, once advocated by such a great spirit as that of Dante, has, like many others, passed into oblivion; and in its place has arisen the conception of independent laws of nations. Yet the original idea has had great influence: it has led to a close union of Christian peoples; it opened a way for Roman law to become universal law, although, to be sure, English law, completely independent of that of Rome, has grown to unparalleled proportions as a universal system, entirely by reason of the marvellous success of the English people as colonists. Likewise international commerce will of itself lead to a unification of mercantile, admiralty, copyright, and patent law.
Then the idea of an international league must develop, arising from the idea of the unity of Christian nations. We have advanced a great distance beyond the time when every foreigner was considered an enemy, and when all foreign phenomena were looked upon as strange or with antipathy. Rules for international commerce are developed; state alliances are entered into for the furtherance of common interests and for the preservation of peace. Many tasks which in former times would have been executed by the empire are now undertaken by international associations; and the time for the establishment of international courts of arbitration for the adjustment of differences between states is already approaching.
[Sidenote: Common Interests of Mankind]
It also seems probable that states will unite to form political organisations, wholly or partially renouncing their separate positions. Thus nations will be replaced by a federal state, and a multitude of unifying ideas which would otherwise be accomplished with difficulty will come to easy realisation. Federal states were already in existence during the times of patriarchal communities: an especially striking example is that of the admirably constituted federation of the Iroquois nations.
[Sidenote: Universal Transmission of Culture]
The vision of no man may pierce through to the ultimate end of the processes of history, and to advance hypotheses is a vain endeavour--quite as vain as it would be to expect Plato to have foretold the life of modern civilisation or the imperial idea of mediæval times, or Dante to have foreseen modern industrialism or the character of industrial peoples. To-day we are more certain than ever that no process of development, however simple it may have been, has ever taken place according to a fixed model; all developments have had their own individualities according to place and to time. Thus we must forego discussion of the future.
However, there is another point of view. Development of nations as well as of individuals leads either to progress or to decay. No people may hope to live eternally; and how many acquisitions already gained will be lost in the future it is impossible to say. If a nation declines, it either becomes extinct or is annihilated by another state; it becomes identified with the newer nation, and disappears with its own character; thus its civilisation may also disappear. This is a serious possibility. It is the Medusa head of the world’s history which we must face--and without stiffening to stone.
[Sidenote: Influence of Peoples on One Another]
There is one truth, however, the knowledge of which fills us with hope for the future: it is the fact that the results of development and civilisation are often transfused from one people to another, so that a given development need not start again from the very beginning. This is owing to the capacity which races have for absorbing or borrowing civilisations. Absorption of culture is by no means universal; it does not prevent the occasional disappearance of civilisation, for every civilisation has before it at least the possibility of death. Nevertheless the transmission and assimilation of culture is constantly taking place. There are various ways in which it may be brought about. A conquering nation may bring its own civilisation with it to the conquered; culture is often forced upon the latter by coercive measures. The conquerors may acquire culture from the vanquished; or assimilation of culture may come about without the subjection of a people, through the unconscious adoption of external customs and internal modes of thought. Finally, culture may be borrowed consciously from one nation by another, the one state becoming convinced of the outward advantages and inner significance of the foreign civilisation.
In this way the problem of development becomes very complicated; many institutions of vanished races thus continue to live on. Certainly the race that acquires a foreign civilisation must, among other things, be so constituted in its motives and aspirations as to lose the very nerves of its being, its very stability, in order that, intoxicated with the joy of a new life, all traces of its past existence may be allowed to break up and disappear. On the other hand, many a promising germ of culture possessed by a vigorous people may come to grief, owing to the influence of acquisitions from without. But, in return, a race that knows how to assimilate foreign culture may obtain a civilisation of such efficiency as it would never before have been capable of attaining, by reason of the fact that its power is established on a recently acquired basis, and because it has been spared a multitude of faltering experiments.
[Sidenote: Progress Goes on For Ever]
Civilisation may be mutually obtained from reciprocal action, nations both giving and taking. Such a relation naturally arises when states enter into intercourse with one another, when they have become acquainted with one another’s various institutions and are able to recognise the great merits of foreign organisations and the defects of their own. Especially the world’s commerce, in which every nation wishes to remain a competitor, compels towards mutual acceptance of custom and law; no nation desires to be left behind; and each discovers that it will fall to the rear unless it borrow certain things from the others. Such reciprocal action will be the more effective the more like nations are to one another, the better they understand each other, and the more often they succeed not only in adopting the outward forms, but in absorbing the principles of foreign institutions into their own beings.
Thus we may hope that even if the nations of to-day decay and disappear, the labour of the world’s progress will not be lost; it will constantly reappear in new communities which may rejoice in that for which we have striven, and which we have acquired by the exertion of our own powers.
JOSEPH KOHLER
THE SEVEN WONDERS OF ANCIENT CIVILISATION
From the French of Victor Hugo
By HAROLD BEGBIE
=The Temple of Diana at Ephesus speaks:=
The sun standeth in the high places of the mountains, Full of brightness and mirth is the dawn. But my loveliness is not shamed by him, Neither is it dimmed; For, behold and consider well, the sun is not more than thought. That which yesterday I was, to-morrow I shall be: I live: I wear upon my brow the moving ages and the spirit of man, And genius, and art: These things are more wonderful than the sun.
Senseless is the stone in the earth, And the granite is not more than the formless night; The alabaster knoweth not the dayspring, Porphyry is blind, And marble is without understanding; But let Ctesiphon pass, Or Dædalus, or Chresiphon, And fix his eyes, full of the divine flash, Upon the ground where the rocks slumber, And lo, they awake, they tremble, they are stricken with understanding; The granite, lifting some vague and troubled eyelid, Struggleth to behold his master: The rock feeleth within himself the breathing of the unhewn statue, The marble stirs in the midnight of his darkness, Because that he is aware of the soul of a man. The buried alabaster desireth to rise up from the grave, Earth shudders, it trembleth violently, It feels upon it the will of a man; And behold, beneath the gaze of him who passeth with creation in his eyes, From the deeps of the sacred earth The sublime palace comes forth and mounts upward.
=When she has made an end, the Gardens of Babylon sing their laud of Semiramis:=
Glory to Semiramis, Who reared us up on the arches of the great bridges Whose span outraceth time. This great queen was wont to delight herself beneath our floating branches; In the midst of the ruin of two empires She laughed in our groves, She was happy in our green places; She conquered the kings of far countries, And when the man had humbled himself before her, Lo, she would go upon her way, She would come hither, She would sigh gleefully under our branches, Very pleasantly would she lie down on the skins of panthers.
=And after the Gardens have sung, there is heard the voice of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus:=
I am the monument of a heart that knew itself infinite; Death is not death beneath my dome of blue, Beneath my dome, death is victory, Death is life. Here hath death so much of gold and of precious stone That he boasteth himself thereof; Behold, I am the burial which is a pageant, And the sepulchre which is a palace.
=Then, like a great thunder, the voice of Jupiter:=
I am the Olympian, The lord of the muses; All that which hath life, or breath, or love, or thought, or growth. Groweth, thinketh, liveth, loveth, and breatheth in me. The incense of supplication which rises to my feet Trembles with terror and affright; The slope of my brow doth touch the axis of the world; The tempest speaketh with me before he troubles the waters; I endure without age; I exist without pang; Unto me one thing only is impossible-- To die.
=After Jupiter, from the island of Pharos sounds the voice of the great Lighthouse:=
In the midst of the mighty waters I tarry for the ceasing of the centuries. Sostratus the Cnidian built me, He built me that there might be thrown Across the rolling waters, And through the darkness where lurketh destruction, A rebuke to the lovely vanity of the stars.
=After the Lighthouse, the Colossus at Rhodes:=
I am the true Lighthouse. Rhodes lies at my threshold. Before the steadfast gaze of my unsleeping eyes Winter maketh white the mountains. I behold the deep waters in their cavernous mists; I am the sentinel whom none cometh to relieve; I look forth upon the coming of the night, And upon the coming of the dawn I behold the lifting of the mists, I behold the terror of the sea, With the immense dreaming of Colossus.
=And last speaks the Pyramid of Cheops:=
The desert, spread like a table, lieth beneath my foundations. Lo, from some mysterious gateway of the night I lift unto heaven my stair of terror, And out of the darkness itself seemeth it that I am builded. The sphinxes dropped their broods in the caverns; The centuries went by; the winds passed sighing; And Cheops said again: I am eternal!
=Then, after a profound silence, the creeping worm of the sepulchre lifteth up his voice:=
I say unto you Buildings that ye rise, and arise still more! Set ye up a stone above a stone, Above cities lift yourselves up, O temples! Lift up yourselves, like Babel! Column above column; Higher and yet higher; Let palaces arise upon the hollow places And let nothingness be fastened upon the foundations of night!
Ye are like smoke, Therefore exalt yourselves with the clouds! Set not an end to your boasting! Mount up, mount up, for ever! Lo, in the dust beneath your feet I crawl and wait. Small am I, O mighty ones, And yet I say unto you, From the going down of the sun to his rising up, From all the corners of the earth, Everything which hath substance and which hath being, The thing which is sorrowful, And the thing which is glad, Descend unto me. And I only have strength, and I only endure for ever, For behold, I am death.
THE RISE OF CIVILISATION IN EGYPT
BY PROFESSOR FLINDERS PETRIE
In looking back to the beginning of civilisation in any country, we have to deal with the physical changes which the land has undergone, and to consider the conditions which promoted or hindered the advance of its inhabitants. The nature of a country largely rules the nature of its people, both bodily and mentally; and it may even be true that, if sufficient time be given, the same character and structure will always be produced by equal conditions.
[Sidenote: Civilisation 10,000 Years ago]
[Sidenote: How we can Fix the Date]
From historical records, and the cemeteries that have been examined, it appears that the beginning of a continuous civilisation in Egypt must be set as far back as about 10,000 years ago, or 8000 B.C. The question then is how far the condition of the country at that age was similar to that now seen? The present state is quite new, geographically speaking, as the deposit of mud by the Nile, providing a suitable soil, is only a matter of a few thousand years. The accumulation of deposit is about 5 in. in a century (4·7 at Naukratis, 5·1 at Abusir, 5·5 at Cairo); and the depth of it is not less than 26 ft., and varies in different places down to 62 ft. The lower depths are, however, often mixed with sand beds, and do not show the continuous mud deposit; hence the average depth of 39 ft. is too large, and if we accept 35 ft., it will certainly be a full estimate. At the average rate of deposit, this would be formed in 6,000 years. But, on the other hand, the deposit may have been slower at the beginning, and hence the age would be earlier. Also, the full depth may be greater, owing to some borings hitting on ground which was originally above the river. Hence the extreme limits of age of Nile deposit in different positions are perhaps 7,000 to 15,000 years, and probably about 10,000 years may be a likely age for the beginning of continuous Nile mud stratification. Hence it is clear that the start of the civilisation was about contemporary with the first cultivable ground.
[Sidenote: Stone Age in Egypt]
[Sidenote: The First Dwellers in the Land]
Earlier than the Nile deposits there must have been some rainfall, enough to keep up the volume of the river, and to prevent its slackening, so as to deposit its burden. We must picture, then, the country as having enough rainfall for a scanty vegetation in the valleys, while the Nile flowed down a mighty stream, filling the whole bed as it now does in flood, and bearing its mud out to the sea, except in some backwaters which were shoaling up. Such a land would support a small population of hunters, who followed the desert game and snared hippopotami in the marshes. The Nile had been in course of recession for a long period before it began to rise again by filling its bed. The gravels high above the present Nile contain flints flaked by human work; much as in Sinai such flakes are found, deep in the filling of the valleys which belong to a pluvial period. Yet after the Nile had retreated down to the present level, man appears to have been still in the Palæolithic stage, as freshly flaked, unrolled flints have been found at the lowest surface level of the desert. As the country, while drying up, and before mud deposits were laid down, would have only been suited for occupation by hunters, it seems probable that Palæolithic Man had continued in Egypt until the beginning of the Nile deposits--that is to say, till the beginning of the continuous civilisation as discovered in the cemeteries.
BUSHMAN TYPE. On turning to the remains of the earliest burials, we find that in many cases female figures of the Bushman--or more precisely Koranna--type, were placed in the graves; while at the same time long, slender figures of the European type are also found. The inference is that the Palæolithic race of the Koranna type was known to the earliest civilised race in Egypt, and that they were being expelled and exterminated, as only female figures are found--representing captive slave women--and even these soon disappear. Thus it would seem that Egypt, as an almost desert region, before the formation of the cultivable mud flats, was the last home on the Mediterranean of the hunters who continued in the Palæolithic stage. The physical type of the figures which we can attribute to this earliest population has the Bushman characteristics of fatness of the thighs and hips, with a deep lumbar curve; and a line of whisker covers the jaws of the female figures, akin to the fur on the bodies of women on the Brassempouy and Laugerie-Basse ivory carvings. This indicates that they belonged to a cold climate, and had not been developed in Egypt. As, however, man had certainly dwelt in the Nile valley for long ages, this northern indication points to a comparatively recent invasion from a colder to a warmer climate, such as has been the rule throughout historical times.
[Sidenote: Time Without Dates]
PREHISTORIC PERIOD. The beginning of the continuous civilisation of the country must be placed at about 8000 B.C. The written history extends back to the first dynasty, and places that at 5500 B.C., and this is checked at the sixth, twelfth, and eighteenth dynasties by records of the rising of Sirius, and of the seasons in the shifting year, which agree to this dating in general. For the length of the prehistoric age before these written records there is no exact dating. But, as in a given district of Egypt, where all the desert has been searched, the prehistoric graves are about as numerous as those made during the six thousand years of the historic time, at least 2,000 or 3,000 years must be allowed. The amount of change in every kind of production during this age is considerable; and as we can trace two cycles of civilisation, which usually occupy about 1,500 years each in the later times, it is likely that 2,500 years is too little rather than too long a period. As no definite scale of years can be used, the dating of the graves of this age is treated as a matter of sequence. From a careful statistical classing of the pottery, it is practicable to put about a thousand of the fullest graves into their original order; this series is then divided into 50 equal parts, and these are numbered from 30 to 80. Thus, sequence date 30 is the earliest type of graves yet found, and S.D. 80 is of the age of Mena, the founder of the first dynasty. The sequence dates are given below for each stage of the prehistoric times.
EARLIEST BURIALS. The earliest graves found are shallow circular hollows on the desert, about 30 in. across, and a foot deep. The body lies closely doubled up, wrapped in goat-skins. There are very few objects placed with these burials; a single cup of pottery, red, with black top; rarely, a slate palette for grinding face-paint; and, in one grave, a copper pin to fasten the goat-skin. Pottery was in a simple stage, and weaving was quite unknown. These graves are classed as sequence date 30.
[Sidenote: Civilisation Emerging from the Mists]
FIRST CIVILISATION. The next period is that of the white patterns on red (S.D. 31 to 34). This use of lines of raised white slip is the same as on the present Kabyle pottery, and the patterns are so closely alike on the ancient and modern that this forms a strong evidence for a Western connection of the people. In this period the main lines of the civilisation become clearly marked. The fine flint chipping with delicate serrated edges; the polished red pottery, of circular and of fancy forms; the tall round-bottomed stone vases; the slate palettes for face-paint, of animal forms and of rhombic shape; the use of sandals; the ivory combs with animal figures; the disc-shaped mace-head--all of these were in use with the white cross-lined pottery, and stamp the general type of the beginning of the civilisation. We have before us a settled population, with strong artistic taste in handicraft, but not in copying Nature; with patience for very long and skilful work, and probably organised, therefore, under chiefs who commissioned such labour; yet with sufficient general demand for fine things to have raised hand pottery to its highest level; with strong beliefs about a future life, as shown by the uniform detail of the position of the body and the nature of the offerings in the grave; with the arts of spinning and weaving; fairly clothed, as shown by the use of sandals; fighters, with finely-made and treasured weapons; with the use of personal marks for property--altogether much in the stage which we now see in the highest races of the Pacific or Central Africa.
EASTERN INVASION. This civilisation had lasted for a few centuries when we see a change come over it. On searching the types of pottery we see many new forms arising from S.D. 38 to 43, while many older types disappear between S.D. 40 and 44. These changes serve to stamp the point of the change, but it is in other respects that the differences are most visible. The black-topped pottery, red polished, and fancy forms of pottery cease to develop after 43, whereas the decorated pottery, with brown line patterns on buff ware, is scarcely known till 40, and the late class of pottery begins at 43. In the stone vases the forms of tall tubular shape, with handles, cease at 40, and the barrel forms begin at 39, and are dominant by 42. In flint work the various new types begin from 39 to 45; the disc mace dies out about 40, and the pear-shaped mace begins at 42. In the slate palettes old types vanish and new ones arise from 37 to 42. The same is seen in ivories. Foreign intercourse was increased, as silver (from Asia Minor?), lazuli (from Persia?), serpentine and hæmatite (from Sinai?) all come into use from 38 to 40. In copying Nature, the steatopygous figures of the Bushman type are only found before 38, and human figure amulets are known from down to 44. Animal figure amulets begin in 45. Multiple burials in graves are common down to 40, and continue till 43; only single burials are known later.
[Sidenote: Invasion from the East]
[Sidenote: What Mythology Says]
The racial changes that are thus indicated by these widespread differences can only be traced by the different products. The white line pottery characteristic of the earliest people is closely like that of the Kabyles, and the similarity of the skull measurements show that there is no bar to accepting the connection with the North African race. But the details of the new people, using animal amulets, a face veil, wavy-handled pottery like that of early Palestine, and the Asiatic silver and lazuli, all point to their coming in from the East. This change may be further linked with the religious traditions. This later mythology taught that Osiris had found the Egyptians in a brutal existence, and he had taught them agriculture, laws, and worship; this appears to be the tradition of the bringing in of cultivation by the earliest civilisation at S.D. 30. His worshippers were allied with those of Isis, who were a kindred tribe. Hence Osiris is said to have married his sister Isis. The myth further shows that this civilisation was attacked treacherously by the tribe who worshipped Set, in confederacy with an Ethiopian queen, and they succeeded in suppressing the worship of Osiris and removing his remains to Byblos in Syria. This seems to agree to the influx of Asiatic influence, about S.D. 40, which we have noticed above. The correction of the calendar from 360 to 365 days, is attributed to the beginning of the civilisation (at S.D. 30) by the myth that Osiris and his cycle of gods were born on the extra five days.
SECOND CIVILISATION. The second prehistoric civilisation, of which we have traced the Asiatic source, is specially marked by the use of a hard buff pottery, on which designs are often painted in brown outline. The art of these has no connection with that of the early white line designs; the habit of covering figures with cross lines, and the imitation of basket-work, have entirely disappeared; and, on the contrary, the plant, ostrich, and ship designs are quite new.
What, then, were the connections of these people? One indication is gleaned from carvings at the close of the prehistoric age. Two tributaries of the new king of Egypt are shown bearing stone vases of the style of those of the second prehistoric civilisation, S.D. 45-75. They have large pointed noses, and wear pigtails, and another tributary of the same type wears a long robe. Hence we may see that they came from a cold region where stone vases were wrought; and that by the form of the vase they were probably the same people as the later prehistoric stock. Yet, on the other hand, we occasionally find pottery vases of that people in the earlier prehistoric age, so that they must have been in touch with Egypt throughout. The more likely source for them was the mountainous region, where snow sometimes lies, between Egypt and the Red Sea; and certainly this was the source of the rare igneous rocks used for the prehistoric vases.
The general conclusion would be, then, that a people occupying the mountainous region east of Egypt had an independent civilisation, and were in touch with the early prehistoric people of the Nile valley. Then about S.D. 38 they began to push down into Egypt, and fully entered it by S.D. 44, bringing with them various different points of their own civilisation, and expelling the Osiris worship in favour of Set, who was their god. They probably brought in the Semitic elements to the Egyptian language, along with the other Asiatic connections.
[Sidenote: Fleet of Prehistoric Ships]
SHIPPING. Under this new order of things we see much more foreign and maritime connection. The introduction of silver from Asia, of lazuli from Persia, of hæmatite from Sinai, of serpentine from the Arabian desert--all show this. On the vases we see the starfish painted, and one of the most usual decorations was the figure of a great galley or ship. These ships are shown with oars on the pottery vases, and without oars or sails on the tomb paintings. From the proportion of the figures they appear to have been as much as 50 ft, long, and this is confirmed by the oars, which number up to sixty. Neither indication is exact; but the tendency would be to exaggerate the size of the figures, and certainly not to diminish them, and so aggrandise the ship. The shipbuilding in the early history may prepare us for the earlier rise of such work, when we read of Senefru building sixty ships of a hundred feet long in one year.
[Sidenote: What the Ships Were Like]
These prehistoric ships were all of one pattern. Amidships were the large cabins, and there was no poop or forecastle structure, probably because of the want of support fore and aft, the flotation being mainly in the middle. The two cabins were separated by a broad gangway across the boat, and joined above the gangway by a bridge from roof to roof. Lesser cabins projected fore and aft from the main cabins. On the roofs were rails at the corners, so as to secure top cargo without getting in the way of loading it up. In a large ship there was an upper cabin on the hinder main one, a light shelter shaded with branches. From the back of the hinder cabin stood up a tall pole bearing a solid object as a standard, which we shall notice below. At the stern was the steersman seated by an upright post, to which was probably lashed the steering oar, as in the historical boats. In the bows was a low platform, with a rail round it, for the look-out, shaded with branches. The cabins were narrower than the beam, and left free space for rowers on each side.
[Sidenote: Trade in Those Days]
FOREIGN IMPORTS. Vessels of this large size certainly imply a corresponding importance of commerce. We have noted already the foreign imports into Egypt; and others imply more distinctly a sea intercourse. From S.D. 33 down to S.D. 68 there is found black pottery with incised basket-work patterns [page 238] filled in with white. It is always rare, only occurring in less than 1 per cent. of the graves, and in only one case was there more than a solitary example. It is entirely disconnected from the Egyptian types, but it is closely akin to pottery found on the north of the Mediterranean, in Spain (Ciempozuelos), in Bosnia, and in the earliest town of Troy. At the close of the prehistoric age the black pottery of the late Neolithic city of Knossos is found in the lowest levels of the temple at Abydos. And in the royal tombs of the first dynasty there many vases and pieces have been found which are clearly of the earliest age of painted Ægean pottery. Considering that the bulk of the trade must have been for perishable goods--oil and skins from Crete and Greece, corn and beans from Egypt--it is not to be expected that a great amount of breakable pottery would pass and be preserved in burials. There are, moreover, some tallies left to us besides the northern pottery. Throughout the later prehistoric age emery was regularly in use for all the grinding and polishing of stone vases and of carnelian beads; and so common that one excelsior spirit in search of a tour de force had even cut a vase out of block emery, as being the hardest known material. This emery, so far as we know, must have come from Smyrna. Again, the gold of the first dynasty contains a large amount of silver. This points to its source from the Pactolus region, where electrum was found, rather than from Nubia, where the gold is free from silver.
CONNECTION OF THE SHIPPING. When we look at the evidence of the ships themselves we see that it points to their having been used at sea rather than on the Nile. It is impossible to row a ship up against the Nile stream, which runs at three miles an hour, and sailing or towing is the only way to go southward in Egypt. But in only one instance is a ship with a sail represented, while there are many dozens of figures of rowing vessels. The galley has always been the type of business ship on the Mediterranean. All through the classical wars the rowing galley was the mainstay of power. The Homeric catalogue of ships, the Phœnician coinage, the Assyrian sculptures, the Greek fleets, the Carthaginian navy and its destroyers of Rome, the pirates of Liburnia and Lycia, down to the Venetian fleet and the French galleys of a couple of centuries ago, all show the dominance of the oar.
[Sidenote: Port Ensigns Carried]
The nature of the standards upon poles carried by the ships has been variously interpreted. We can distinguish the elephant, bird on a crescent, and fish; the two or four pair of horns, the bush, and the branch; the rows of two, three, four, or five hills; the crossed arrows, and the harpoon, besides other forms which we cannot identify. The question is, what view will account for these most completely? Some have thought they were emblems of gods, and that the boats were sacred to divinities; but there are many which cannot be thus explained. Others have thought that they indicated tribes; but the rarity of repetitions, and the absence of any duplicates together, are against this. Marks of personal ownership have been suggested; and this is not impossible, as they might be well dedicated to special gods. But the prominence of the groups of hills as signs agrees best with their being marks of the ports from which they hailed; the divine emblems would naturally be those of the god of the port, the number of hills would be very likely to distinguish different ports, the elephant, the bush, or the fish might well be the mark of a port. And the parallel in later times of such being distinctive ensigns for ports--as in the ensign of Gades found in the Red Sea--agrees to this usage. The carrying of a port ensign in an age of independent city-states was equivalent to a national flag in later times; and it was essential for showing friends or foes.
We have dwelt at length on the detail of this shipping, as it is the most important subject for showing the extent and character of the early civilisation. It takes two to trade as well as to quarrel; and these large ships were not rowed about the Mediterranean unless there was a paying trade to be done on those coasts, a people civilised enough to produce goods that were wanted and to require foreign stuff in exchange, and a society stable enough to enable goods to be stocked in bulk and traded without any serious risk of fraud or force.
[Sidenote: Ingenuity of the Hunters]
[Sidenote: Mode of Ostrich Hunting]
HUNTING. The main occupation represented in the prehistoric paintings is hunting. The bow and arrow was used. The bow was a single piece of wood, painted red and covered with zigzag white lines; the arrow was of reed, with a point several inches long of hard wood. The forked lance of flint was also a favourite weapon [p. 238]; it was inserted at the end of a wooden shaft, which was controlled by a long thong of leather ending in alabaster knobs which kept it from entirely flying from the fingers. Thus the lance could be thrown by a man in ambush to cut the legs of a gazelle, while, if it missed, it was jerked back by the elastic thong, and so saved from breaking the delicate edge of flint. These forked lances are found throughout nearly all the prehistoric time; and they continued in use in North Africa till the Roman Age, when Commodus borrowed thence their use for hunting the ostrich. This lance retained by a thong was the parallel to the favourite harpoon used in fishing. Another mode of hunting was the trap. This is represented as being formed of pointed splints or stakes, lashed together like spokes of a wheel, with the points around a central hollow. Such traps to catch the legs of animals are used now in Africa, and an example was found at the Ramesseum, dating perhaps from the twentieth dynasty. Sticks or clubs were used in hunting and in fighting.
FIGHTING. The earliest representation of fighting is on a vase of the white slip on red, at the beginning of the prehistoric age. On that a man with long, wavy hair appears to be spearing another man in the side. Later, there are the fighters on the Hierakonpolis tomb, at about S.D. 63. On this hooked sticks are used, and the fighters are clad with a spotted animal’s hide on the back. One man has been killed, and another is hard pressed, fallen on one knee. To save himself from blows he has taken off the hide and is holding it up, thus anticipating the use of the shield. It seems likely that the Egyptian shields of hide stretched on a frame of sticks were directly copied from this use of the hide that was otherwise worn on the body. In another group a black man is holding three red captives bound with a black cord, while two red men approach him to deliver their kindred.
[Sidenote: Fighting with Maces]
The weapons mostly found are the stone maces [page 238]. These were sharp-edged discs in the earlier age, a form which is very effective in a mixed fight, as it cannot be turned aside like a battleaxe, but must cut in whatever direction it falls. These maces were usually made of porphyry and other quartzose rocks. The mace used in the later age was of a pear shape, and this form was continued into the historic times, and perpetuated in the conventional scene of the king striking an enemy, even in the latest times. The handle holes in these maces are very small, and this shows that probably the handles were dried thongs of hide. Nothing else would be sufficiently tough and elastic. The flint dagger was probably also used, and certainly the copper dagger. A very fine example of this, dated to S.D. 55 or 60, is wrought with a quadrangular blade, giving the utmost strength and lightness, a better design than that of any daggers of the historic times.
TOOLS. Tools of metal begin with small, square chisels of copper at S.D. 38. The intermediate examples have not been found till we reach a fine large chisel of copper at the close of the prehistoric. Adzes of copper [p. 238] begin at S.D. 56, or earlier, and increase in size down to historic times; they continued to be the favourite tool of the Egyptians for both wood and stone working until Greek times. Borers are usually tapered, to work in soft material. Needles of copper appear as early as S.D. 48, and the fastening pins of copper begin with the very earliest graves of S.D. 30.
Flint working was the greatest artistic industry of the prehistoric age. The surfaces were not merely reduced by haphazard flaking, but the flints were ground into form, and then reflaked in a marvellously regular manner with uniform parallel grooves [page 238]. The finishing of the edges by deep serrations of the fineness of forty to the inch, and the chipping out of delicate armlets of flint, show also the same astonishing skill and perfection of hand work. The Scandinavian flint chipping used to be regarded as the most perfect, but the Egyptian work entirely surpasses it in regularity and boldness.
STONE VASES. Hard stones were largely employed for making vases [page 238]. In the earlier age tall, cylindrical forms were used, and in the later age barrel forms. The earlier material was usually basalt, but syenite, porphyry, alabaster and limestone were also used. The later materials included slate, grey limestone, breccia, serpentine, and diorite. The hollowing out of these vases was by grinding, but the outside was entirely formed by chipping and polishing without rotary motion. The perfect regularity of the forms, and the fine taste shown in the curves of the outlines, as well as the hardness of the material, place the vase working higher than any work of the historic times.
[Sidenote: 1,000 Forms of Pottery]
POTTERY. Pottery was greatly developed, although the wheel was not used, and all the forms were entirely modelled by hand and eye without mechanical guidance. The outlines are true and fine, the circularity is astonishingly regular, although all the trimming and polish runs vertically; and it was as easy in such a mode of building to make oval, doubled, or square forms, all of which are found. The specially later pottery is the decorated, with brown-red lines on a hard buff body. The forms are clearly copied from those of the stone vases; and the patterns are derived from the fossils and veins in the stone, or from the cordage net in which the vases were slung for carrying. Next appear aloes and other bushes, and figures of ships, which we have already noticed. Rows of ostriches and of hills are also favourite designs.
Other pottery of this ware, but not decorated, has a curious type of projecting ledge, wavy up and down, for handles. Beginning at S.D. 40 as a globular vessel, the type narrows to an upright jar; by S.D. 60 the handles dwindle, becoming united around it as a wavy band of pattern; by S.D. 70 the jar at last becomes a cylinder; by S.D. 75 the band becomes a mere line; and then after S.D. 80--in the first dynasty--the jar dwindles to a rough tube like a thumbstall. The contents of such jars similarly deteriorate. At first, perfumed ointment was put in them, then it was covered with a layer of mud to retain the scent; the mud increased until it was merely scented mud, then only plain mud was used, and lastly they were left empty. Beside many other forms of this hard ware there was also a long series of types in a rough brown pottery, which passed on into the ordinary pottery of the first dynasty. As there are over a thousand different forms of this prehistoric pottery known, and their study has been the key to the whole arrangement of that age, this subject is a very wide one, which we have barely noticed here.
[Sidenote: A Constant Personal Possession]
SLATE PALETTES. A constant personal possession was the slab of slate upon which the green malachite or red ochre was ground for colouring around the eyes. Usually a brown pebble crusher accompanies it; and the dead often have a little leather bag of malachite in the hands. These slate palettes begin with a plain rhomb form, probably derived from the natural cleavages of the slate rock. Well-formed animal figures were also carved as slate silhouettes; the deer, hippopotamus, and turtle are the oldest, and the fish also comes into the earlier age. The double bird type begins with the second age, and all the types continuously degrade by repeated copying until their original form is quite indistinguishable at the close of the prehistoric age [page 238].
PERSONAL OBJECTS. Ivory carving is common, mainly for long combs to fasten up the hair. These usually have an animal on the top of them; but they only belong to the earlier age, suggesting that the hair was worn shorter in the second period. Decorated tusks of ivory are also early; they were fastened on to leather work, probably to close the openings of water skins. Ivory spoons belong only to the second period, as likewise do the forehead pendants of shell.
Amulets of animal forms were frequent in the second period. They are generally cut in stone, carnelian, serpentine, porphyry, and coloured limestones. The forms are the bull’s head (which continued in use into historic times), the hawk, serpent [p. 238], frog, fly, scorpion, claw, vase, and spear head. The meanings attached to them are quite unknown.
Games are found, as shown by the ivory draughtsmen, the small balls or marbles, the stone gateway and ninepins [page 242], the figures of lions and hares, and the throwing slips for obtaining a count as with dice.
[Sidenote: What the People Wore]
CLOTHING. The clothing of men was, at most, the kilt of linen, or an animal’s hide put over the body. Often only a belt was worn, with three narrow strips hanging down in front. A usual covering was a belt with a sheath attached to it to hold up the genitals. With the pleated kilt was also worn a belt having apparently a jackal tail hung behind. On some figures there is merely a double rope round the waist. These various forms may belong to different peoples and periods; but there are hardly enough examples to prove any distinctions, as the varying circumstance of the figures, captive and conquered, resting and working, rich and poor, in heat and in cold, may easily have led to the different dress that we see. Women are represented with a white linen petticoat from the waist to the feet. Leather was a favourite material for clothing, as well as for bags. It was painted with patterns, and decorated with beads, reminding us of the North American work.
[Sidenote: The Oldest Capital of Egypt]
DECAY OF CIVILISATION. All of this civilisation gradually decayed; the pottery is seen becoming coarser, good work dying out in rougher copying, new types seldom appearing, cheaper and poorer objects being more usual. There is ground, however, for supposing that at some time in this age there was a central rule at Heliopolis. There are many traditions of a principality there, which must certainly have been before the dynasties. The sacred emblem preserved in the temple was the shepherd’s crook, haq, which served for the title of “prince” in all later times; the other sacred emblem was the whip, and these two were the royal emblems of Osiris. The title of the nome was “the princes’ territory,” and this capital retained in later ages the reputation of being the centre of learning and theology. And on the fragment of the early annals known as the “Palermo Stone” there is shown a long row of kings of Lower Egypt before the dynasties; these cannot have ruled at Memphis, as that was a new foundation by Menes.
[Sidenote: History as Reflected in Mythology]
[Sidenote: End of Prehistoric Times]
HISTORY IN MYTHOLOGY. Of the breakup of this civilisation we may trace some relation in the mythology. After Isis had recovered the body of Osiris, and the worship of the Osiris and Isis tribes had revived again from the Semitic invasion of Set worshippers, Set again attacked the Osiris worship, and scattered the body of Osiris into fourteen parts in different places. This refers probably to the distribution of parts of the body to different districts, when it was cut up in the funeral ceremonies, according to prehistoric usage. These parts of Osiris were kept at sixteen nomes in Egypt in historic times, six in the Nile valley and ten in the Delta, probably the original nomes of the country. The civil discord implied in this persecution must have weakened the land; and then came the attack by the hawk worshippers from the south. In the legend of Horbehudti, or Horus of Edfu, we read that the crocodiles and hippopotami (animals of Set), attacked him, and his servants, armed with metal weapons, smote and conquered them, slaying 381 before the city of Edfu. Then the worshippers of Horus allied themselves with the sun worshippers, and “Horbehudti changed his form into that of a winged sun disc,” and “took with him Nekhebt the goddess of the South and Uazet, the goddess of the North, in the form of two serpents, that they might destroy their enemies in the bodily forms of crocodiles and hippopotami.” That is to say, the Horus, Ra, and serpent goddess tribes were all allied to attack the domination of the Set tribe. They gradually drove them back, and “Set went forth and cried out horribly”; he was finally struck down at Pa-rehehu. “Thus did Horbehudti, together with Horus, the son of Isis, who had made his form like unto that of Horbehudti.” That is to say, the rest of the Horus worshippers joined the Horus-Ra party.
The final battle and expulsion of Set was at Zaru on the eastern frontier of Egypt. This, in mythological form, seems to give the history of the driving out of the Semitic population of the later prehistoric age, by the dynastic race descending from Upper Egypt, at the close of the prehistoric period. An actual result of this war, all through later times, was the multitude of towns named Samhud, or “United to Behudti,” marking the allies of the Horus party.
HISTORICAL SLATE PALETTES. Of the period of the conquest by the dynastic races, which closed the prehistoric age, there is an invaluable series of monuments carved on slate. These carved slates are the elaborated outcome of the slate palettes used for grinding the face paints throughout the prehistoric age. A similar elaboration of a simple article is familiar in modern times in the snuff-box. A plain receptacle of bone or wood was decorated, plated, made of silver and of gold, inlaid with diamonds and painted with the costliest miniatures, and yet--it was but a snuff-box. So the plain slip of slate was carved into animal outlines, had animals scratched on it, then signs in relief upon it, and at last was covered with the most elaborate carvings, and yet--it was but a paint grinder, and had always the pan for colour carved on it, exactly of the shape of the pans on the painters’ palettes of that age. Every stage can be shown, from a formless slate to an artistic scene in relief. There are many stages to be seen in the artistic development.
A. In the prehistoric age are the scratched outlines.
B. The well-incised elephant is as early as S.D. 33-41; and with it are those signs in low relief.
C. The high relief sign is of S.D. 60-63.
D. On the boat slate, the drawing is much more detailed than on the boats of the Hierakonpolis tomb of S.D. 63. We can hardly separate this from the work of the artistic new-comers, and it may well be about S.D. 70-75.
E. The animal slate seems to be next, as the treatment of the lion’s hair is unlike the following.
F. The four-dog slate, being a coarser but more elaborated design of the same type, may well be next.
G. The hut slate shows for the first time the arrangement of lion’s mane as on the ivory lions of King Zer.
H. The gazelle slate shows the same treatment more advanced.
J. The towns slate shows the wiry detail of muscles, beginning to appear in archaic manner.
K. The bull slate has the same style carried out fully and finely.
L. The Narmer slate has a less forcible and smoother treatment of the bull, and brings us down to touch with the historic times.
The figures can be seen in Capart’s “Primitive Art in Egypt,” where they may be identified by these letters, corresponding to the paragraphs above: A, B, figures 61, 62; C, 63; D, 169; E, 171-2; F, 173-4; G, 170; H, 177-80; J, 175-6; K, 181-2; L, 183-4.
RACIAL TYPES. These slate carvings not only show the art of the time, but they present the different races and the details of their life, more fully than we find them for many centuries later. We see six different types of physiognomy in the early remains, and learn how complex the racial history must be at the most remote period accessible to us.
A. The aquiline type is that of the principal prehistoric race, closely like the Libyan on the west and the Amorite on the east. When mixed with negro it produced the exact type of a European-Negro mulatto. Probably equal to the Libyan. [See Heads 1 to 4 on next page.]
B. The sharp-nosed type, firstly, with the hair in a pigtail, bringing stone vases as tribute, and sometimes dressed in long robe; secondly, with bushy hair and armed with spear, throw-stick, mace, bow and arrows. Probably the Arabian mountain race mixed with Libyan. See figure 6 on this page.
C. The curly hair type, with plaited beard, conquered and destroyed by type B. Probably from North Syria, by sculptures there. See figure 5 on this page.
D. The forward beard type, with close-cut hair; much like the figures on early Naukratite vases. Probably a coast people of Libyan connection. See figure 8 on this page.
E. The short-nosed type, a variety of D, apparently belonging to the Fayum. Fig. 7.
F. The straight-faced type of the dynastic conquerors. See figures 9-11 on this page.
All of these different peoples were in continual mixture and struggle during the few centuries before the first dynasty. Looking to the tribal hints given by the mythology, it seems probable that:
A represents the early Osiris and Isis worshippers; B the first dominance of Set; C the second irruption of Set; D and E the allied Osiris and Isis worshippers of the Delta and coast who helped to expel Set; and F the hawk Horus worshippers, who took the lead in driving out B and C by alliance with A, D and E.
[Sidenote: Earliest Promise of Greatness]
DYNASTIC RACE. The most essential difference between the prehistoric and the dynastic people is in their artistic capacity. The earlier peoples, though highly skilled in mechanical detail and handling, were yet very crude in their copying of any natural forms. But as soon as we reach the dynastic race we find that there is an artistic sense and power in their work, which puts even the roughest of it far above all that had gone before. The earliest examples of their sculpture appear to be the colossal figures of the god Min, found at Koptos. These are of the most primitive style possible, the limbs scarcely marked off from the trunk, and no details of form attempted. But on the side of each there is a patch of hammer-work outlining some figures, perhaps a copy of embroideries on a skin pouch hung at the side. These are figures of a deer’s head and pteroceras shells on one, swordfish, shells, and standards of the god on another, and the same objects, together with an ostrich, elephant, hyena, and calf on the third. All are but roughly hammered round, yet the spirit and correct forms of the animals are of an entirely different order from anything that had yet appeared in Egypt. The promise of all the artistic triumphs of thousands of years to come is clearly seen in these decorations of the rudest statues known.
[Sidenote: Mystery of Dynastic Race]
The source of this dynastic race can only be inferred. Though marked off from the earlier inhabitants by their artistic taste, and by their use of hieroglyphic writing, we know so very little of the early history of any other lands near Egypt that we cannot yet trace any link to their original source. On looking in various directions, it seems at least clear that they do not belong to the southern tribes, to which they have no resemblance; nor can we suppose that the Libyans, who appear to be one with the prehistoric people, would also supply a race so different in face and in habits. The north and Syria seem barred by the earliest centres being at Abydos and Hierakonpolis in the south of Egypt, from which they conquered the north.
[Sidenote: The Way the Conquerors Came]
Lastly, no source seems open except the East, the road from which joined the Nile at Koptos. It is there that the earliest statues have been found, and the decoration on those comprises the swordfish and pteroceras shell belonging to the Red Sea. Such seems to have been the road of the dynastic race into Egypt; but the origin of that race yet awaits research. There are undoubtedly some Babylonian elements in their culture, and somewhere at the south end of the Red Sea lay Punt--the “divine land” of the Egyptians. Thus we are tempted to look to some migration from Southern Arabia, whence also may have proceeded the kindred Sumerian culture, a few centuries later. From this centre in Pūn, or Punt, it may have conquered and colonised Egypt, and then later passed on up the Red Sea to the coast of the Pœni and their later Punic colony--Phœnicia and Carthage. Such is a pleasing co-ordination, but whether we shall ever recover the evidence to prove or disprove it hangs upon the chance of the past and the activity of the future.
CONQUEST OF EGYPT. The conquest of Egypt spread down from the south to the north. The earliest centres were Abydos and Hierakonpolis. Probably Edfu was as important, or more so; but the great Ptolemaic temple there being still complete, the remains of the earliest kingdom are sealed beneath its pavements. The conquest must have been a gradual process; it is described as such in the myth, many times and in many successive places was Set defeated and repelled. And the probability is that tribal war of such a kind would only gradually transfer district after district from one holder to the next. We know how in England the conquest occupied three centuries, from the Saxon landing to the first Saxon king of all the land. So it may well have been in Egypt.
[Sidenote: Kings Before History]
We read in Manetho of ten kings of Thinis (Abydos) who ruled for 350 years before the first dynasty of kings of all Egypt. And we know, from the fragment of the Palermo Stone, that at least thirteen kings of Lower Egypt were recorded before the first dynasty. It is obvious from this, and from the probabilities of the conquest, that there were Kings of Upper Egypt before the first dynasty; and there is no reason for not accepting this statement of Manetho as being equally correct with his account of the first dynasty, which we can verify. Of the actual course of the conquest, one fragment of carved slate has preserved the record. Seven towns are represented upon it, each attacked by one animal of the standards of the allies. These towns may be tolerably identified by comparing the hieroglyphics placed within them with the names known in historic times. The upper row of four towns seem to be Mem in the Fayum, Hipponon, Pa-rehehui, and possibly Abydos; and the lower three towns were probably in the delta, though there are the uncertainties of two northern similar names.
[Sidenote: Graves of Unknown Kings]
DYNASTY O. The contemporary remains that appear to belong to this age of the Kings of Abydos (which we may call Dynasty O) are the tomb chambers and funeral objects in the royal cemetery at Abydos. The plan of that cemetery shows a sequence of each later tomb being placed next to the previous tomb, and generally a receding further back into the desert as time went on. Now, in front of the tomb of Zer, the second king of the first dynasty, there are three large tombs alike, and four lesser ones. As objects of Mena, the first king, were found here, the other tombs are presumably those of six kings before the first dynasty, by their position. The actual objects found in these tombs are all of a more archaic style than those of Mena or any later king. The tombs themselves are all lesser and simpler than those of Zer and later kings. And the names of kings found here are all without the vulture and uræus title, but with only neb neb, the double lordship of Egypt. The whole of the evidence, therefore, goes to show that we have six tombs of the Thinite kings before Menes.
The names of these earlier kings, so far as we trace them, are Ka, Ro, Zeser, Zar, Nar, and Sma. Of these, Nar, or Narmer, has the most important remains--part of an ebony tablet, and an alabaster jar from his tomb, and the great slate palette, a great mace head, with scene of a festival, and an ivory cylinder, from Hierakonpolis. The next in importance is Zar, or the “Scorpion King,” of whom there is a great carved mace head, and also some vases. The objects of the carvings appear to be celebrations of the sed festival; this appears originally to have been the slaying of the king every thirty years, making him Osiris, one with the god, while his daughter was married to the new king. By the time of these carvings, it appears that the king took the place of Osiris in the ceremonials, and his successor masqueraded as the new king, and was henceforth the crown prince--the heir to the kingdom.
[Sidenote: Planting and Building]
There were brought to the festival of Narmer 120,000 captives, 400,000 oxen, 1,422,000 goats; and the system of numeration was as complete before Menes as it was in any later time. The other mace head of King Zar shows part of the festival, and also the ceremony of the king hoeing the bank of a canal, probably at the inundation. We see the reclamation of the land, with men busy embanking the canals, and cultivating a palm tree in an enclosure of reeds, while they lived in reed huts with plaited dome tops, and used boats with a very high, upright stem. The carved slate palette of Narmer shows him grasping the chief of the Fayum, prepared to smite him, a scene which was repeated for five thousand years in all the Egyptian triumphs. The metal water-pot and sandals are carried behind the king by his body servant. On the other side of the palette is the king going to a triumphal ceremony, preceded by the scribe, thet, and four men of different types bearing the standards of the army, possibly connected with the four territorial divisions of the army found under Ramessu II. Before them lie ten slain enemies, with their heads cut off and put between their legs. The carving of the detail, and particularly the muscular anatomy of the king’s figure, is extraordinarily fine and firm, and as true as any work of later time.
WRITTEN HISTORY. Having now dealt with the history as drawn from the remains which have come to light, we now enter from this point on the continuous written history, which has come down from hand to hand without a break to our own times, during over seven thousand years. This history was compiled by the high-priest and scribe Manetho of Sebennytos in the Delta, and only a fragment of his work has been preserved on its full scale; but three later writers have given epitomes of it, and it is on their lists that we have to depend. These are Julius Africanus (221 A.D.), Eusebius (326 A.D.), and George the Syncellus (792 A.D.).
[Sidenote: The Men Who Handed Down the Story]
[Sidenote: An Ancient Historian and His Figures]
Unfortunately, much confusion has been caused by scholars not being content to accept Manetho as being substantially correct in the main, though with many small corruptions and errors. Nearly every historian has made large and arbitrary assumptions and changes, with a view to reducing the length of time stated. But recent discoveries seem to prove that we must accept the lists as having been correct, however they may have suffered in detail. A favourite supposition has been that the dynasties named were arbitrary divisions of later times; but the earlier lists also show such divisions as far back as the eighteenth dynasty, and kings founding a dynasty used to copy the titles of the founder of the previous dynasty, showing that the change was recognised at the time.
Another idea has been that the dynasties were contemporary. But, on the contrary, in the overlapping of the tenth and eleventh and also the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth dynasties, we can trace that Manetho was very careful to cut off from one dynasty all the time which he allows to another. As regards the general character of the whole length of time, we can show that Manetho’s version in 271 B.C. at Sebennytos was the same as that given to Herodotus two hundred years earlier at Memphis. Herodotus was told that from Menes to his time were 330 kings, and the totals of Manetho are 192 + 96 + 50 to Artaxerxes = 338, so that, in spite of corruption in detail, the totals seem to have been correctly maintained.
In earlier times we can compare Manetho with the fragments of the Turin papyrus, written in the eighteenth dynasty; and here, in one of the most disputable points--the kings of the thirteenth dynasty--the average of eleven reigns legible in the papyrus is 6½ years, and Manetho states sixty kings in 453 years, or 7½ years’ average. The general character of a great number of short reigns in this age is quite supported. Then in the eighteenth dynasty there is a rising of Sirius in the movable calendar, in the twelfth dynasty another rising of Sirius, and some seasonal dates, and in the sixth dynasty are two seasonal dates. [Owing to the ignoring of leap year, the Egyptian months shifted round the seasons in 1,460 years; hence any seasonal date can only recur once in 1,460 years, and fixes an absolute date in that cycle.] All of these agree with Manetho; and though the seasonal dates are vague, they at least show that there is not an error of several centuries in the total. In the earliest times there is the account of the first dynasty, the names and succession of which are verified by the sculptured lists in the nineteenth dynasty and by the actual graves of the kings. Every accurate test that we can apply shows the general trustworthiness of Manetho, apart from minor corruptions.
[Sidenote: Material for History of Early Times]
It is naturally a question what sort of material existed for an accurate history of the early times. The fragment of annals known as the Palermo Stone was engraved in the fifth dynasty, and it recorded the principal events of all the years back to the beginning of the kingdom, a thousand years before, the height of the Nile for every year, the length of every king’s reign and of interregnum to the exact days. With such a record of the most remote times carefully maintained we have every reason to suppose that the high-priests and sacred scribes had adequate information as to the general course of their history. And we can see by the Turin papyrus how in the eighteenth dynasty there was a full historical list of all the kings, with their length of reigns, dynasties, and summations of numbers and years at each of the large divisions. Thus it is proved that there were historians at various periods who compiled and edited the history, and so provided a solid groundwork for later writers, such as Manetho.
[Sidenote: The Witness to Early Civilisation]
The materials that we have for studying the civilisation of the early dynasties are the royal tombs and steles, the tablets of the annals, the sealings of officials, the inscribed stone bowls, glazed pottery, ivory, and wood, the rock steles of Sinai, fragments of buildings of the second dynasty and onward, the steles of private persons and their graves.
[Sidenote: In the Kings’ Tombs]
ROYAL TOMBS. The tombs show that brickwork was familiar on a large scale. The prehistoric houses and tomb chambers were by no means slight. The town at Naqada has house-walls about two feet thick, and a town wall nearly eight feet thick. The brick-lined tombs are sometimes as large as 8 ft. by 12 ft. The kings’ tombs of Dynasty O are about 10 ft. by 20 ft. Those of Narmer, Sma, and Mena are about 17 ft. by 26 ft., with walls 5 ft. to 7 ft. thick. Under Zer there is a great extension; the brick pit is 39 ft. by 43 ft.; it contained a wooden chamber 28 ft. by 34 ft., and it was surrounded by many rows of graves--318 in all. The later tombs of the first dynasty are less imposing. At the end of the second dynasty the tomb of Khasekhemui consisted of fifty-eight chambers covering a ground 223 ft. long and 40 ft. wide. The sizes of bricks were between 9 in. and 10 in. long, half as wide, and under 3 in. thick, in the prehistoric and through the first and second dynasties. Wood was used on a large scale. The royal tombs show beams for framing of about 10 in. wide and 7 in. deep, and 18 ft. or 20 ft. long, and these beams supported chamber sides and floors formed of planks 2 in. or 3 in. thick. The roof was made of similar beams, covered with boards and mats, which sustained 3 ft. or 4 ft. of sand laid over the tomb. Such was an extension of the roofs of poles and brushwood which were laid over the prehistoric tombs, and over the lesser tombs of the officials of the early kings. The sign for royal architect in the earliest inscriptions is that of a carpenter, the “two-axe man.”
The stone steles were of limestone in the first dynasty, and in the end of the first dynasty the steles of Oa are of black quartzose stone. Those of Perabsen in the second dynasty are of very tough syenite. The carving of all these is in high relief, finely and boldly cut in a simple, clear style. At the end of the second dynasty a stone-built chamber appears for the first time; the blocks have naturally cloven surfaces so far as possible, and the rest of the faces are dressed with a flint adze. Of the same reign of Khasekhemui there is a granite door-jamb with signs in high relief. Granite had already been wrought flat for pavements in the previous dynasty, at the tomb of Den.
[Sidenote: Egypt’s Annual Record]
[Sidenote: The Honour that Kings Died for]
TABLETS OF ANNALS. The greater part of the inscriptions of this age are on small square tablets of ebony and of ivory, which were found in the royal tombs. These each have a hole in the top corner, and the sign of a year--the palm stick--down the side, as there is by the side of the entries of the events of each year on the early annals. They thus appear to be each the record of a year, and to have been strung together by the corner holes. There has not yet been any authoritative study of the meaning of these earliest inscriptions, which are very difficult to understand, owing to the transitory condition of ideographs having not yet yielded to syllabic usage. We can, however, glean many points about the civilisation from them. The towns were fortified with battlemented walls. The shrines were small sanctuaries, with a large court in front, like the temple courts of later times. At the entrance to the court were two tall poles, apparently with flags, which later developed into the row of masts with streamers in front of the pylon. The great festival at the close of each thirty years was one of the most important, already noticed here under Narmer. The sanctuary for it had two shrines back to back, each with a flight of steps, apparently for Upper and Lower Egypt. The dancing of the new king, or the crown prince as king, before the old Osirified king in the shrine, was one of the main events of the feast. The types of temple furniture were already fixed in the forms which lasted for several thousand years; the barks of Harakhti are shown with the same hangings at the prow, and are double--for the E. and W.--as in the temple of Sety I. Large bowls of electrum were offered in the temples by the king. Wild cattle were hunted by trap nets, as was done much later in Greece. And there is shown a long road, with resthouses and palm-trees, leading up to the great temple in the reign of King Zer.
[Sidenote: Officers of the Empire]
SEALINGS. The clay sealings of officials show much of the organisation of the country. The oldest titles, under Zer, are the “Commander of the Inundation” and “Commander of the Cattle.” In the reign of Zet we find a “Commander of the Elders” and “Archon,” or chief of the city; also the temple property, or “Inheritance of the Chief God,” is named. Under Merneit and Den there is a prince (ha). The vizier was “Commander of the Centre,” probably the major domo of the Court, and also “Over-head of the Commanders.” There are further named a “Royal Sealer of the Vat of Neit,” the “winepress of the north,” and a “Deputy of the Treasury.” In later reigns there is an “Over-head” of a city. And under the second dynasty the titles are “Royal Sealer of all Deeds,” “Scribe of Accounts of Provisions,” “Sealer of Northern Tribute,” “Collector of Lotus Seed,” and “Chief Man Under the King.” These titles are from but a very small part of the bureaucracy, only those whose seals were affixed to the royal provision which was placed in the tomb; but they suffice to show the regular organisation of the government at that age.
STONE VASES. The stone vases for the royal palaces were cut in many kinds of hard rock. The rarer kinds are rock crystal, serpentine, and basalt; limestones, porphyry and syenite were more usual; and the commonest materials were metamorphic rocks formed from volcanic ash verging into slate, dolomite, marble, and alabaster. These materials were mostly selected for their beauty. The red porphyry is the rarest, being only known in a bowl of the time of Mena, and two prehistoric pieces. Black porphyry with very large detached white crystals belongs only to the age of Mena. Pink granite, blue-grey volcanic ash, the quartz crystal, and the pink limestones are all very beautiful materials. The hardness does not seem to have been aught but an attraction, as the finest work is always put on the best materials; whereas the soft alabaster and slate did not seem to challenge any great amount of care. The working of the inside was always done by grinding with blocks, sometimes having first removed the axis by a tube drill hole. The outside was dressed by chipping, hammer-dressing, and hand polishing; sometimes done by circular motion on a block, but often by crossing work by hand. The readiness with which oval forms were made shows how little depended on circular motion.
[Sidenote: Two-Colour Glazing]
The use of glazing had been already invented early in the prehistoric age, as far back as S.D. 31; but it was only applied to beads and small amulets. The earliest glazed pottery vase known is of Mena, and this has his name in violet glaze inlaid in the green glazed body. Glazed vases continued to be made throughout the first and second dynasties, but became rarer, and they have not been found revived till much later times. But ivory and wood were largely used for carved objects, sometimes of elaborate design. One of the most distinguishing points of the age of the early kings was the minute carving in imitation of leafage and basket-work, which was mainly done in slate, but also in wood. The fragments which remain show most elaborate patterns worked out with minute attention to detail. Nothing of the same kind is known in any other age.
[Sidenote: Remains of the Oldest Sculpture]
MONUMENTS. There are but few monumental remains from these early dynasties. The great rock-cut scene of Semerkhet conquering a Bedawy chief in Sinai is the main example. The figures are only summarily cut in the natural face of the sandstone; but the truth of the outline is better than in any of the more pretentious work of later times in that region. The scene of Sanekht--early third dynasty--is much poorer, and that of his successor, Zeser, is scarcely legible, the work is so rude and slight. The private tablets which were put over the graves around the royal tombs show that the fine work was limited to a small number of royal artists in the first dynasty, and that there was no general school of able men such as arose in later times. The figures and hieroglyphics are rudely hammered out, and the drawing is but clumsy. There is seldom more than just the name of the deceased. By the time of Den many are distinguished as the Akhu-ka, the “glorious soul”; while there is also a class apparently named “people of King Setui, daughter of the captive”--i.e., slaves born of captives taken in his wars.
It appears that the use of fine materials was at its height under Mena and Zer. Zer has the largest and best-built tomb, Zet shows the greatest delicacy in work, and Den seems to have had the most showy objects. The changes in about five generations here were much like those in an equal time from Amenhotep I. to III. in the eighteenth dynasty. Then decay markedly set in, and there was no revival until the Pyramid kings. But some development in the use of materials went on; and Zeser, of the third dynasty, is said to have built a stone palace; while Khasekhemui, a generation earlier, had a limestone chamber for his tomb, and carved granite for the door-jambs of his temple, at about 4950 B.C. These instances are the earliest use of stone for construction that are yet known; though as early as the middle of the first dynasty King Den had a pavement of red granite in part of his tomb.
[Sidenote: Age of the Pyramid Builders]
PYRAMID BUILDING. We now approach to the well-known age of the pyramid builders, when the civilisation appears at its highest development in most respects. We shall not deal with this in detail, as it falls into the ordinary historical period which appears elsewhere in this work [see Egypt]. But it may be useful to give the most essential facts of the material civilisation, which may otherwise be lost sight of in the mass of the history.
In stonework the accuracy reached its highest point in the fourth dynasty, when the Pyramid of Khufu was constructed with an average error of less than 1 in 15,000 of length, and even less in angle. The later work fell off from this accuracy; but in the twelfth dynasty the granite sarcophagus of Senusret II. was wrought with an average error in straightness and parallelism of under seven-thousandths of an inch, and an error of proportions between different parts of less than three-hundredths of an inch. There was no attempt to reach this high degree of accuracy in the later work. In sculpture the main character of the work of the Pyramid kings is its dignity and grandeur, representing individualism on the highest plane of abstraction.
[Sidenote: The Great Navy of Egypt]
Under the twelfth dynasty the personality is weaker and the style that of a formal school, highly trained but dependent upon training. In the eighteenth dynasty the vivacity of expression is directed to a purely personal appeal, more of emotion than of character. After that there is nothing but copying, good or bad. The growth of shipping at the early date of Sneferu, the end of the third dynasty, is surprising; and the record that we happen to have shows how much probably went on at other times, there being built, in one year sixty ships of 100 ft. long, in the next year two of 170 ft. long.
METALS. The use of copper is as remote as the beginning of the continuous civilisation in the prehistoric age, about 8000 B.C. It increased in quantity down to the eighteenth dynasty, and it was hardened by using arsenical copper ores, and leaving oxide in it; this, with hammering made it equal to soft steel for working purposes. Rare instances of tin, probably derived from natural mixture in the ore, are known from the third dynasty; but there was no regular use of it until we find pure tin, also known about 1500 B.C. Thence bronze was the main material until Roman times. Iron had been sporadically found in the fourth, sixth, twelfth, and other dynasties, and was known for about 4,000 years before it came into general use in Greek times. This agrees with its having been obtained from native masses rarely discovered, as has been the case in North and South America. Such native iron is the result of volcanic action on iron ore in contact with carboniferous strata. All these conditions exist in Sinai, and hence native iron might be found there. By about 800 B.C. iron was used for knives, but with a handle of bronze cast upon it to save the rarer metal. The iron tools in Egypt from the seventh to fifth century B.C. are all Assyrian or Greek, and it is not till Ptolemaic or Roman times that bronze tools disappear.
[Sidenote: Oldest Rock Drills]
The forms of tools varied very little. The plain strip of copper, which was used for an adze in the early prehistoric age, became in historic times widened at the edge, and had a slight contraction at the top to assist in binding it on; but the straight strip was kept up for 7,000 years without any attempt at a haft, simply lashed on to a bent handle. It is not till about 800 B.C., or later, that any use of a haft occurs in Egypt, and then only for a hoe; while in Babylonia axes cast with a strong haft were used before 3000 B.C. Nor was a haft used for a hammer--a smooth stone in the hand was the only beating tool; while for striking tools a wooden mallet was used, cut out of a block. The axe began as a plain rectangle of copper, sharp on one edge; projections at the back were added, until they were half as long as the breadth of the axe, but no haft was attempted. The saw was used before the pyramid period; and also the saw and tube drill set with hard stones for cutting granite. Drills for boring vases were usually blocks of stone fed with sand and water, or probably emery for cutting the harder stones. Socketted chisels were an Italian invention in the later Bronze Age, about 900 B.C., and were copied by the Greeks, in iron, about 500 B.C.; but they were never used except under Greek influence in Egypt. Shears are also Western, and were unknown till Greek times in Egypt.
GLAZING AND GLASS. The very ancient art of glazing, already used in two colours under Mena, did not take any new form till the eighteenth dynasty, when it was greatly varied by new colours and new applications. Large objects, five feet high, were covered with a single fusing of glaze; minute ornaments, for stitching on garments, blazed with the brightest red, green, blue, or yellow; while whole inscriptions were executed in coloured glaze hieroglyphs, inlaid in the white stone walls. Glass, however, was not made separately until about the time of Tahutmes III., 1500 B.C. There is no earlier example of true glass, nor any representation of working glass. All the truly Egyptian glass was wrought pasty, and never blown.
Blown vases belong entirely to the Roman age and later times. The large blown glass lamps of Arab age, covered with fusible enamel designs, are highly skilled pieces of work. The uses of glass to the Egyptian were mainly for beads, for coloured inlays in wood of shrines or coffins, and for variegated glass vases. The beads were made by winding a thread of glass on a wire; the vases, likewise, were made by modelling on an infusible core, held on a mandrel, and winding coloured glass threads on the body. The inlays were often of one colour, generally deep blue imitating lazuli; but often mosaics were used, made of a bundle of glass threads fused together, drawn out, and then cut off in slices. Such are all of Greek or Roman age. An important use of glass in Roman and Arab times was for weights, and for stamps impressed on glass bottle measures, inscribed with the names of the ruler and the maker.
[Sidenote: Taste of the Times]
Lastly we may note the variations in the nature of the Egyptian literature, as reflecting the civilisation. The earliest tales are those of magical powers, belonging to the pyramid age. Next, in the Middle Kingdom, comes the contrast between town and country, and the tales of adventure in foreign lands. In the New Kingdom the contrasts of character are the main interest, and, in the late tales, the pseudo-historical romance of the great tournament of the Delta, or the antiquarian interests of a priest. These subjects of romance varied as much or more than the actual grammar and language.
ALPHABET. One subject of great European interest should be noted here, as Egypt has thrown much light upon it. The origin of the alphabets of the Mediterranean has been disputed, without historical knowledge of the examples of such signs in early ages. The Egyptian hieratic and the archaic Babylonian signs may have, perhaps, added a few to the Mediterranean signary, but neither source can at all account for it. The alphabet is by no means a clean cut series of 22 signs; it is a very complex tangle of parallel groups of signs in different lands, more or less alike. Of these groups two of the largest are those of Karia and Spain, comprising over 30 signs, and these have many points of peculiarity in common. This is sufficient to show that the fuller alphabet is the original form, from which the shorter lists have been selected. Now, in Egypt there are found scratched on pottery and woodwork over 100 signs, and these comprise the forms of the fuller alphabet. Moreover, these Egyptian examples are found at about 1200 B.C., or only a few centuries before the Karian and Spanish alphabets, again in 3000 B.C., in 5500 B.C., and before 7000 B.C. Of 41 alphabetic signs, 19 occur in 1200-1400 B.C., 32 in 3000 B.C., 27 in 5500 B.C., and 31 in 7000 B.C. As we have not a very large amount of material, the occurrence of from 19 to 32 out of 41 signs is as much as we could expect, as all the 41 occur in one period or another. The early date of these puts all derivation from the subsequent hieroglyphics entirely out of the question. We can as yet only say that a large signary of 40 or more linear forms was in continuous use from before 7000 B.C. downwards, and that these furnish all the forms of the fuller alphabets, those of the short Phœnician and Greek list of later time.
We have now outlined the rise of civilisation in Egypt, apart from the history of the country, which is dealt with separately; and we turn to the other great valley of early civilisation, in Mesopotamia, to compare the resemblances and the differences between the two lands.
W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE
NOTABLE DATES OF ANCIENT CIVILISATION
EGYPT
B.C.
8000 Continuous civilisation of prehistoric age began S.D. 30 7000 Asiatic invasion S.D. 40 5800 Invasion of dynastic race 5500 Mena rules all Egypt S.D. 80 4700 Khufu builds Great Pyramid
4000 Invasion from north 3400 Middle Kingdom, twelfth dynasty 2500 Hyksos invasion, fifteenth dynasty 2250 Second Hyksos movement
1580 New Kingdom, eighteenth dynasty 1380 Tell el Amarna letters 701 Taharqa (Tirhakah) 570-26 Aahmes (Amasis)
BABYLONIA
B.C.
Before 6000 Susa founded
5000 Ea founds Eridu and civilises the land 4700 Earliest monuments of Kings 4500 Urnina 3800 Sargon and Naramsin, Semitic rule 3300 Gudea
2280 Elamites conquer Babylonia 2129 Hammurabi 1572 Kassite dynasty 1380 Burnaburiash 690 Sennacherib 556-38 Nabonaid, fall of Babylon
THE RISE OF CIVILISATION IN MESOPOTAMIA
BY PROFESSOR FLINDERS PETRIE
The first impression that strikes the reader in passing from the Egyptian to the Mesopotamian civilisation is the lack of that unity and conciseness which makes history in the Nile valley so intelligible, and its problems so well defined.
[Sidenote: Disunion of Early Babylonia]
In place of the well ordered history of Manetho, with its numbered dynasties, and totals stated throughout, there is practically nothing stated before Nabunasir in 747 B.C. The mythological extracts from Berosus, and the list of Ktesias, which cannot be identified with any known facts, give no help in arranging the outlines of the history. In place of the uniform language and writing, which develops without a break during the whole history of Egypt, there is the entire break from Sumerian to Semitic. In place of the continuous importance of Egyptian capitals, there is the change from the principalities to Babylon, and thence to Nineveh. In place of the unified kingdom of the Nile valley, through the whole written history, the greater part of the documentary period is filled with rival principalities, within thirty or forty miles of each other, the tops of whose temples must have been visible over the entire territory of their respective states.
As the general scale of Egypt is so familiar to the modern reader and traveller, it will be well to compare Mesopotamia with that. Babylon was twice as far from the sea as Cairo; and from Babylon to Nineveh was the distance from Cairo to Sohag. Or in other terms, starting from the sea, Babylon was as distant as Oxyrhynchos, Nineveh in place of Thebes, and the highlands of Carchemish, Commagene, and Lake Van were the equivalent of Nubia. The old land of Shumer was just the size of the Delta, and Akkad as large as Middle Egypt. The principalities of Eridu, Lagash, Ur, Erech, and others, were as far apart as those of the Delta--Bubastis, Benha, Sais, or Sebennytos. Indeed, it seems as if this were a natural unit-size of early dominions in a fertile plain.
[Sidenote: The Nile and the Euphrates]
Though the relative age of the beginning of civilisation on the Nile and the Euphrates is yet an uncertain matter, still it is clear that the unification of Egypt long preceded that of Babylonia. The earliest date of the scattered Sumerian kings is about that of the fourth dynasty; the earliest Semitic dynasty--Sargon and Naramsin--was contemporary with the ninth dynasty, and the rise of the dynasties of Babylon is of the later Hyksos age of the sixteenth dynasty.
[Sidenote: Sea-shore Moved 47 Miles]
EUPHRATES VALLEY. The conditions of the Euphrates valley are very different from those of the Nile. On the Egyptian coast the river runs into a strong current in the Mediterranean, which sweeps away its sediment and prevents any continuous growth of the coast. But the Mesopotamian rivers reach the sea-level at the head of a deep bay, the Persian Gulf, and hence there has been a continuous formation of new land at the estuary. The Mesopotamian valley and the Persian Gulf form one long drainage valley gently sloping down to a distance about twenty miles outside Hormuz, where the valley bottom drops suddenly three miles into the floor of the Indian Ocean. The slope of this valley so far as submerged, is about 1 ft. to the mile, and it is probably even less in the Babylonian plain, where sea-shells are found as far up as Babylon. This valley has been filled, and the sea-shore pushed downward, 47 miles in 2,200 years, or 115 ft. yearly, since Spasinus Charax--now Mohammerah--was founded on the shore in the time of Alexander. The account of a sea expedition to Elam by Sennacherib is usually interpreted as showing a more rapid growth; but in the uncertainty how far he went down a channel before entering the Persian Gulf, it is not decisive.
How far back the extension of land has been going on, and whether it was continuous to above Babylon, has not yet been proved. The appearance of the map much suggests that the original drainage bed ended--i.e., the valley was submerged--at about the nearing of the two rivers by Sippara, and that all below this is the filling up of the estuary. Should this growth have extended uniformly back so far, it would give limits to the possible ages of cities--5000 B.C. for Eridu, 8000 B.C. for the whole plain of Shumer, 10,000 B.C. for Nippur, and earlier for the site of Babylon. This would bar the southern region from being as old as Memphis, and Eridu was probably open sea when Menes laid out his capital.
RANGE OF CIVILISATION. In looking for the earliest movements of people that we can trace, it seems that the Semites must have extended from Northern Arabia into Upper Mesopotamia and Assyria. In short, Semitica stretched up to the mountain ranges of Armenia and Media. But the culture was barbaric, and probably they were nomads who had no fixed centres of life or stable organisation which could resist any united movement. At this period the Persian Gulf probably extended as far as Babylon. On their eastern flank were the mountain tribes, in what is known as Parthia and Media, south of the Caspian. How remote is the beginning of civilisation in this region has been found in the last few years. On the north-east extremity of Parthia, in the far end of Hyrcania, stands a group of mounds, near the modern Askabad, not far from the celebrated Turkoman stronghold of Geok Tepe. Here are 14 ft. of town ruins with iron, 15 ft. with copper and lead, about 70 ft. of ruins with wheel-made pottery and domesticated animals, and 45 ft. of remains with only rude hand-made pottery. What ages these represent we cannot judge until the full account by Prof. Pumpelly is issued. But in any case a very long period is involved. If the accumulation is at the rate found in Palestine, 4½ ft. per century, the periods would be perhaps 1,500 years for the wheel pottery, and 1,000 years for the rough pottery, before the beginning of the age of copper.
At the other side of these countries stands the great mound of Susa, with over 80 ft. of ruins. The inscriptions show that about 26 ft. of the height was accumulated between about 4500 and 500 B.C., or in about 4,000 years. Yet before that there is a depth of about 50 ft. comprising three periods. In the upper of these is elementary cuneiform writing on tablets. Below that is a period of rather rough, thick pottery, painted with chequer patterns and closely-crossed lines, of the style common in early Syria and Cyprus. And at the bottom of all is a great quantity of very fine, thin wheel-made pottery of buff tints, with decoration of thin diagonal lines, rows of ostriches, and various patterns all derived from basket-work.
[Sidenote: Measuring the Depths of Time]
If the scale of accumulation of the historic times were to apply here, it would reach back to 12,000 B.C.; but if the far quicker scale found in Palestine applied, it would hardly reach 6000 B.C. In any case we have here evidence of a civilisation apparently much earlier than that of Babylonia, and none of this earliest fine pottery has been found in the great plains. The highland civilisation may have begun as early, or earlier, than that of Egypt; but that of Babylonia started probably later than the North African culture on the Nile. Seeing, then, that there was a very early civilisation at Susa on the west of Media, and that further east on the limits of Parthia we meet another early centre, it is not surprising that the inhabitants of these regions united to spread down into the fertile plain which was created by the growing delta of Mesopotamia. These people belonged neither to the Semite of Arabia nor to the Aryan of Persia and India, but used an agglutinative language of entirely different structure from these others, and most akin to Turkish or Finnish. Having descended from their mountain homes, the people were known as Akkadu, probably meaning “highlanders,” though there are other open derivations. And hence the northern part of the Babylonian plain, next to the Semitic Assyrians, was the land of Akkad; while the southern part, next to the sea, was known by the native Babylonian name of Sumer, or Shumer.
[Sidenote: China’s Links with Babylon]
SUMERIANS. The civilisation of the Sumerians was more akin to that of the Chinese than to western types, especially in its art, its picture writing and devotion to literature, its capacity for town life, and its religious ideas. The cognate origins of the people may well account for this, and some more precise resemblances led Terrien de Lacouperie to the view that Chinese civilisation was an offshoot from the Sumerian stock in its old Parthian home.
The elements of life were well developed by the Sumerians. They were great agriculturists, and wrote works on the main industry of man, much as the Carthaginians wrote standard works prized later by the Romans. They fermented the grape and corn, and had alcoholic drinks. Cattle of all kinds were raised, and prized as stock, which was fed on grass or grain or oilcake. The horse is mentioned first in Semitic times, Abut 2000 B.C. Dates and figs were the principal fruits grown; and, indeed, the date palm seems to have had a far more important place in the civilisation than it did in that of Egypt. Both wool and leather were used for clothing, as might be expected.
[Sidenote: Materials for the Great Buildings]
BUILDING. The main structural industry of the country was that of brickmaking and building. Immense piles of brickwork were made to support the temples, marking clearly the custom of the highlander Akkadi worshipping on the hilltops. The brick ziggurat, or five-stepped pyramid, at Nippur was 190 ft. by 128 ft., and about a hundred feet high. The earliest baked bricks are 8·7 in. by 5·6 in. by 2·2 in., and they were enlarged to 12 in. by 7·8 in. by 1·9 in. within the Sumerian age. Toward the close of that time large square bricks were used. Sargon made baked bricks 18 in. square and 3½ in. thick. From the time of Ur-Engur (3200 B.C.) onward the baked bricks were 11 in. or 12 in. square. Beside the baked brick used for pavements, drains, facings, and important work, the great bulk was made up of crude brick as in Egypt. For important purposes, such as store-rooms, the inside of chambers was lined with a coat of bitumen, rendering them damp-proof; and such a lining was used on tanks. Pottery is abundant in all ages, but we still need a study of the pottery such as has been made in Egypt, so that it can be used to date excavations in general. Stands for jars, framed of wood, were used as in Egypt; and also the clay sealings were of the same type in both lands. Stone vases were made to imitate pottery; and this suggests that the highlanders were only using basket-work when they descended into the plain, and therefore did not possess any types of stonework.
TOOLS AND WEAPONS. The common tools were used, such as knives and drills; and great skill was developed in seal engraving upon hard stone cylinders. Of weapons there is a fine study on a carving of Eannatum (4400 B.C.), where spears of about 7 ft. long, with blade heads, are shown; also shields reaching from the neck to the ankles, straight-sided, and used edge to edge as a shield wall by a phalanx of soldiers; while the heads are covered by well-formed peaked helmets, with nose pieces, and reaching down to the nape of the neck. Bows and arrows and daggers were also used; and stone mace-heads, of the pear shape used in Egypt, were important ceremonially, and often bear inscriptions. Woodwork was elaborated with carving, and used for bed-steads and stools, as seen in the seats of the gods figured on seals and tablets.
CLOTHING. Clothing varied a good deal. A primitive custom of nudity when offering to the gods was continued down to the close of the Sumerian age, as shown on the tablet of Ur-en-lil. The kilt was worn with a fringe, not reaching the knee; or it was worn from the waist to the ankles, as by shepherds. A robe over the left shoulder reaching to the knee was used with a deep fringe all down the front edge and round the bottom. A long robe reaching to the ankles is shown on the figures of Gudea. But the most characteristic dress was that of ribbed woollen stuff, much like that of the fifth century B.C. in Greece, as on the Running Maiden. This stuff was worn as a flounced petticoat (Urnina 4500 B.C.), or in a longer form over the left shoulder and down to the ankles, as by Eannatum and Naram-Sin. A splendid flounced cape and long robe of this stuff is shown as worn by Ishtar on the Anubanini rock stele, about 3600 B.C.
SCIENCE AND ART. The system of number, weight, and measure was peculiarly Babylonian. Some people have theorised about all later standards having been derived in various intricate ways from those of Babylon. But it is very unlikely that standards should not arise in different centres, and still more unlikely that the complex derivations should be formed when the whole object would be to maintain a system in common.
[Sidenote: Science in Sumeria]
But there is no question of the great advance of the Sumerian in these matters. The sexagesimal system, which is far more convenient for many purposes than the decimal, and which we still retain for time and for angle, was due to the Sumerian intellect, while the standards of weight, the talent, maneh, and shekel, were also from the same source. And we cannot doubt that the cubit was already in use by a people living in cities and carrying on business.
The style of art was clumsy, owing to the habit of crowding together as much as possible into the space, in order to form the record. The human forms are thick and short, and detail is firmly and perseveringly repeated. It entirely lacks, in its early stages, the spontaneous truth of the early dynastic work in Egypt. At the close of the Sumerian age, under Naramsin, there is a fine bold design in groups of figures, well proportioned, and with good action, recalling curiously the spirit of late Greek work from Praxiteles to the Pergamene warriors. The stages of change cannot yet be distinguished, owing to the scarcity of the dated examples that we have.
[Sidenote: Loss of History]
LITERATURE AND WRITINGS. It is in literature that we know the Sumerian best. Unhappily, other branches of archæology have been neglected, and even destroyed, in the eager search for tablets, and yet more tablets. By the thousand they are found, and hurriedly removed, while the architecture, crafts, and art-history are thrown aside in the process. The hunter for tablets in Babylonia, and for papyrus in Egypt, is a heartless wrecker, without any interests beyond his own line. When so much has been sacrificed for the written record, we must glean all we can from it for the history of the civilisation, as most of the other material that might have been preserved has been sacrificed. The Sumerian language was the sole language of civilisation, until, at about 4000 B.C., the Semite began to conquer and to take part in the advance of the world. Yet the older tongue was by no means extinguished; it held its place as the official religious and literary language, like Latin in Europe. The literature of the world was in Sumerian, and only gradually did the new Semite intruders translate the older works or rise to writing a literature of their own.
The Sumerian literature was for long accompanied by a Semitic translation, like Latin and Saxon gospels; and syllabaries, vocabularies, and grammatical lists were written to teach the Semite the old religious language. Legal documents were drawn up in Sumerian, and it only gradually lost its precedence from 4000 B.C. down to 1600 B.C., when it was almost extinct, being only revived as a literary curiosity in the seventh century B.C.
[Sidenote: How the Semite Made His Notes]
The writing was a pictorial system like the Egyptian hieroglyphics. And so long as the Sumerian used it he clung to the pictorial origin even though obscured by the lineal style of drawing. On papyrus or parchment it is easy to make curved forms, and such were adopted in drawing the signs originally. But on clay, which was the all-available material in the Babylonian plain, impressing lines is far neater than scratching them up; and the handy tool for making impressions was a slip of wood with a square end. Hence all the curves tended to become four or five-sided outlines, and all the detail became built up of little lines tapering off to one end, or “digs” with the corner of the stylus. Yet down to the close of the Sumerian age the forms of the objects can still be discerned, and they are still pictures rather than mere immaterial symbols.
The Semite, however, changed all this. He learned merely the sound values of certain forms, their meaning could not appeal to him, and he built up his words out of these sounds or syllables. He found it inconvenient to write in vertical columns, which was the constant Sumerian habit, and turned his tablet sideways to his hand, so as to make his signs along a horizontal line of writing. Hence these signs became familiar to him on their sides, and as they had to him no pictorial values, the position was indifferent. Lastly, he produced a syllabary of signs written with combinations of four forms of impress, a long line wider at one end, a short line, a tall triangle, and a small equilateral triangle, written in horizontal lines; and each sign was standing on what had originally been its side. The wedge-shaped form of these lines has given rise to the name of wedge-writing, or cuneiform writing for this system.
[Sidenote: The Story of a Language]
The knowledge of this writing survived Greek influence for some four centuries after Alexander, only becoming extinct at the close of the first century of our era. In its long history, double that of the Roman alphabet at present, it had been used for very diverse languages. The Sumerian inventor had handed it on to the Semitic intruder, and he had passed it to the Syrian, the Mitannian, the Hittite, and the Vannic peoples. Probably it had kept its hold in its first home in Elam, where it is found in historic times, and thence it became the writing of Persia, and even of the Parthian, before it became extinct. The variety of languages and the extent of country which it covered is much like the scope of the Roman alphabet in Europe to-day.
LAW AND RELIGION. In matters of law the Sumerian was well advanced. The needs of city life which he had developed necessarily required a full definition of rights and duties. The first law book was that of Ea, the god of civilisation, the Oannes of the later legends of Berosus. The decisions of judges were kept in abstract, and such case-made law served as a body of precedent to guide decisions. The position of women was on a level with that of men; in the Sumerian hymns the woman takes precedence, and one of the great Sumerian divinities was Ishhtar, who became Ashtaroth of Syria, Athtar of Arabia, and hence Hathor of Egypt. In the Semitic system the goddess is but a feeble companion of a god; but Ishtar was the great divinity of war, to whom the kings owed their triumphs, as well as the queen of love, who ruled the course of nature.
The religion of the Sumerians was like that of other Turanian races. These peoples have an aversion to the idea of a personal god, to which the Semitic peoples cling. The Samoyede believes in a multitude of local spirits, the Chinese have their impersonal Heaven and the host of gnomes or earth spirits. Thus also the Sumerian thought of all objects as having a zi or spirit, good or evil, which needed to be appeased by the weak or commanded by the sorcery of the strong. Shamanism was the type of religion; and books of exorcisms and magic spells were in permanent use. The importance of the principalities naturally led to their local spirits being of general importance; and hence the political changes brought Sin the moon god of Ur, or Utuki the sun god of Sippar and Larsa, or Marduk of Babylon, into a leading position, and led toward the Semitic type of deities. How far this change was due to the beginning of Semitic influence we cannot now say. Other native gods were less personal, such as Ana the sky, Enlila the earth, and Ea the sea.
TYPES OF RACES. The physical type of the people is shown to us by the early monuments, though we hardly yet know enough of the early history to understand them fully. Two main types stand out entirely apart, the shaven and the full-haired. And when it is seen that the shaven type is that of all the earliest human figures, dating from 4500 B.C. and extending down to even 2100 B.C., while the full-haired type is not found on men before 3750 B.C., it is clear that the shaven is the Sumerian and the bearded is the Semitic type. The remarkable point is that the gods are represented with long hair tressed up and long beards from 4400 B.C.; and as early as we can go back there is never a figure of a beardless god. The reason probably is that personal gods were of Semitic origin, their worship was borrowed, and hence their forms. If so, we must see a large Semitic influence already acting on the earliest known Sumerian art. The variations of type may perhaps lead to some further distinctions. The full, curly, square-ended beard and long hair are usual for the gods, as seen under Eannatum (4400), Urenlil (4000), Gudea (3300), and Hammurabi (2100). The same beard, but with the hair done up into a disc (as on the Tello heads and Hammurabi), is worn by the King Anubanini (3600). The long and rather pointed beard is seen on Naramsin (3750), and Hammurabi (2100). The short, square beard is seen on the god, under Eannatum (4400), and on men about Naramsin’s age [see the seal of Ubilishtar]. The shaven type has a wide face, with a large prominent aquiline nose, best seen in the head from Tello. This type is that of all the human figures on the scenes of Urnina (4500), Eannatum (4400), and Urenlil (4000); and in the figures of the Scribe Kalhi (cylinder, 3750), Gudea (stele, 3300), the heads of the same age from Tello, and the later head of beautiful work at Berlin. The general conclusions may be that the beard was worn and admired by Semites, who elaborated a very full type for the gods; and that the Semitic influx, though ruling under Naramsin at Sippara, north of Babylon, was yet subordinate at the later date of Gudea, in the Sumerian south.
SEMITIC AGE. We now turn to the later stage of the civilisation, as it flourished under the mixed race of Sumerians and Semites, partaking of the culture of the older race and the higher moral tone of the less advanced people. The Sumerians, as we have noted, had pushed down from the Median highlands into the growing plain of Babylonia, while the earlier Semites remained to the north in Assyria, and to the west in Naharaina and Syria. Sooner or later a fusion was inevitable; as we have seen already, the gods were of a Semitic type at a very early time, and gradually the union took place during three thousand years, until in the later times the product was unified in one strong civilisation which spread its strength far and wide to the Crimea, to Egypt, and to the deserts of Central Asia.
BUILDING. The old skill and abilities found a wide scope in this larger frame of life. The fundamental craft of brickwork was carried on to a vast extent. Every city had its great pile of an artificial hill of bricks, built in stages to support the temple of its god high above all. Immense walls surrounded the cities; those of Babylon were some nine miles around, and are stated to have been 85 ft. high and 340 ft. thick, surrounded by a moat lined with burnt brick laid in bitumen. Not only was brickwork used on this great scale in the Babylonian plain where stone was a luxury, but the force of example was so strong that the Assyrian, in his highland home, kept up the same scale of brickbuilding as his teachers, and used brick for his palaces and temples when stone would have been much more easily available.
In Babylonia, as in Egypt, the supply of material for brickmaking on a large scale is a serious question. For the great walls of cities, obviously a surrounding ditch was an advantage; but for the materials of houses, temples, and ziggurats, great pits had to be dug, or older buildings pulled down. At Nippur it was found that the later builders had torn down a long piece of the disused city wall and dug out a great pit below and around it. So in Egypt the outskirts of every village has its perilous hole where the bricks are made, which, in course of time, becomes a stagnant pond, and every ancient temple, with its fortifying wall, was built out of a large pit at its side which became the sacred lake of the temple.
A higher branch of building was the use of glazed bricks. In Egypt the use of glazed tiles for coating walls was boldly carried out in the earliest dynasties, before 5000 B.C.; but there was no glazing of the bricks, because in so dry a climate the Egyptian was never induced to burn his bricks. In the wet and damp of Babylonia, on the contrary, burnt bricks were usual, and all the facings and main divisions of structure were in the indissoluble material, which held together and protected the mass of crude brickwork within it. It was, however, mainly, or only, in the later times--from the ninth century onwards--that bricks glazed on the outer face were used for building. It seems that this was done not so much for utility--like our modern use of glazed bricks--as for the artistic effect of colours and designs. The grandest example of such work that is known is the façade of coloured glazed brick in relief, representing the royal archers, from Susa of the Persian age, now in Paris, restored from the fragments.
Beside baked brick, pottery was used on a large scale. Great jars occur in the earliest times, and cylindrical drains of large size, sufficiently wide for a man to descend in them for repair. In later times coffins of baked pottery of the Parthian age, and glazed coffins of slipper shape, dating from the Sassanian period, are very common on most of the city ruins. Unfortunately, sufficient attention has not yet been given to the pottery of any age.
Wood was largely used in the more wealthy ages, but it was always valuable, as large timber had to be brought from a distance. The great halls of the palaces were all roofed with timber beams, and panels of cedar lined the walls where stone was not used. Probably palm trunks and palm leaves served for ordinary roofing, as in Egypt at present.
CLOTHING. Clothing became far more elaborate than in earlier ages, and the dominance of the more northern people brought a fuller dress into customary use. The Assyrian covered the whole body with a tunic down to the knees, and the upper classes wore a robe to the feet. Rich embroideries were usual among both Babylonians and Assyrians, and the splendour of Babylonian garments was spread far in other lands by trade. The cap was either cylindrical or conical, and the royal head-dress in Assyria was practically the modern tarbush, which has again been imposed on the East by the Turk. Sandals were used in Assyria, and the boot so characteristic of the Hittite was also brought in from the cold mountainous country. Women wore a long, thin robe to the feet, covered sometimes by a tunic and a cape. But Ishtar is always shown in a ribbed dress flounced from top to bottom. This is the regular women’s dress of the western Semites; and its use, like that of the beard for the male deities, points to the strong Semitic influence on the appearance and character of the divinities.
The armour of the Assyrian was much the same as that in the early Sumerian days. The pointed helmet became rather taller, and did not cover the back of the head. The spear, and the bow and arrow, were the main weapons as before. The old straight-sided shield was also used in Assyrian times, but was partly superseded by the round shield considerably coned. The extension of the kingdom brought in various auxiliaries, who differed from the older Babylonians. Slingers, northern horsemen clad in leather, and mountaineers with woodman’s axes, all added new branches to the army.
[Sidenote: Sculpture 5,000 Years Ago]
ART. The arts were carried to great perfection by the mixed population. Broadly speaking, the best work is that of the early age of Naramsin (3750 B.C.), and that of the late age of Ashur-bani-pal (640 B.C.). Though not so fine, yet probably the Hammurabi sculptures are the highest between the early and late schools. This would give intervals of 1,650 and 1,460 years between the successive waves of art, and about 1,450 years more to the glories of Baghdad, a period much like that found on the Mediterranean, though not coincident with it.
The finest work of Naramsin (3750 B.C.) is his great stele from Susa, now in Paris. It is remarkably pictorial in style, agreeing in this with the pieces of a limestone stele representing rows of combatants from Tello, also in Paris. The figure of the king is lithe, active, romantic in attitude, the enemies and his soldiers are full of animation. No Oriental sculpture has had quite the same life in it; and it recalls the pictorial style of Crete and the later Greek sculpture. The art of Gudea (3300 B.C.) is more cold and formal, and has not the same fine sense of proportion; it is distinctly a period of survival and not of artistic instinct, as seen, for instance, on the limestone relief in Berlin. The age of Hammurabi (2100 B.C.) shows careful portraiture, but not the spirit of the earlier age; the work is well finished, and there was no hesitation in handling materials boldly, as on the great black stele of the laws, now in Paris. There was a fine sympathetic treatment in private sculpture, as shown in the beautiful limestone head of a Sumerian in Berlin [see page 266].
[Sidenote: Fine Later Art]
The last great age was that of the Assyrian Empire. Under Ashur-nazir-pal (885) the work is fine and severe, but without much expression. Shalmaneser III. (860) troubled more about history than about art, and his principal remains are the long records of the black obelisk and the Balawat gates, which are but clumsy in the forms. Under Sennacherib (705) there is a breadth of composition, as in the siege of Lachish, which is worthily aided by a more pictorial style, while under Ashur-bani-pal (668-626) the art reaches both grace and vigour, as in the splendid natural scenes of the wild-ass hunt, in the lion hunt, and in the garden feast with the queen.
MECHANICS. The mechanical arts were also greatly developed. The large size of the buildings, the great quantities of stone transported for the sculptures, and the immense size of many blocks--the bulls weigh nearly 50 tons each--all show that there was not only considerable skill, but also large ideals and directive ability. Layard found that three hundred men were wanted for drawing his cart bearing the great bull; and the sledge used by the Assyrians for the transport must have needed as many, or more. Long levers are represented as having been used in a very effective manner; but the placing of such great blocks exactly in the right position required far more ability than the mere transport. The forms of tools were much in advance of those used by the Egyptians. As far back as Naramsin, the copper axes were all well hafted, generally with rings raised round the edges of the haft hole to strengthen the band and prevent it splitting.
[Sidenote: Modern Tools of Ancient Workers]
The forms of the iron tools are also excellent; and iron seems to have been common in Assyria at an earlier date than in any other country, probably from the tenth or twelfth century B.C. Certainly the set of Assyrian tools left at Thebes by an armourer of Esarhaddon in 670 B.C., show that the principles, and even the exact forms, of modern tools had already been reached. The chisels and rasp have not been improved since; the saw is the same as the modern Oriental pull-saw, but the teeth have not an alternate set; the centre-bits and files anticipate our forms, but have not reached the complete stage. The material of most of the edge tools is steel, showing that the hardening was then understood. The cutting of seals in hard stones was an early art, but it was well maintained, and some of the most beautiful specimens are the chalcedony cylinders such as that of Sennacherib in London. The engraving of the inscriptions also shows that cutting in hard stones was freely done on a great scale; but the writing, being entirely in straight lines, was much easier to engrave than the figures of natural objects of the Egyptian signs. Probably emery powder or copper was the means used, as in Egypt.
[Sidenote: The Books of Babylonia]
The use of an official stamp of guarantee on uniform pieces of silver was adopted by the time of Nebuchadnezzar, but as this is two centuries later than Greek coinage it was probably copied from that. In one respect the Mesopotamian never equalled the Egyptian. The Memphite school of work had attained to a mechanical accuracy which we can scarcely gauge; their errors on large pieces of work were only a matter of thousandths of an inch. But the Mesopotamian never did a piece of passably square or regular stonework; the inequalities and skew angles are glaring, even in highly elaborated works of art. The sense of accuracy was quite untrained, and neither Semite nor Sumerian show any ability in this line. Egypt, on the contrary, started with a prehistoric race which excelled in exquisitely true handwork and dexterous flint flaking, and with the artistic sense of the dynastic people added, the combination was one of the highest that the world has seen.
LITERATURE. To give any adequate idea of the literature of Babylonia is far beyond our scope, and only the main classes of it can be named in this outline. These were:
1. Theology and Omens. 2. History. 3. Despatches and Correspondence. 4. Language and Translation. 5. Mathematics. 6. Astronomy. 7. Geography and Natural History. 8. Medicine.
The striking omission is that of literature in the form of tales or poetry of actual life; there seems, amid all the myriads of tablets, to be nothing similar to the tales of the various periods of Egypt. We look in vain for the tales of the magicians, the romances of adventure, of love, or of history, which restore to us the living view of Egyptian thought. The Babylonian was severely commercial or scientific, and his poetical ideas were only developed in his theology; he seems to have had no play of fancy or taste for the excitement of story-telling. Similarly in the Middle Ages the “Thousand and One Nights,” though often referring to Baghdad, are yet tales of entirely Egyptian source and idea.
[Sidenote: Wonderful Training of Babylonians]
But for his own purposes the Babylonian was well educated from a literary point of view, and, considering the complexity of his writing, he was probably better trained than any modern people except the Chinese. The hundreds of signs which he had to remember had long lost their pictorial significance, and needed an attentive memory and long training; yet not only in public documents, but also in private letters, mistakes are but rarely found. Classification of the signs, classified lists of words of Sumerian and Semitic, grammatical works, and reading books were the apparatus used. Even the peasantry and sometimes the slaves learned to write, and there was hardly more need of a professional scribe than there is in England to-day. But this general education belonged to the Sumerian stock, and was much diminished where the Semite was in the majority, so that in Assyria only the upper classes could write, and nail-marks of contracting parties are common. The feeling for literature kept the names of great writers in remembrance, and the authors of the main religious pieces, such as the Epic of Gilgames, are still known. The Egyptian, on the other hand, has not preserved the name of a single author; even Pentaur was probably only a scribe. The honouring of literature led to the Assyrian kings amassing great libraries, and to the princes becoming librarians and secretaries. The copying of ancient tablets for the new libraries was a large business, carefully planned; and the scribe was required to exactly state where his original was defective and what uncertainties existed in the reading. Even private persons sought to obtain favour by presenting copies of works to the temple libraries.
[Sidenote: Shall We Find an Assyrian State History?]
Of the classes of writings, the religious works are noticed later; the historical writings are mainly Assyrian, recording the constant wars with other lands, and the tribute and booty brought from them. That there was a complete State history is shown by the ready allusions to the time since certain events had happened. Ashur-bani-pal recounts 1,635 years since the Elamite king had carried off an image. Nabonidus searched for and found the tablet of Naramsin, which he says had not been seen for 3,200 years; he recites that there were 800 years from his time to Shagarakti-buriash, and 700 years from Burnaburiash to Hammurabi. These references show that we may hope to recover a complete State history from Assyria, as we may hope yet for a complete historical papyrus from Egypt.
The despatches and correspondence give full light on detail of politics and affairs, showing the conditions of various countries; and where a sufficient number have been preserved together it is possible to build up a continuous history of a period, as in the case of the Tellal-Amarna letters. The yearly annals of a reign belong more to the historical division, and such records of Sennacherib, Ashur-bani-pal, and others are of the highest value. The private letters give a full view of the current life; and the business documents, especially receipts, are the commonest of all records, showing the trade, the law, and the business of the country in all its fulness.
[Sidenote: Beginning of Astronomy]
The tablets dealing with the Sumerian and Semitic languages together, and the translations from one to the other, we have noted already. The mathematical tablets are multiplication tables, lists of multiples of measures, tables of squares and cubes, and plans with measurements along the sides, which show the practical use of the science. The astronomical records were already tabulated in the time of the early Semitic Empire, Sargon having compiled for his library a work in seventy-two books, the title of which is rendered “The Observations of Bel.” The purpose of this was astrological, like the great mass of short tablets reporting observations of a later date. But the inquiries involved a considerable familiarity with astronomical movements, and a mass of records which became of great value to the student. The astronomical tablets of the Seleucid period are of special value, as they often contain valuable historical matter.
LAW. In the domain of law the Babylonian had early formulated a code from the actual working of decisions. Case-made law was his basis, as in most countries, and abstracts of important cases were carefully preserved as precedents. No torture was used upon witnesses, and ample investigation of the right of a case seems to have been usual, with full cross-examination. High penalties were stipulated for the infringement of sales or contracts. The status of women was equal to that of men in the Sumerian, but became inferior in the Semitic law. Slavery was rather an assignation of labour than a control of the person, as a slave family could not be separated. Slaves could hold property, own other slaves, give witness, and were sometimes well educated. The family union was strong, as inherited land could not be sold without assent of relatives, and boys and girls alike inherited intestate property.
The detail of the laws form a long study, but we may here note the main sections of the great code of Hammurabi, showing the scope of the laws, and stating the number of enactments.
Witchcraft 2 Legal falsehood 3 Theft 3 Loss 5 Child and slave stealing 7 Robbery 5 Royal messengers and officers 16 Agriculture 24 Accounts 8 Licensed traders 6 Marriage property 19 Women 32 Votaries property 7 Adoption 10 Assault 20 Doctors 13 Builders 6 Shipping 7 Cattle 12 Hire 25, and Slaves 5 Distraint & deposit 13
Thus the whole scope of an agricultural and commercial community was well safeguarded, and little doubt left as to general principles and penalties. All this must have been the product of innumerable cases and difficulties for two or three thousand years, before such a complete code was set up.
HISTORY IN MYTHOLOGY. The religion has usually occupied a large part of the attention and interest given to Mesopotamia; it is comparatively well known owing to the quantity of documents and representations. Here we need only mention such points as bear on the general civilisation. We have already noticed how the purely Sumerian Shamanism, or belief in the spirit of every object, which needed to be appeased, had been tinctured by the worship of personal deities of the Semitic neighbours, and how this influence was shown by borrowing the Semitic beard for the gods and flounced robe for the goddesses, and occasionally for the gods. Thus the Semite was the missionary of theism as against animism.
On the other hand, the civilisation of Babylonia is expressly stated to have been given by Ea, or Oannes, who rose from the sea of the Persian Gulf; he passed the day among men, and taught letters and sciences and arts--the building of cities and temples, and the use of laws and geometry. Also he showed the uses of seeds and fruits, and softened and humanised the people, who had lived in a lawless manner like wild beasts. This full ascription of civilisation to sea immigrants shows that it cannot be set down as an indigenous growth, or as due to the Sumerian, or still less to the Semite. The date of this movement is roughly indicated by Ea, belonging to the city of Eridu; and 5000 B.C. is the earliest date at which we can suppose the ground of that city to have been dry land. Such must be taken as the extreme limit of the early civilisation, and what we find of the early kings of about 4700 B.C. is the first efficient rise of monumental history in the land. All this is parallel to the early civilisation in Egypt. That also came in apparently from the Red Sea at about 5800 B.C., as the civilising movement which changed the prehistoric age to the dynastic. And it came only a few centuries earlier than the mission of Ea. It may be possible that there is one common source of a seafaring people for both civilisations, and, if so, we might look to Hadhramot as being in the most likely common centre. At least, it is always convenient to explain the unknown by the unknown.
The nature gods of Apsu and Tiamat, the ocean and the chaos, described in the first tablet of the Creation series, belong to the primitive Sumerian. “The waters of these mingled in union, and no fields were embanked, no islands were seen; when the gods had not come forth, not one; when they neither had being nor destinies.” And afterward “Evil they plotted against the great gods.” After an attempt of Anshar (perhaps the same as the Egyptian Anher, the sky god) to subdue Tiamat (tablet 2), Marduk, the sun god, gains the victory; and in tablets 3 and 4, the supremacy of Marduk is finally confirmed by all the gods. In this we seem to have the echoes of a tribal history as in the Egyptian theology. The Shamanistic worship of a confused host of warring and malignant spirits, is at last subdued by the worshippers of personal gods under Semitic influence, and of these the people of the sun god take in the end the leading place. All of these changes were, however, long before the political domination of the Semite, which began about 3800 B.C., with Sargon.
We have now reviewed the questions of the rise of civilisation, as apart from the ordinary history of the countries, which is dealt with in its proper place in this work. Though it is difficult, and rather misleading, to look at civilisation and the political history apart, yet, so much has come to light in recent years to clear our view of the origins of culture that we may be allowed to focus our attention on that view of man, apart from his better known history. We seem at last to have reached back to a definite beginning of arts and capacities on both the Nile and the Euphrates, and to have touched a condition of things that seems to point in both lands to some external source of a yet pre-existing culture, which yet has to be traced. I am happy to add that one of our greatest Babylonian scholars, Dr. Pinches, concurs in the view of his subject which is here presented.
W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE
[Sidenote: “Out of the East came Light”.]
“Out of the East came Light” has been the text on which all great historians of civilisation have preached, from the authors of the Mosaic literature down through Greek and Roman times to our own. Hebrew writers have looked back to Mesopotamia; Greek writers to Egypt; Roman writers to Greece; writers of Western and Northern Europe and the New World to Rome, Greece, and Palestine. Their belief is justified in so far as it is based on two great facts. Man first found in the warm, alluvial valleys of Southern Asia and North-Eastern Africa the conditions of climate and soil most favourable to his upward progress from the savage state; and from these regions, so soon as with increase of numbers he was moved to migrate, his steps were turned by the geographical conditions surrounding his early homes, in a general way, westward. He knew not yet how to cross broad seas; deserts, sandy steppes, high mountains and tropical forests and swamps were equally deterrent. The Polar ice-sheet, which had extended in Pleistocene times to the Caspian, Black Sea, and Danube basins, and still lay, in the dawn of human civilisation, far south of its present limits, probably rendered, with its wide fringe of impassable moraine, forest, and tundra country, all the lands included in the present Empire of Russia singularly inhospitable. Whoso looks at the map of the Western Hemisphere, bearing these facts in mind, will see at once that the line of least resistance, and, indeed, the only possible line, led the men of the great sub-tropic river valleys towards and along the Mediterranean coasts.
[Sidenote: Civilisation from Without]
In so far, therefore, as European civilisation is a state of things due to influences from without, it is due to the East; but that is very far from the whole explanation of its origin. The impulse to rise above savagery has not always--not, indeed, usually--come to peoples from without; and probably in primitive time, when communications were slow and difficult to a degree which we can hardly realise, the origin of local culture was seldom or never to be accounted for thus. In modern days there have been obvious instances to the contrary; but even now it remains to be seen how far civilisations originated among absolutely barbarous peoples by contact with higher races are real and living growths. Examples of the modification and possible elevation of ancient indigenous societies by incoming aliens, such as have been seen in Mexico or Peru, India or Japan, Egypt or Barbary, are not in point; for in these cases local civilisations certainly existed long before the foreign influence. We must look to the history of the relations of white and negro, or other savage, races in the homes of the latter, and the results of such inquiries are far from conclusive. Does civilisation so originated grow and thrive? Do even the races thus civilised themselves any longer thrive and grow? Our antipodean colonies, and the story of the native races of North America, if there were no other instances, would not admit a categorical affirmative. Nay, rather, the evidence so far available tends to discount the permanence of transferred civilisation, and to throw doubt on the continued vitality of races so civilised.
[Sidenote: The Escape from Savagery]
[Sidenote: Conditions Essential for Civilisation]
It is necessary to raise this question at the outset of the present essay because it has been too often assumed, both implicitly and explicitly, by historians of our civilisation, that all the cultural development of Central, Western, and Northern Europe has been due to alien influence, exerted from the south and south-east, and mainly by the agency of the Greek, Græco-Roman, and Græco-Romano-Semitic (the Christian) systems. Maine’s famous dictum that “Nothing moves in the world which is not Greek in origin” has long dominated our thoughts. Yet that magnificent generalisation is contrary not only to inherent probability, but to known fact. Escape from the savage state, as Buckle showed, depends in the first place on the existence of such conditions of geographical environment as favour the accumulation of wealth and the development of a leisured class--that is, such as conduce to the production of a good deal more than the minimum necessary for life. It can, therefore, have taken place wherever man found comparatively genial climate and remunerative soil, and, in process of time, made for himself, by clearing forests or draining swamps, an arable area which would feed him and his more abundantly than was absolutely necessary.
Where these conditions were presumably present it is unreasonable to suppose that the beginnings of civilisation were deferred age after age, until late in time some stimulus chanced to be imparted by an alien race or races which had, after all, advanced towards their own civilisation, albeit earlier, through the operation of similar conditions elsewhere. In the European areas inhabited by the Celtic and Germanic peoples, for instance, long before we have the slightest reason to believe that these can have come into intimate relation with the civilisations of the South and East, both climate and soil were unquestionably favourable, and local civilisations cannot but have been originated independently. As has been well said, “Man everywhere has the same humble beginnings”; and, up to a certain point, which is found to be, in fact, far later than the inception of some kind of culture, he will satisfy his primitive needs and desires in very much the same ways.
[Sidenote: Spontaneous Civilisation in Europe]
Under certain conditions, known to have arisen independently in many different regions of the earth, articles of luxury and art, irrefragable witnesses to incipient civilisation, begin to be produced spontaneously. To what remote periods have not cave deposits thrown back the history of artistic effort in the valleys of Gaul? And what credit, in reason, can be given to Greece, or even to Rome, for the elaborate social order of the Teutonic tribes, which was of ancient standing when first the Romans penetrated beyond the Danube and Rhine? So well rooted in the soil, so potent and so widely diffused were the Teutonic and Celtic social systems, that in the history of our actual civilisation they are factors as worthy of consideration as the influences of Rome, Greece, or Palestine. If Græco-Roman Christianity came greatly to modify them in the end, they had, perhaps, ere that, modified Christianity itself hardly less; and the social superiority of the northern and western adherents of the now dominant religion is probably as much due to character and habits developed before ever its creed was formulated, as the dominance of the Turkish peoples in the Islamic system is undoubtedly due to social characteristics evolved in the oases and steppe-lands of Central Asia far back in the “Times of Ignorance.”
Let it, therefore, be understood that in the following pages it is not necessarily the whole origin of European civilisation that is being set forth, but the modification and heightening of probably pre-existent European culture by the first influences of the Nearer East which can be supposed to have reached it. Of these influences the effect is to some extent a matter of inference only. We cannot always, or, indeed, often, point with any assurance to actual results of their action. In great part we must still be content with little more than a demonstration that directly along certain lines of communication, or indirectly through certain intermediaries, the civilisations of the South could, or did, come into relation with European areas at an early age.
[Sidenote: The Two Great Sea Routes]
The sea routes which were most likely to be used in ruder ages by Levantine mariners, after leaving the Nile estuaries or the Syrian ports--which, as a matter of fact, are known to have been most used--are: that which followed the littoral of Asia Minor to Rhodes, whence it bifurcated, to Crete on the one hand, and to the Ægean isles and coasts on the other; or that striking across the narrow strait to Cyprus, and thence by way of Rhodes, or directly, to Crete. In connection with both these routes, the importance of Crete and Rhodes, and especially the former, must be obvious. Thence the Cyrenean and Carthaginian projections of Africa were reached with greater ease than by way of the littoral to west of Egypt, which, for some hundreds of miles, is desert, reef-girt, almost harbourless, and pitilessly vexed by an on-shore wind. From Carthage, Sicily and the Italian peninsula were readily accessible, or the Gibraltar strait and the Iberian shores could be made after coasting a littoral much kinder to navigation than that between Egypt and the western bight of the Syrtis.
[Sidenote: The Two Great Land Routes]
The land routes in chief were also two. The Nile valley, closed by desert on the western side, had comparatively easy access to the great natural road which, leading northwards through Syria, passes at first along the Palestinian littoral, and then through the central cleft between the Lebanons to the Orontes valley. Mesopotamian traders, following up the Euphrates till they had left the desert part of its course behind them, fell into this same road in the region of Aleppo and Antioch. Thence by the easy passes which turn the southern end of Mount Amanus, the combined caravans reached Tarsus, penetrated Taurus by the gap of the Cilician Gates, and found themselves on the plateau of Asia Minor with a choice of easy routes leading either to the rich western littoral, or the north-western straits, and from any and every point offering safe passage to South-eastern Europe. This was the only land route for Egyptian civilisation. But the Mesopotamian had an alternative one, leading by way of the upper Tigris valley to the north of Taurus and the Cappadocian plateau, whence it descended the Sangarius and debouched, like the first route, on either the north-western or the western coast of Anatolia.
[Sidenote: The Royal Road up into Asia]
In speaking of such land routes, we do not, of course, mean to imply the existence of any made road, nor even of a single track. When most definite, they probably resembled the Syrian Pilgrim Way--a skein of separate paths now spreading widely, now running into and across one another; and doubtless the early tracks diverged far more than this, and making great elbows, followed now one valley, now another, to meet again only after many days. One of the great lines from Mesopotamia to the western Anatolian coast, that described last in our enumeration, came to be defined more strictly than the rest, perhaps by the Kings of Nineveh and their “Hittite” rivals and allies in Cappadocia, and was known in the Persian era to the Greeks as the Royal Road “of all who go up into Asia.” But at the much earlier time with which we are most concerned, the influences of the East did not rush westward torrent-wise in one bed, but soaked slowly, finding a way now here, now there, in one general westward direction, and sending offshoots far out to right and left of the main streams.
[Sidenote: Half-way Houses of Civilisation]
It has been said that there is evidence of the routes just indicated having been, in fact, those most used. It is upon these lines, and no others, that we find certain remarkable focuses of early culture disposed as half-way houses between the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisations on the one hand, and continental Europe on the other. These are, in relation to the sea routes, first, the prehistoric Ægean civilisation, focused from the first in Crete, but extended to all isles and peninsulas of South-eastern Europe from Cyprus to Sardinia and Spain; and, secondly, the Phœnician, originated on the Syrian coast, but focused also at a later time at a second point much farther west--namely, on that Carthaginian projection, whence lay easy sea-ways to Sicily and Italy and all the western seas. Hard by the Egyptian land route lay this same Phœnician society; while all about its point of junction with the Euphrates road, on both its continuations north-westward, and on the northern road from Mesopotamia so soon as this had passed Euphrates, was established the singular but as yet little understood civilisation which we call Hittite. How early we may assume the latter’s existence in North Syria is still doubtful; but since the discoveries of Winckler at Boghaz Keui, there is little question that it was focused in prehistoric time in Northern Cappadocia, whence its influence seems to have radiated southward to the confines of Palestine, and westward to Lydia and almost the shore of the Ægean Sea. It is to this North Cappadocian region that the Tigris route from Assyria and Babylonia, which was afterwards the Persian “Royal Road,” tended. Among these civilisations the most important for our present purpose is the Ægean, because its geographical area touched at some point all the westward roads, whether by sea or land; and, moreover, because it is the one which actual evidence both dates from the remotest antiquity and most clearly proves to have been operative on Europe, especially on the most expansive of its early cultures, the Hellenic. The recent exploration of Crete, due in the main to Messrs. Arthur Evans and Federico Halbherr, has enhanced enormously the significance of the civilisation revealed to the modern world at Hissarlik and Mycenæ by the faith and fervour of Henry Schliemann.
[Sidenote: Far-back Evidences of Culture]
We are now assured of certain facts of much moment to our inquiry. Firstly, that this civilisation was developed originally from its rudest beginnings within the Ægean area itself. This is proved by evidence of the uninterrupted evolution of fabrics and decoration, especially in ceramic ware, produced at Cnossus from the dawn of the historic Hellenic period right back to Neolithic time. At various points in this long retrocession we can place the Cnossian culture in synchronic relation with the Egyptian by the presence both of Egyptian objects in the Ægean strata, and Ægean in the Egyptian. These points correspond with the highest developments respectively of the New, Middle, and Old Pharaonic Empires--moments at which we should naturally expect to find evidence of international communication. The earliest point indicated by these synchronisms lies possibly as far back as the First Dynasty, if certain vases, exported apparently from the Ægean as vehicles for colouring matter, and found by Dr. Petrie at Abydos, are accepted as of the remote date to which their discoverer attributed them; but in any case the contemporaneity of some part of the Old Empire period with the Ægean civilisation is assured, and that, moreover, when the latter was already far advanced beyond its rudest origins, as represented by the contents of the thick strata of yellow clay which underlie the earliest structures at Cnossus.
[Sidenote: The Ægean Civilisation is Native]
Thus is the indigenous origin of Ægean civilisation assured. So also is the independence of its after development. The typical Cretan pottery, known as the “Kamares” style and lineally descended from Neolithic ware, which attained, about the acme of the Pharaonic Middle Empire a perfection both of fabric and ornament worthy of the highest ceramic products of any age, remained absolutely distinct. The same independence characterises a later ceramic product of the Ægean, a glazed ware with monochrome decoration, which went into Egypt abundantly under the Eighteenth Dynasty, and especially when Amenhotep IV., “Khuenaten,” was reigning in his new capital at Tell-el-Amarna. Nor is Ægean art distinctive only in its humbler products. The frescoes, the plaster reliefs, the chased work in precious metals, the ivory carvings, and the gem intaglios of the Ægean area, of which Sir Charles Newton said thirty years ago that they were not to be confounded with products of any other glyptic art, show the development and retention of an individual naturalistic style--a style which reacted on the fresco paintings of Egypt itself under Khuenaten. Finally, to clinch the proof of its independence with the strongest possible argument, the Ægean civilisation, as soon as it became articulate, evolved for itself, in Crete at any rate, a system of writing, displayed to us on some thousands of surviving clay documents, which was purely its own, and cannot be interpreted by comparison with any other known script.
[Sidenote: The Contact of Early Civilisations]
Secondly, it is now known that this civilisation, of remote indigenous origin and independent development, reached a very high point of achievement in many respects which afford the best-known tests of culture--namely, in its artistic products, extant examples of which offer ample evidence of wonderfully close study of natural forms, of mastery of decorative principles and their execution, and of a sort of idealistic quality, which has been rightly called “a premonition of the later Hellenic”; also, in architectural construction and the organisation of domestic comfort, as displayed in the palaces at Cnossus and Phæstus, with their superposed stories, their broad stairways of many flights, their rich ornament, their arrangements for admitting air and light, and their astonishing systems of sanitation and drainage. The written documents found, though still undeciphered, plainly attest an advanced knowledge of account-keeping and correspondence. The frescoes and gem scenes, as well as many surviving objects of luxury, attest the existence of a leisured and pleasure-loving class; and, lastly, the tribute-tallies of Cnossus support the inference which is legitimately drawn from the uniformity of certain material objects all over the Ægean area at certain periods--notably that contemporaneous with the earlier part of the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty--and also from the wide range of certain place-names, that there was an extensive imperial organisation. The centre of this empire, as well as the original focus of the civilisation, was almost beyond question in Crete. The prejudice in favour of other focuses raised by the priority of Ægean discoveries elsewhere, especially those made in the Argolid, has been greatly weakened by demonstration of the superior catholicity and quality of Cretan culture, and by recognition of the failure of Mycenæ to offer evidence of anything like the same antiquity. And no more need be said here to counteract it than that, if Buckle’s statement of the climatic and geographical conditions necessary to the first development and upward progress of culture be sound, those conditions were never present in plenitude anywhere in the Ægean area except in Crete. There are found in the most conspicuous degree the combination of these geographical features--large tracts of fertile and deep lowland soil; mountains so situated as to cause abundant precipitation, and so high as to store snow against the early summer; absence of both swamps and desert areas; and a climate not prone to extremes.
[Sidenote: What Crete has Taught us]
Like all other high civilisations the Ægean both borrowed and lent. Since its debts could be contracted only with contemporary cultures as high as its own, they were owed mainly to Egypt and Babylonia, while its loans went out chiefly to lower civilisations further removed than itself from the eastern centres, those, namely, of the European continent. As regards Egypt, something has been said already of its intercourse with the Ægean in all ages of the latter’s prehistoric period. The evidence of that intercourse, known even before the exploration of Crete, was fairly abundant, though limited almost entirely to later ages of Ægean culture, often called particularly “Mycenæan.” The “pre-Cretan” case was set forth very concisely in a paper read before the Royal Society of Literature in 1897 by Professor Flinders Petrie, who enumerated the objects of Egyptian fabric or style found on Ægean sites, notably at Mycenæ, and in Cyprus and Rhodes; and of objects of Ægean style or fabric found in Egypt, notably at Thebes, Memphis and Tell-el-Amarna and in the Fayum. One word of warning only may be added--that the occurrence of such imported objects, especially if they be of the amulet class, on a site of a certain date does not necessarily imply exact contemporaneity with the period at which the objects were actually produced; for they may well have been carried hither and thither in the stream of trade for some time ere coming to rest, and been long preserved afterwards. Some of the Cypriote and Rhodian tombs, for example, in which scarabs and other Egyptian objects of the Eighteenth Pharaonic Dynasty have been found, are probably considerably later than that dynasty.
Crete has largely reinforced this evidence, not only by throwing it back to a much earlier time than that of the Eighteenth Dynasty, but by proving that in its later periods Ægean art had come to be considerably modified, both in forms and in motives and treatment of decoration, by the art of Egypt. We have then to do, not merely with mutually imported objects, but, much more than was previously understood, with the mutual action of influences--the strongest possible proof of close intercourse. On the Ægean side, our sole concern at present, are now found scenes represented in fresco-painting or metal-work--for example, the mural scene with a river and palms at Cnossus, and the well-known cat-hunting scene inlaid on a Mycenæan poniard--and also decorative motives which are of obvious Egyptian parentage. Other motives proclaim their alien origin by more or less mistaken treatment. The best instance in point is the use made of the lotus motive in Greece and the isles, where the flower was never domiciled.
[Sidenote: Influence of Egypt and Mesopotamia]
For influences of the Mesopotamian civilisation we have to look in the main to the early civilisations of Syria and Asia Minor; but evidence is not wholly wanting on Ægean sites. A Babylonian cylinder came to light at Cnossus; the fashion of dress, especially female, as shown in Ægean frescoes and gems, is very like the Babylonian, from whatever primitive garments it had been developed; and in other respects also the intaglio class of Ægean art products shows at least as much Mesopotamian as Egyptian influence. It has borrowed the decoration of both cylinders and scarabs; but it proves its essential independence all the time by never adopting the forms of either of those characteristic alien vehicles of glyptic art.
[Sidenote: Religious Ideas of Early Times]
Lastly, in the most important of all aspects of early civilisation--the religious--we now know that the Ægean approximated very closely to the old civilisations to south and east of it. The main idea of its cult was that which seems to have been the oldest and the most dominant in such cults--namely, the worship of the reproductive force of Nature. This idea was embodied, as soon as divinities were imagined in human shape, in feminine form, the desired relation of divinity to humanity being expressed by the addition of a son-consort. How far other features of this cult, common to the south-eastern lands--such as the descent of the son to the human race, his periodical death at the hands of the latter, and his joyful resurrection--were present, we do not yet know. It would probably be false to ascribe the presence of this cult idea in Ægean civilisation to any foreign influence, for it seems to be a necessary expression of the religious sense of many peoples, and is as likely to have been as indigenous in the case of Rhea and Zeus (to give the Divine pair their possible Ægean names) as in those of Isis and Osiris, or Ashtaroth and Tammuz-Adon. But we may note first that here was a vital bond of affinity between the Ægean folk and their mainland neighbours on east and south, and second, that long before historic Hellenic times, the former had arrived at that essential condition of progressive civilisation, an anthropomorphic conception of divinity.
[Sidenote: The Greek Debt to Ægean Civilisation]
Enough has now been said to show that Ægean civilisation was both a broad channel through which influences of Asiatic and Egyptian culture could and did flow, and also in itself of such importance as to be likely to exert influence on nascent civilisation in Europe. To see whether it did so, we look first to the culture which succeeded it in its own area, the Hellenic culture of the historic age, about whose action, exerted indirectly on all subsequent civilisation, there is no possible doubt. And at the outset stress must be laid on the fact that we are dealing, in respect of the two civilisations in question, with one and the same geographical area. There is here no question of alien influences dependent on short or long communications by sea or land. The Hellenic race, if indeed to be distinguished from all elements in the earlier Ægean, came into the very domain of the latter, and experienced by actual contact the full force of the pre-existent culture. This being so, the probability of heavy debts having been contracted by the later culture to the earlier is enormous; and it becomes all but certainty when the few facts which we know about the early history of the Hellenic peoples proper come to be considered in the light of ascertained general laws governing the relations of intermingled races.
[Sidenote: Emerging of Historic Hellenism]
It is clear that the Hellenic tradition of a great descent of peoples from the north into mainland Greece and the western isles, about 1000 B.C., enshrines substantial fact. These peoples, possessed of iron weapons, were superior to the Ægean folk in war, but evidently inferior in the softer social arts. The Greeks called them Dorians, a name afterwards associated with the most distinctive, but the least cultivated, of the historic races of the peninsula--a race, however, possessed in its full form of the conception of the city-state; which implied the subordination of the individual to the corporate body, and was the chief social message to be taught thereafter by the Greek to the world.
Without calling these invaders by any one name, or supposing Northern folk to have made then their first appearance in the Ægean area, we may safely see in this Greek tradition the record of a cataclysmic change out of which historic Hellenism was to issue at the last. In proof of the invader’s inferiority in the useful arts we have the undoubted fact that the command of the Greek seas, formerly held by Cretans and other Ægean folk, passed for some centuries into Semitic hands--the hands of those Sidonian Phœnicians whose coming, but as yet incomplete, “thalassocracy,” is reflected in the most important of contemporary documents, the Homeric lays, and, under the lead of the Tyrians, was to grow greater yet. To illustrate their inferiority in the luxurious arts we have the dry, uninventive style of artistic decoration known as the “Geometric,” which also lasted for some centuries. It is evident that the newcomers were conquering soldiers, who destroyed, but could not of their own virtue create.
Now, the course of events after all such conquests, if permanent but not exterminative, is the same. The rude military invaders, finding themselves deficient in woman-folk, take not only slaves but wives from the civilised people of the soil. The resultant children tend more and more, as time goes on, to be influenced by their native mothers. In them previous culture begins to revive, and ere many generations are past, so completely is the new race assimilated by the old that the language in general use is that not of the conquerors but of the conquered.
[Sidenote: Hellas and its Conquerors]
[Sidenote: The New Civilisation in Greece]
For a crucial instance we need look no further than to the after history of the Norman invaders of Britain; and we might almost assume, were there no actual memorials of the fact, that the civilisation which arose anew in the Ægean area, after the tumultuous period reflected in the Homeric lays and the Greek tradition of early Asiatic colonisation, was largely influenced by what had been there in the Ægean Age. There is, however, proof that such was indeed the fact. As will presently be pointed out, the long period of unrest had allowed other alien influences to enter Hellas notably the Semitic from Phœnicia. But beside what appears to be Asiatic, and also beside what was new and distinctively Hellenic in the historic culture, which became prominent from the ninth century onwards (and this includes such all-important features as the conceptions of a supreme Father-God, and of the city-state--an idea of social order as obdurate to southern influences as our own Germanic social order has proved)--beside all this, the “non-Hellenic” elements in the civilisation are almost entirely such as may be referred to Ægean prototypes. Hellenic art, which flourished pre-eminently among the non-Dorian inhabitants, is distinguished from Eastern art by just those distinctive qualities of both realism and idealism which distinguished the highest art of the Ægean Age. Hellenic religion has for its oldest, most universal, and most popular deities various feminine impersonations, indistinguishable from the earlier Mother-Goddess. The chief of these is the unwedded Artemis-Aphrodite, supreme patroness of life all through the historic period of pagan Greece, the essential features of whose cult are still dominant in the observance of the Greek peasant-worshippers of the Christian Virgin. Hellenic cult is full of interesting survivals of the Tree and Stone ritual amply attested in Ægean cult. Hellenic custom retained many traces of a matriarchal system, appropriate to a society exclusively devoted to the Great Mother, whom Hellas took in name and actual primitive form to her pantheon under the names of Rhea and Kybéle. The Dorian and Ionian styles of architecture can be directly affiliated to the Ægean as revealed in Mycenæan tombs and Cnossian frescoes, and the Greek house is a development of the earlier domestic plan. Certain notable exceptions go far to prove the rule. The dress of the upper class, and the fashion of body-armour and weapons, seem to have been determined henceforth by the new folk. These are just the features in civilisation which conquering invaders would naturally introduce and retain. It is hardly necessary to add that if Ægean civilisation seriously influenced that of historic Hellas, it seriously influenced at second hand that of Western and Central Europe.
[Sidenote: Other Ægean Influences in Europe]
[Sidenote: Commercial Communication with Europe]
Hellenic civilisation, however, was perhaps not the only medium through which Ægean influence affected inner Europe. In Scandinavian tomb-furniture certain presumably foreign decorative motives, notably the returning spiral and the triquetra, which are identical with characteristic Ægean types, make their appearance in the first part of the local Bronze Age; and these have been noticed also, at a slightly later period, in the art of early Ireland, at that time the most civilised of the British Isles. In point of form also some Northern weapons in bronze resemble those of the Far South. If the spiral motive stood alone, the affiliation of this distant decorative art to the Ægean would be very doubtful, since Nature, whether through the forms assumed by vegetable tendrils or animal horns, or through those of shavings of wood or metal, might easily have suggested the ornament independently. But taken together with other related motives, and the evidence of assimilation of weapon-forms, these spirals raise a presumption in favour of an early obligation of North Europe to Ægean civilisation. A possible explanation of this fact, if fact it be, has been found in the communication which appears to have been created by the Ægean demand for Baltic amber; and early ways for this traffic have been traced by Dr. Arthur Evans up the Adriatic, and also overland from the Ægean shores to the Danube basin, whence, from a point near the later Carnuntum, a combined route ran up the Moldau to the Elbe system. Further, it is the opinion of Professor Montelius and some other archæologists that not only certain bronze forms and decorative motives, but the usage of this metal itself was derived in Scandinavia from the south, somewhere before 1000 B.C. Since pure copper and pure tin hardly occur in Sweden among objects of this age, it has been held that the bronze was imported ready made in the mass. But Sweden contains large natural copper deposits, and tin is also found; and, therefore, this opinion is not universally accepted. Indeed, some authorities reverse the debt, and actually derive Ægean knowledge of bronze from Europe. If, however, the first derivation be ever proved, we shall have to refer the first use of metal weapons--an enormous step forward in social progress--in North and Central Europe to the Southern civilisations, such as the Egyptian, which had certainly known and used bronze for at least a thousand years before we find it in Sweden. It is sometimes maintained that Cyprus was the first, and long the sole, source of copper, which travelled north by way of Asia Minor and the Ægean to Hungary and inner Europe; but this is not proved. In any case, for some reason, bronze seems to have become known to the Scandinavians and Danes earlier than to the Gallic peoples.
[Sidenote: Influences in Western Europe]
Yet more evidence is there of possible Ægean communication with Central Europe after the introduction of iron, which seems not to have reached Scandinavia till almost the Christian Era. Transylvanian, Russian, and Balkan graves have yielded to recent explorers abundance of both weapons and decorated articles of personal use and adornment, closely resembling fabrics in the later periods of Ægean civilisation. Further into the European continent we have again the various evidence of the early Iron Age graves of the Salzkammergut on the south-eastern fringe of the Bavarian plain. This “Hallstatt” culture, as it is called, from the location of the chief cemetery, presents both in character and development an extraordinarily close parallel to that of the Ægean Geometric Age. About the same period we know also that a civilisation was in progress in the fertile lands round the head of the Adriatic, which is called Veneto-Illyrian, and shows even stronger evidence of Ægean influence than the Hallstatt culture; as, indeed, might be expected, if it be remembered that in Southern and Central Italy, as well as Sicily, forms and decoration, obviously learned from Ægean civilisation, as well as actual imported Ægean objects, had been plentiful ever since the bloom of the Ægean age. A visit to the local collections in Syracuse, Bari, and Ancona, will establish this fact to the satisfaction of any archæologist. These two civilisations, that of the Salzkammergut and that of the North Adriatic lands, have important bearing on the development of all Western Europe; for we know that the Celtic peoples, who penetrated south of the Alps in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., learned much from both, and especially from the second; and graves, furnished after they had been pressed back again into Switzerland and Gaul, show abundant evidence of what is called “sub-Ægean” influence--that is, of form and ornament probably derived ultimately from Ægean culture, but indirectly, or after undergoing considerable degradation. Through various subsequent intermediaries, notably the Belgic tribes, these derivatives passed ultimately to our own islands, and we find their influence operative on early English art.
[Sidenote: Civilisations Help One Another]
At the same time it is necessary to add that this derivation of the higher developments of mid-European and Scandinavian culture in the Bronze and Early Iron ages from the influence of Ægean civilisation is far from certain, whatever be the case for the Adriatic lands. Knowledge obtained since Dr. Evans and Dr. Montelius first expressed their views, especially in regard to the so-called Neolithic or “Butmir” pottery, which has a very wide range in South-Eastern Central Europe, has not strengthened their case, but rather tended to suggest that the continental culture developed independently to, though in a parallel direction with, that of the southern peninsulas and isles. If this view ultimately prevail, it will illustrate the opinion, to which we personally incline, that the derivation of civilisations, one from another in early times, is the exception and not the rule, except in respect of minor matters.
[Sidenote: The Vigorous Hittite Civilisation]
Two other intermediary civilisations of the South-east remain to be considered--the Hittite and the Phœnician. The first is still, unfortunately, very little known to us, and we are hardly in a position to say much about its influence on Europe until more small objects of use and ornament have been discovered on Hittite sites. The general facts so far ascertained, which make such influence probable, are these. This civilisation, characterised and distinguished from all others by a very individual art, and by a system of writing apparently independent of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian systems, but in its later development showing kinship to Mediterranean systems, lay across all the mainland routes from inner Asia and Egypt to South-eastern Europe. Its monuments have been found scattered thickly from the valley of the Syrian Orontes northwards, to within 150 miles of the Black Sea, and westward to the last passes which lead down from the Anatolian plateau to the Ægean littoral. So far as we can judge at present, its place of origin was Cappadocia, but its later focus was possibly in North Syria; while its period of florescence ranges back from about the sixth century B.C. for at least a thousand years.
It was, as we know from many written records, in frequent collision with both Egypt and Assyria, and in its southern home and latest period came under Mesopotamian domination. As is to be expected, therefore, its monuments show very strong Mesopotamian, and less strong Egyptian, influence. At the last, indeed, those of North Syria approximate very closely indeed to the contemporary Assyrian of the Sargonid Age. At the same time, however, they retain sufficient individuality never to be mistaken for other than Hittite; they represent facial types, dress, and fashion of arms which are peculiar; and the inscriptions they bear are always couched in a script having no relation to cuneiform writing.
[Sidenote: Europe and Hittite Influence]
This vigorous civilisation, occupying the great land bridge from Asia into Europe in the dawn of the historic Hellenic period, and eminently receptive of Mesopotamian influences, cannot but have been a medium through which these reached the Ægean Sea, and so told on Europe. But this did not take place to any appreciable extent in what is known as the prehistoric period. The Cretan products, and those of the other Ægean Isles and mainland Greece, betray very little Mesopotamian influence, and none that we can reasonably trace to the Hittites. So far as we can see, the Ægean culture was much more ancient than the Hittite, and if there was kinship between them we are bound, on the evidence, to derive the latter from the former, and not vice versa. There is a certain relation between late Ægean art and products of inland Asia Minor, but it indicates influence passing eastward rather than westward; and even on the remoter Ægean sites of Asia Minor--Hissarlik, for instance--non-Ægean traces are but slight, and do not suggest the influence of a strong civilisation focused inland.
[Sidenote: The Hittite Pathway of Civilisation]
[Sidenote: Part Played by the Phœnicians]
In the early Hellenic Age, on the other hand, we have to note considerable Mesopotamian influence on Greek culture, and, at the same time, certain evidence of counter influence, both sub-Ægean and Græco-Lydian, on Mesopotamia, which is as yet not fully understood. But whether both or either of these respective influences were transmitted through the Hittite civilisation is still very doubtful. The Egyptian influence on archaic Anatolia, especially on Rhodes, and even on the Greek mainland, seems clearly to have come by way of the sea; and considering the part which the Phœnicians had been playing for some time previously as transmitters of things eastern, there is a probable alternative westward route for Mesopotamian influence also. In Cyprus, at any rate, this influence, which at a certain period has left strong traces, certainly came for the most part through the western Semites. The claim of the Hittites, however, is not to be denied altogether. Their script seems undoubtedly to have been the parent of the Lycian and other local Anatolian systems. Phrygian art and writing attest Græco-Lydian influence inland; Ionian culture was certainly not unaffected by the Lydian in which many students recognise a western offshoot of the Hittite; and there are a few features in Ionian cult and in cult representations which seem to be owed rather to the religious system of the central plateau than to that native to the Ægean area. In this state of suspense we must leave the question, adding only these final remarks, that Greek tradition itself ascribed some of the arts and luxuries of its civilisation--for example, the coining of money--to Lydian invention, and also affiliated to Lydia a whole western culture, that of Etruria; while it is an undoubted fact that a Mesopotamian standard of weight-currency travelled to the Ægean, and thence affected all western commerce, but by what channel we do not certainly know. There is an unknown quantity in all this problem--viz., Lydia. We have reason to suspect the latter of a considerable influence on early Hellenic civilisation, both as creator and transmitter, but must await further evidence.
The part played by the Phœnicians in transmitting influences of civilisation from East to West is far more certain, and is now much better understood than it was a few years ago. Much vague exaggeration of it has been swept away by recent demonstration that there is practically nothing of probable Phœnician origin in the remains of the Ægean culture. The script of the latter is wholly independent; the typical Phœnician vehicles of glyptic art, the cylinder and the scarab, were never naturalised in the early Ægean; the whole path of the latter’s artistic development was distinct; and the Ægean religious representations, once regarded as Semitic, are now seen to be native. On the other hand, decadent and derived Ægean forms and motives appear among the earliest Phœnician known to us. Influence, if it passed at all, between the Ægean and the Syrian coast lands, in the prehistoric age, moved from west to east.
[Sidenote: Origin of Our Written Language]
[Sidenote: Semitic Influence in Greek Art]
In short, we now know that the Phœnicians did not begin to spread over the western sea and influence Europe till the break up of the Ægean civilisation. The Homeric lays and Hellenic myths reflect the inception of a Semitic expansion, which must be placed after 1100 B.C. Even in Homer there is more mention of Greek ships than of Sidonian, and the Tyrian power is yet to come. The latter pushed westward later, and the founding of Carthage, usually dated in the eighth century, marks its first great achievement along those distant sea-routes, which certainly the Semites had been coming to know during a couple of centuries of huckstering trade, even if the dependence of the early Hellenes on Phœnician knowledge of these waters has been overrated. But, in any case, during the interval between the fall of Ægean power and the rise of the Hellenic maritime cities these Semites counted for much. Even in the light of Cretan discovery, we need not question their responsibility for the Greek alphabet, and thus, indirectly, for the ultimate medium of written communication used throughout European civilisation; nor need it be doubted that Hellenic writers, who trace early instruction in trade and barter to visits of Semitic ships to their coasts, show real, though limited, knowledge of fact. Phœnician factories were certainly established on Greek shores, and left Semitic forms among later Greek place-names; and it is quite possible that political power was exercised at one time by Semitic colonists in parts of Hellas. Sufficient Phœnician art products have been found on archaic Hellenic sites, to prove that, in the period between 1000 and 500 B.C., the Ægean coasts were often visited by these Semites. Such objects are especially numerous in Rhodes, a convenient stage on the westward sea route, and they radiate over not only Ionia and the Hellenic lands, but also into the further Mediterranean, to Sicily and its neighbouring islands, to Italy and South Gaul, and to Sardinia and Spain. Carthage probably had much to say in their western distribution.
[Sidenote: No Phœnician Influence in Britain]
Of Semitic influence on archaic Greek art there is considerable evidence. After the Geometric Age, we find in the Greek lands pottery and metal-work showing certain motives and arrangement of decoration foreign to Ægean art, and referable ultimately to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian. Such are the animals and monsters disposed in concentric friezes and zones on Cypriote bowls, Corinthian vases, and the Cretan shields of the Idaean Cave. But this influence, strong and undoubted as it was, must not be over estimated. As the Hellenes rose to power, their instinct of sincerity and naturalism, inherited from Ægean civilisation, revolted against, and triumphed over, this parasitic Semitic art, and already in the ninth or eighth century we find a Græco-Lydian influence, which owes nothing to Phœnician, breaking back to the east and creating the ivories of the Sargonid Age at Nineveh. Phœnician objects thenceforward become fewer and fewer in Hellenic strata, and in the sixth century B.C. they virtually vanish. By this time Phœnicia had become a subject country, about to give up the last ghost of its independence to the Greeks themselves, as its western offshoot, Carthage, was also to surrender a little later to another civilisation near akin to the Greek. But, needless to say, the Semite has had his full revenge for the short tenure of his earliest predominance in European waters. The fall of Phœnicia cleared the way for another Semitic family to capture international trade, and, first with one creed and then another, to conquer the Greeks, the Romans, and the World.
There are, of course, possibilities of direct Phœnician intercourse with non-Mediterranean Europe--for example, with England’s south-western coasts; but they need not detain us. For whether certain Semites came to Cornwall in quest of tin or no, it is certain that by these no lasting influence of civilisation passed in to England. Neither the religion, the speech, nor the script of Britain owed them anything. Recent scholarship tends to discredit any Semitic element even in English south-western place-names.
[Sidenote: The Origins of our Civilisations]
Such, in brief outline, are the channels through which the civilisations of the South-eastern river-valleys could communicate with primitive Europe. It is easier to point them out than to say exactly what flowed along them. Seldom can so definite a debt be recorded as that under which we lie to the Semites of Phœnicia, for the names and the forms of the written characters which, presumably, they themselves had borrowed from Egypt, and modified ere they passed them westwards. Usually the obligation must be stated much more vaguely, being confined, as in the case of Ægean influences, to little more than a general responsibility for the spirit, and for many forms of the expression, of the first great artistic growth on the mainland soil of Europe, as well as for certain persistent and dynamic features in South European cults.
Thus, it becomes even more apparent at the end of our discussion than it was at the beginning that when all has been said about influences of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and influences of the intermediate civilisations of the Ægean, Syria, and Asia Minor, only a very small part of the whole story of incipient European civilisation has been told. Nor is it to be expected that the origin of our culture should be capable of being adequately expressed in terms of other cultures, developed at a great distance and under different geographical conditions. Civilisations, destined to be living growths, spring, it seems, of themselves, and the debts which they can incur at the first are very small and mostly in small things. It is only when they are come to adult estate, have bred men of wealth and leisure with open and receptive minds, and have broken through the geographical barriers about them, that they begin to borrow at large.
[Sidenote: In the Childhood of Europe]
One of the intermediate civilisations of which we have treated, the Ægean, the only one whose own origins are fairly well known, offers proof in point. Its remains indicate but trifling obligations to neighbouring Egypt till a very late period, that which, in Crete, we call the Third Minoan. Thereafter, in the space of two or three generations, the evidence of its debt increases at a wholly disproportionate rate. So too, no doubt, in the misty period of the childhood of Central and Western Europe, little was borrowed from abroad that was essential to civilisation; and the heavy obligations which we owe to the Eastern lands fall in ages much more recent. They fall, in fact, in those times which saw the Anatolian cult of Kybéle and Attis, the Egyptian cult of Isis and Horus-Harpocrates, the Mesopotamian cult of Mithra, and, far more momentous, of course, than these, Christianity--Hebrew in origin if modified by Greek conceptions--brought by a greater intermediary civilisation than any with which we have had to deal, to the knowledge of inner European races already long emerged from savagery, and able and eager to borrow.
DAVID GEORGE HOGARTH
It is a familiar fact that offspring resemble their parents on the whole, but differ from them in details. For example, the child of a human being is always another, but never an exactly similar, human being.
These differences in detail are of two sorts, inborn and acquired. Inborn or innate differences arise “by nature”; the child is inherently unlike the parent--taller or shorter, fairer or darker, and so forth. Acquired differences, on the other hand, are due to the conditions under which parents and children have lived. Thus, owing to better or worse surroundings, the child may develop better or worse than the parent and so be taller or shorter, or a greater exposure to weather may render him darker or fairer.
[Sidenote: Things We Cannot Inherit]
It was formerly believed by scientific men, and is still believed by the public, that traits acquired by the parent tended to be inherited by the child--that is, reproduced as inborn traits. Thus it was supposed that if a man were made strong by exercise, or injured by accident, his child would tend to inherit, in some degree at least, the acquired benefit or injury, and as a result be naturally stronger or more defective than the parent was at the start.
[Sidenote: Acquired Traits not Hereditary]
But very prolonged and careful investigation has proved that this is certainly an error. For example, though for æons human beings have been learning to speak and walk, and make a multitude of other acquirements, yet none of these are ever inherited. In fact, owing to the evolution of memory and the retrogression of instinct, man, of all animals, acquires the most and inherits the least. Every child has to begin afresh and learn what its ancestors learnt; all are born ignorant; none speak or walk “naturally.” Each starts where the parent began, not where he left off. The parental traits, if reproduced at all, are always of the same kind in the child as in the parents, and appear in the same way. That is, the inborn traits of the parent are always inborn in the offspring; the acquired traits are never anything but acquirements resulting from the same causes as they did in the parent. In brief, the acquirements of the parent are never transmuted into inborn characteristics in the child. They are never inherited. It is admitted on all hands that inborn differences--variations, as they are termed technically--tend to be inherited.
Thus, if the parent is naturally darker than the grandparent, the child tends in colour to resemble the former more than the latter. Since the child may vary from the parent in the same direction as the latter varied from the grandparent, these inborn differences may be accentuated in subsequent generations. It is due to this fact that plant and animal breeders have improved domesticated species. They are able to benefit the individual by improving his surroundings, but the race they can improve only by breeding from the best. In other words, when they have the latter end in view, they must build on natural variations, not on acquirements.
[Sidenote: A Great Problem of Science]
[Sidenote: Differences among Kindred]
One of the most important problems in the whole range of science is the question as to what causes offspring to differ in this inborn, natural way from their parents. Many theories have been formulated, and the subject is still to some extent under discussion; but the evidence is overwhelming that variations--natural differences--are not generally caused, as most people believe, by anything that happens to the parent before the birth of the child, but are “spontaneous.” The subject is a large and intricate one, and we have not space to discuss it at length. One or two facts, however, may be mentioned. The members of a litter of puppies, kittens, or pigs, may differ naturally amongst themselves and from their parents in all sorts of ways--in colour, shape, size, hairiness, disposition, and so on. One puppy may present points of resemblance to the father, another to the mother, a third to some ancestor, while a fourth may be unlike any of its predecessors. Since, practically speaking, the puppies were all conditioned alike before birth, it is evident that these great differences must be “spontaneous.” They cannot have been caused by such things as the good or ill health of the parents, their food, or the life they led, for, in that case, the puppies would all have varied in the same way.
Again, malaria is, in effect, a universal disease on the West Coast of Africa. Individuals differ naturally in their powers of resisting it, some taking it lightly and some severely; but almost every negro suffers, and many children perish of it. If the sufferings of the parents caused children to be born weaker “by nature,” it is evident that every individual would start life inferior to his predecessor at the start, and the race would thus degenerate and ultimately become extinct. On the other hand, if variations are “spontaneous,” if, quite unaffected by the sufferings of the parents, some children are born naturally different, naturally more or less resistant to malaria than their predecessors, it is plain that the weeding out of the unfittest, the weak against the disease, would ultimately make the race resistant to it. In the one case the race would drift to destruction; in the other it would undergo protective evolution. Obviously, the latter is what has happened. Negroes show no signs of any kind of degeneration, but they are of all races the most resistant to malaria.
[Sidenote: Suffering Produces Strength]
Similarly, Englishmen who have been much exposed to consumption and measles, natives of India who have been much afflicted by enteric fever and dysentery, Esquimaux who have suffered from cold, Arabs who have endured heat, Chinamen and Jews who have long dwelt under that complex of ill conditions found in slums and ghettos, are none of them degenerate, but, on the contrary, have become resistant, each race to its own particular ill-conditions in proportion to its sufferings in the past. In fact, it may be laid down as a general rule that races strengthen only when exposed to ill conditions, and deteriorate only when the conditions are so favourable that the unfit are not eliminated. An example of the latter is seen when prize breeds of animals and plants, however well nourished and cared for, are no longer bred with care. It follows that races, if not exterminated, are not injured but strengthened by ill conditions, by the elimination of the unfittest, as gold is refined by fire.
[Sidenote: Survival of the Fittest]
It is a remarkable fact that many people are able to accomplish the surprising feat of knowing that races have become inured to ill conditions, and of believing at the same time that the offspring of people exposed to such conditions tend, as a rule, to be degenerate. It is as if they believed that two and two make four, and two more six, but that if a great number of two’s are added together the total result is a minus quantity. Obviously the two beliefs are incompatible. A race cannot degenerate in every generation and yet emerge in the end strengthened from the struggle. The confusion has arisen because the two diametrically opposite propositions are seldom considered together, and in part also from a mistaken interpretation of what is observed in such situations as the slums of cities. Here puny children are seen to be derived from puny parents, and it is assumed that the children are degenerate because the parents have suffered.
As a fact we have no reason to doubt that the children are affected in precisely the same way as the parents. On the one hand, slums are sinks into which descend people naturally inferior, people who have varied spontaneously from their ancestors in such a way as to be feeble, physically or mentally, and who reproduce their like. On the other hand, the conditions are such that even the naturally strong, both parents and children, develop badly. Doubtless, owing to the constant elimination of the unfit, the latter--the naturally strong--are by far the more numerous. There is nothing to show that, if they were removed in early life to better surroundings, they would not develop just as well as the offspring of country folk.
[Sidenote: An Evolution that has now Ceased]
The fact that races grow resistant to the ill conditions to which they are exposed, and degenerate when placed under particularly good conditions, is decisive proof that offspring are not, as a rule, innately affected by the surroundings of their parents. No doubt exceptions occur, but these are amongst the most unfit, and the race is soon purged of them. Thus European dogs are said to degenerate when taken to India. But the existence of old-established native races of dogs is proof that the degenerative process is not perpetual. Malaria and many other ill conditions are quite normal parts of the environment of the races exposed to them, and have been so for thousands of years. Except for occasional unfavourable variations, which are quickly eliminated, they have long purged the races of those strains that tended to become degenerate under their influence.
After man--through the evolution of the structures and faculties which distinguish him from the lower animals, the large brain, with its accompanying memory, the organs of speech, the hand, the erect attitude--had achieved the conquest of the earth, his selection and evolution along the ancestral lines gradually diminished, and has now almost ceased. At the present day clever, strong, or active people do not on the average have an appreciably more numerous progeny than those who are not exceptionally endowed. No modern race is intellectually superior to the Greeks who flourished more than two thousand years ago. The brains, the hands, the organs of speech, the erect attitude, have not altered. Apparently nothing more than traditional knowledge has improved.
The gradual accumulation of traditional knowledge during prehistoric times enabled man to cultivate animals and plants, and so to increase and regulate his supply of food. As a consequence his numbers multiplied. Areas of country which formerly supported only a few wandering hunters now afforded sustenance to growing multitudes of agriculturists, who often dwelt together for mutual protection in villages. Commerce followed agriculture, towns and cities arose, and civilisation dawned.
Civilisation implies a dense and settled community, protected from most of the dangers which beset wild animals, and in which, therefore, the elimination of the unfit is no longer of the kind that weeded out the brute and the utter savage. Some sort of elimination does occur, however, for, even in the most civilised states, multitudes of people perish in youth, before they have contributed their full quota of offspring to the race.
[Sidenote: Natural Selection at Work]
We have excellent opportunities of studying this elimination and noting whether it results in evolution. Indeed, man presents the only instance in Nature in which we are able to observe natural selection actually at work. In all modern states statistics are compiled which set out the causes of death, the mortality from each cause, and the ages of its victims. By comparing races which have been much afflicted by this or that cause of mortality with races that have been little or not at all affected, we are able to ascertain the resulting racial change, if any. As may be noted by everyone, civilised people perish, with rare exceptions, of disease.
MANKIND’S LONG BATTLE AGAINST BACTERIA
[Sidenote: Resistance of Races to Disease]
We have just seen that every race is resistant to every disease precisely in proportion to its past experience of it. It follows that the evolution of civilised peoples is against disease. If any other kind of evolution is now occurring, no one as yet has been able to demonstrate it, though many unproved guesses have been made. Mere alterations in traditional knowledge is not evolution. Children may derive it just as well from other people as from their parents.
The vast majority of deaths from disease are of zymotic origin. A zymotic or microbic disease is caused by the entrance into the body of minute animals or plants (microbes), which find their nutriment there. There are many species of microbes, each disease being due to one. Some species are mainly air-borne, and infect through the breath; others are water-borne; others earth-borne; yet others insect-borne; while a few pass by actual contact from an infected to a healthy person.
[Sidenote: The Way Disease is Spread]
Some diseases--for example, consumption and leprosy--are of indefinite but always prolonged duration; others, like measles, are short and sharp. In the case of the latter, for reasons we need not dwell on here, the body after an attack becomes, for a longer or shorter time, an unfit habitation for the microbes of that particular species. The rapid recovery which occurs in these “acute” diseases, indeed, implies the banishment of the microbes. The air-borne diseases--measles, influenza, smallpox, and the like, all of that acute type which confers immunity against subsequent attacks--are very infective, spreading through a susceptible population with great rapidity. Under favourable conditions the water-borne diseases also--cholera, dysentery, enteric fever, and the like--may spread very quickly. Chief amongst the earth-borne diseases is consumption. It is contracted chiefly in such dark, ill-ventilated, and crowded houses as are built by the inhabitants of cold and temperate climates.
The disease-producing microbes are an infinitesimal proportion of the total number of bacterial and protozoan species. In Nature it is not easy to find a speck of earth or a drop of water from which these minute living beings are absent. All decay, by means of which the dead bodies of plants and animals are returned to the soil, is due to them.
[Sidenote: The Immense Antiquity of Diseases]
It is a safe assumption that the microbes of human diseases have evolved from non-parasitic species. The niche they now occupy in Nature is the human body. Two things formed essential parts of this evolution--first, the microbes became capable of existing and multiplying for a shorter or longer period in the body; secondly, they evolved means of passing from one living body to another. The latter must have been the more difficult process. Under favourable circumstances several species of microbes--for example, those of putrefaction, which are ordinarily non-parasitic--are capable of entering the human body and becoming virulent; but, since they cannot secure passage from one individual to another, they die out, and their virulence is lost. Historical evidence renders it probable that all known human diseases are of immense antiquity, the so-called new diseases being merely newly-observed diseases. It appears probable, therefore, that, owing to constant persecution by disease, by continued survival of the fittest, humanity has grown so resistant that no species of microbe which has not undergone concurrent evolution is now able to establish itself as a regular parasite.
Obviously, since the microbes of human diseases draw their nutritive supplies from man, they cannot persist except amongst populations so crowded that they are able to pass from one individual to another in unending succession. When the succession fails, the disease dies out, and is not renewed, except from foreign sources. Microbic disease is never contracted in desert places far from human settlements, and even in modern times it is comparatively rare amongst nomadic tribes, and, seemingly, was quite unknown in Arctic regions and in many Pacific islands before its introduction by Europeans. These maladies, therefore, must have made their appearance only after men had peopled certain regions in considerable numbers.
[Sidenote: Progress of Sanitary Science]
On the other hand, we have no certain evidence that any well-established parasitic disease has ever completely died out. The chances are all against such an occurrence in the past. When once established as parasites, the microbes, owing to the constant growth of human population, found a constantly augmented food supply, and therefore constantly increased opportunities of reaching fresh fields of conquest. Sanitary science is still in its infancy. Preventive measures, and perhaps other agencies, have caused the disappearance of leprosy from several countries, but it is still prevalent in many quarters of the globe. Contagious diseases have spread very widely. Earth and air borne diseases have become endemic instead of merely epidemic. Consumption is always with us, and almost every child contracts measles, whooping-cough, chicken-pox, and common cold. Small-pox has been replaced by vaccination, which is merely modified small-pox. Malaria has spread but little during the historic epoch, but only because its microbes were already present in almost every place where the mosquitoes that convey it are able to exist.
All our information indicates the Eastern Hemisphere as the place of origin both of man and of his microbic diseases. Parts of it have been inhabited by a dense and settled population from a time immensely remote. “Behind dim empires ghosts of dimmer empires loom.” Beyond the traces of the oldest civilisations we find evidences of primitive agricultural communities, and far beyond these the remains of the cave-men and hunters of the Stone Age. Even a race of hunters tends to increase faster than the food supply. Doubtless the pressure of population in the Old World led to the colonisation of the New. But even in the New World there are signs of a civilisation so ancient that some authorities have placed its beginnings as far back as a score or more of thousands of years. With the exception of malaria, it is extremely doubtful whether any zymotic disease existed in the whole of the New World at the time of its discovery by Columbus.
The subject is involved in obscurity; but, while it is evident that the European adventurers introduced many diseases, there is no clear indication that they found and brought back one. Apparently all the diseases which have been prevalent in Europe and America during the last four hundred years were prevalent in the former continent before the fifteenth century. Venereal disease and yellow fever have sometimes been regarded as exceptions. But the former was well known to the Roman physicians, and was common during the Middle Ages. Moreover, the inhabitants of the New World take the disease in a very acute form, and it is not found in remote communities to which Europeans have had no access. Yellow fever was first noted with certainty in the West Indies in the middle of the seventeenth century. The records of the time “tell of the importation of the disease from place to place, and from island to island.”
[Sidenote: Origins of Rare Diseases]
Not till more than a century later was it observed on the West Coast of Africa. There can be no doubt, however, that the earlier observers confused yellow fever with bilious malaria, and that it was present both in the West Indies and Africa long before a differential diagnosis was made. The fact that of all races negroes are most resistant to the disease would seem to indicate West Africa as the place of origin. In any case, it is certain that, with the exception of malaria, zymotic diseases, if not entirely absent, were extremely rare in the New World.
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE NATIVE RACES
[Sidenote: The Age of Pestilence is Passing]
Zymotic disease, then, arose amongst the slowly-growing populations of the Old World. Air and insect borne diseases may have arisen amongst the early hunters and nomads. Similar forms of disease, murrains as they were anciently termed--for example, distemper, rinderpest, the horse sickness in South Africa, the rabbit plague in Northern Canada, and the cattle fever in Texas--occur among lower animals, when these are present in considerable numbers. With the exception of tuberculosis and leprosy, endemic disease was probably almost unknown in the sparsely-peopled ancient world. The facts that air and water borne diseases spread very rapidly, that the illnesses caused by them are comparatively short and sharp, and that recovery is followed by immunity, must have caused rapid exhaustion of the food supply of the microbes. Under such conditions the persistence of the pathogenic species was maintained among the scanty populations by a passage to new and perhaps very distant sources of supply.
Introduced by travellers, or spreading from tribe to tribe, they appeared suddenly in epidemic form as plagues and pestilences, and, disappearing as suddenly, were not known again till a fresh generation furnished a fresh supply of food.
When, however, in spite of war, famine, and pestilence, the human race increased to such an extent that the number of fresh births furnished a perennial supply of food, while at the same time a rising civilisation and improved means of communication lessened the isolation of various communities, then many diseases slowly passed from an epidemic to an endemic form. Pestilence grew rare, but every individual was exposed to infection, and, during youth, either perished from, or acquired immunity against, the more prevalent forms of disease.
[Sidenote: Measles a National Scourge]
When endemic, zymotic disease--at any rate, disease against which immunity can be acquired--is far less terrible than when epidemic. Modern examples of ancient epidemics may be seen in isolated regions. In Pacific islands, for example, air-borne disease spreads like a flame. The whole community is stricken down. The sick are left untended and perish in multitudes. The entire business of the community is neglected, and famine frequently follows. Under such conditions measles or whooping-cough, diseases which we in England are accustomed to regard as scarcely more than nuisances, may rise to the level of a great national disaster. Thus, in 1749, 30,000 natives perished of measles on the banks of the Amazon. In 1829 half the population died in Astoria. In 1846 measles committed frightful ravages in the Hudson Bay territory. More recently a quarter of the total inhabitants was swept away in the Fiji group of islands.
[Sidenote: Sanitation is Sometimes Powerless]
At the dawn of history, long after the evolution of zymotic disease, the population of the Eastern Hemisphere was still sparse and scattered. Even as late as the Norman Conquest that of England was barely two millions--about one-third of the number now present in London. Means of communication were poor and beset by dangers. A journey from York to London was then a more serious affair than a journey from London to San Francisco to-day. Water and air borne diseases were, therefore, absent during long periods of time. When they came they spread as epidemics. Accordingly we read of plague and pestilence; of diseases suddenly becoming epidemic and sweeping away a fourth or half of entire communities. Historians are apt to attribute these immense catastrophes partly to the bad sanitation of the period and partly to diseases which have died out of the world, or, at any rate, out of Europe. Doubtless they are right in a few instances. But, apart from diseases which spread under special circumstances from tropical centres, had sanitation, under modern conditions of intercommunication and crowding, tends to render water-borne disease endemic, not epidemic. Over air-borne disease it has no effect. Measles, whooping-cough, chicken-pox, influenza, common cold, and small-pox (in a modified form) are as common as ever.
[Sidenote: Plagues “the Wrath of God”]
The character of these ancient epidemics, their special symptoms as indicated in old literature, their sudden and portentous appearance, which men attributed to the wrath of God, their tremendous infectivity and rapid spread, their equally sudden and complete departure as of Divine anger assuaged, point rather to air and water borne diseases of the types now endemic and comparatively harmless among us, but still so fearful in their effects on isolated communities. Like the light flashed from a child’s mirror on a darkened wall, so they flickered and swept forwards and backwards from end to end of the Old World--from the Malay Peninsula to the North Cape of Norway, from Kamschatka to the south point of Africa. A parallel may be found in the recent epidemic of rinderpest amongst the herbivorous animals of Africa. Years might pass, old men might remember, the peoples might sacrifice to their gods; but when a fresh generation of those who knew not the disease had arisen, when the harvest of the non-immune was ripe and ready, the diseases would return to the dreadful reaping. Behind them the earth was heaped with the dead, and the few and stricken survivors grubbed for roots to satisfy their hunger. To-day sanitation has nearly abolished water-borne diseases, and, in a population largely immune, epidemics of air-borne disease, like a light thrown on a sunlit wall, are but faint shadows of that which they were in their old days of awful power.
[Sidenote: Growth of Resisting Power]
The progress of consumption was different; it was never truly epidemic. Owing to its low infectivity, to its lingering nature, to the fact that no immunity could be acquired against it, it did not spread suddenly when first introduced, but when once established its virulence did not abate within measurable time. In other words, it was endemic from the beginning. It made its home in the hovels of the early settlers on the land. In such situations--as in Polynesian villages--modern Englishmen do not take the disease. But their remote ancestors were more susceptible; they could be infected by a smaller dose of the bacilli. Gradually, as civilisation advanced, the conditions grew more stringent; men gathered into larger and denser communities, into hamlets and villages in which they built houses ill lighted and worse ventilated.
With the rise of towns, and ultimately of great cities, the stringency of selection continually increased; and with it, step by step, the resisting power of the race. To-day Englishmen dwell under conditions as impossible to their remote ancestors as to the modern Red Indians. In fact, no race, especially in cold and temperate climates, is now able to achieve civilisation, to dwell in dense communities, unless it has previously undergone evolution against tuberculosis. But of this more anon.
So during the long sweep of the ages microbic diseases strengthened their hold on the inhabitants of the Eastern Hemisphere, who in turn slowly evolved powers of resistance. In like manner antelopes grew swift and wild sheep active when persecuted by beasts of prey. Then, when the germs of disease were rife in every home and thick on the garments of every man, there occurred the greatest event in human history, the vastest tragedy. Columbus, sailing across an untracked ocean, discovered the Western Hemisphere. The long separation between the inhabitants of the East and West ended. The diseases of the Old World burst with cataclysmal results on the New.
[Sidenote: 3,500,000 Destroyed by Small-pox]
The ancient condition of the Eastern Hemisphere was reproduced in the West. Again we read of plague and pestilence, of water-borne and air-borne diseases coming and going in great epidemics, and of the famines that followed. Measles and cholera piled the earth with the dead. The part played by small-pox was even greater. When taken to the West Indies in 1507 whole tribes were exterminated. A few years later it quite depopulated San Domingo. In Mexico it destroyed three and a half millions of people. Prescott describes this first fearful epidemic as “sweeping over the land like fire over the prairies, smiting down prince and peasant, and leaving its path strewn with the dead bodies of the natives, who--in the strong language of a contemporary--perished in heaps like cattle stricken with murrain.” In 1841 Catlin wrote of the United States: “Thirty millions of white men are now scuffling for the goods and luxuries of life over the bones of twelve millions of red men, six millions of whom have fallen victims to small-pox.”
But the principal part was played by tuberculosis. Air-borne and water-borne diseases generally left an immune remnant, but against tuberculosis no immunity could be acquired. Red Indians and Caribs could not in a few generations achieve an evolution which the inhabitants of the Old World had accomplished only after thousands of years, and at the cost of hundreds of millions of lives. Civilisation, which implies a dense and settled community with cities and towns, had suddenly become a necessity, but remained an impossibility to all the inhabitants of the temperate parts of the West. It is a highly significant fact that throughout the New World no city or town has its native quarter, whereas every European settlement in Asia and Africa has its native suburbs. The aborigines of the New World are found only in remote or inaccessible parts.
[Sidenote: A Plague that Spread like Fire]
The following is an example of the manner in which tuberculosis went to work: “The tribe of Hapaa is said to have numbered some four hundred when the smallpox came and reduced them by one-fourth. Six months later, a woman developed tubercular consumption; the disease spread like fire about the valley, and in less than a year two survivors, a man and a woman, fled from the newly-created solitude.... Early in the year of my visit, for example, or late in the year before, a first case of phthisis appeared in a household of seventeen persons, and by the end of August, when the tale was told to me, one soul survived, a boy who had been absent on his schooling.”
The Caribs of the West Indies are almost extinct. The Red Indians are going fast, as are the aborigines of cold and temperate South America. The Tasmanians have gone. The Australians and the Maoris are but a dwindling remnant. As surely as the trader with his clothes, or the missionary with his church and schoolroom appears, the work of extermination begins on Polynesian islands. Throughout the whole vast extent of the New World the only pure aborigines who seem destined to persist are those which live remote in mountains or in the depths of fever-haunted forests, where the white man is unable to build the towns and cities with which he has studded the cooler and more “healthy” regions of the north and south.
[Sidenote: Races that Decline before the Whites]
Many explanations, or pseudo-explanations, have been offered to account for the disappearance of the natives. We are told that they cannot endure “domestication,” that they “pine like caged eagles” in confinement, that the change produced by civilisation makes them infertile, as the change produced by captivity makes some wild animals infertile, and so forth. But the only peoples who are disappearing are those of the New World, some of whom were by no means savage. In Asia and Africa are many tribes far lower in the scale of civilisation who have persisted in constant communication with dense and settled communities from time immemorial. Notwithstanding all that has been written, the people of the New World do not wither away mysteriously when brought into contact with the white man. They die as other men do of violence, or famine, or old age, or disease. But deaths from all these causes, except the last, are now comparatively rare amongst them--much rarer than formerly during the time of their perpetual wars. The vast majority die of imported diseases--exactly the same diseases as white men die of. But their mortality is invariably much higher than that of white men, and they perish on an average at a younger age.
All this is not mere hypothesis. It can be proved by reference to carefully collected and tabulated statistics published by every department of Public Health in America, Australasia, and Polynesia. The cause of the sterility cannot be demonstrated with the same precision; but it is hardly necessary to invent fanciful causes when a reasonable one is to hand. The high mortality indicates a high sick-rate, and presumably illness is as much a cause of sterility in the New World as in the Old, among savages as among civilised people.
The Spanish conquest of the West Indies was followed by the swift disappearance of the natives. To that end the Spaniards unconsciously adopted the most effectual means possible. They satisfied their greed by forcing the natives to labour in plantations and in mines, and their religious enthusiasm by compelling attendance in churches and cathedrals. In other words, they placed the natives under conditions the most favourable for acquiring the diseases which they imported by every vessel. When the native population dwindled, it was replaced by negro slaves from West Africa.
[Sidenote: Africans Die in our Civilisation]
The history of negro migrations is extremely interesting and illuminating. There are no accounts of negro conquest outside the limits of Africa, but from very ancient times a constant stream of slaves has passed to Southern Europe and Asia, where they have been employed mainly in domestic service, and in more modern times to America, where their occupation has been mainly agricultural. The invasion of Asia has continued to our own day. But one may search from Spain to the Malay peninsula and, except in recent importations, find scarcely a trace of a negro ancestry. Yet slaves, like cattle, are valuable property, more cheaply bred than imported. In Eastern countries they have often been kindly treated, and many have attained to wealth and power. Like the African soldiers in Ceylon, of whom it is recorded that, though many thousands were imported by the Dutch and English, hardly a descendant survives, all perished in a few generations, the elimination of the unfit being so stringent as to cause extinction, not evolution. A permanent colony of native Africans in the midst of an ancient consumption-infested civilisation is impossible.
[Sidenote: Fate of Natives of America]
The fate of the negro migrations into America has been different. The race had undergone some evolution against consumption in Africa, and, therefore, was more resistant than the vanishing aborigines. In its new home, employed in agriculture in a hot climate where white men and tubercle bacilli, also recent importations, were as yet few in numbers, it was placed under the best conditions possible. Gradually, as the stringency of selection waxed, it evolved resisting power. To-day, American negroes are able to dwell even in Northern cities, though it is said “every other adult negro dies of consumption.” After the discovery of America the principal maritime races of Western Europe competed for its possession. Spain and Portugal, then powerful nations, had the first start in the race, and chose the seemingly richer tropics. But the forests of the centre and south were defended by malaria, which raised a barrier against immigration, and by heat and light, which raised a barrier against tuberculosis. Moreover, the Spaniards and the Portuguese intermarried freely with the aborigines, and the mixed race which resulted inherits in half measure the resisting power of both stocks. At the present day this mixed race, with a leavening of mulattoes, pure Spaniards, Portuguese, and negroes, inhabits the cities and more civilised parts. Even in tropical America the pure aborigines are found, speaking generally, only beyond the verge of civilisation. Farther south the disappearance of the natives has been more complete, and the cooler, healthier, and more open pampas are settled by a race more purely European.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE ANGLO-SAXON PEOPLES
[Sidenote: Expansion of the Anglo-Saxon]
The weaker British and French were shouldered into the seemingly inhospitable north. But the British won the battle of Quebec, and the French immigration soon ceased. That little fight is half forgotten, but it is doubtful if any battle in history had results half so important. It placed all North America in the grasp of the Anglo-Saxon, and gave his race enormous space for expansion. Unchecked by malaria, the new-comers gathered into communities and built towns and cities such as those which across the Atlantic were the homes of tuberculosis. The cold forced them to admit little air and light into their dwellings. The aborigines melted away from the borders of the settlements. Under the conditions there was little intermarriage. In that climate Indian women, and even half-caste children, could not exist within stone walls. The few white men who took native wives preserved them only while living a wild life remote from their kin.
The British conquest of North America and Australasia resembles the Saxon conquest of Great Britain. The natives have been exterminated within the area of settlement. It is in sharp contrast to their conquests in Asia and Africa. Both in the Old World and in the New the subjugation of the natives was accompanied by many wars and much bloodshed, and probably the conflicts in the former were more prolonged and destructive than those in the latter. But in no part of the Old World have the British exterminated the natives. They do not supplant them; they merely govern them. Southern Asia and East and West Africa are defended by malaria. The British cannot colonise them, and the natives have undergone such evolution against tuberculosis that they are capable of resisting the hard conditions imposed by modern civilisation. In South Africa, where there is little malaria, Europeans share the land with the natives, but the latter are likely to remain in an overwhelming majority.
If history teaches any lesson with clearness it is this--that conquest, to be permanent, must be accompanied with extermination, otherwise in the fulness of time the natives expel or absorb the conquerors. The Saxon conquest of England was permanent; of the Norman conquest there remains scarcely a trace. The Huns and the Franks founded permanent empires in Europe; the Roman Empire, and that of the Saracens in Spain, soon tumbled into ruins. It is highly improbable, therefore, that the British will retain their hold on their Old World dependencies. A handful of aliens cannot for ever keep in subjugation large and increasing races that yearly become more intelligent and insistent in their demands for self-government. But no probable conjunction of circumstances can be thought of that will uproot the Anglo-Saxons from their wide possession in the New World. The wars of extermination are ceasing with the spread of civilisation. We have ransacked the world, and now know every important disease. Diseases cannot come to us as they came to our forefathers and to the Red Indians, like visitations from on high. All the diseases that are capable of travelling have very nearly reached their limits; the rest we are able to check. Even in the unlikely event of a new disease arising, it would affect other races equally. Canada and Australasia, like the United States, may separate from the parent stem, but the race will persist. If ever a New Zealander broods over the ruins of London, he will be of British descent.
[Sidenote: The Natural History of Mankind]
The natural history of man is, in effect, a history of his evolution against disease. The story unfolded by it is of greater proportions than all the mass of trivial gossip about kings and queens and the accounts of futile dynastic wars and stupid religious controversies which fill so large a space in his written political history. In the latter, as told by historians, groping in obscurity and blinded by their own preconceptions, men and events are often distorted out of all proportions. A clever but prejudiced writer may pass base metal into perpetual circulation as gold. Luther and the Reformation are accepted as Divine by many people; they are reviled as diabolical by more. Cromwell was long regarded as accursed; to-day he is half-deified. How many of us are able to decide, on grounds of fact, not of fiction, whether the Roman Empire perished because the Romans, becoming luxurious, sinned against our moral code, as ecclesiastic historians would have us believe, or because a disease of intolerance and stupidity clouded the clear Roman brain and enfeebled the strong Roman hand, as Gibbon would have us think? But the natural history of man deals, without obscurity and without uncertainty, with greater matters. Study it, and the mists clear away from much even of political history. We see clearly how little the conscious efforts of man have influenced his destiny. We see forces unrecognised, enormous, uncontrolled, uncontrollable, working slowly but mightily towards tremendous conclusions--forces so irresistible and unchanging that, watching them, we are able even to forecast something of the future.
The mere political results of man’s evolution against disease are of almost incalculable magnitude. The human races of one half of the world are dying, and are being replaced by races from the other half. Not all the wars of all time taken together constitute so great a tragedy. A quite disproportionate part in this great movement has been borne by our own race. It has seized on the larger part of those regions in which the aborigines were incapable of civilisation, because incapable of resisting consumption, and were undefended by malaria. In the void created by disease it has more room to spread and multiply than any other race.
[Sidenote: Disease Mightier than the Sword]
Other races may dream of foreign conquests, but the time for founding permanent empires is past. There remains for them only temporary conquest, in a few malarious parts of the world in which Europeans cannot flourish and supplant the natives. Spain and Portugal lost their opportunity when they turned from the temperate regions and chose the tropics. France lost her opportunity on the Heights of Abraham. Germany is more than a century too late in the start. Russia can conquer only hardy aliens who will multiply under her rule and ultimately assert their supremacy. In times now far remote in the history of civilised peoples, the sword was the principal means for digging deep the foundations of permanent empires. Its place was taken by a more efficient instrument. A migrating race, armed with a new and deadly disease, and with high powers of resisting it, possesses a terrible weapon of offence. But now disease has spread over the whole world and so is losing its power of building empires. The long era of the great migrations of the human race, of the great conquests, is closing fast.
[Sidenote: Possibilities of the Black Races]
It is generally supposed by historians and others that races that disappear before the march of civilisation are mentally unfitted for it. The assumption is not supported by an iota of real evidence. To be mentally incapable a race must be of very defective memory. Recently a school of Australian natives, who belong to one of the “lowest” of races, took the first place in the colony. Negroes occupy a very inferior position in America, especially in Anglo-Saxon territories. But they are stamped by glaring physical differences, are treated with great contempt and jealousy by the whites, and their acquired mental attitudes, therefore, do not develop under good conditions. It is very possible that they are mentally inferior to the whites; but not so inferior as is commonly believed.
Russian peasants, though not sharply differentiated by physical peculiarities from the governing classes, are equally scorned by them, and show a mental development hardly, if at all, superior to the negroes of United States. The Latins of South America seem very incapable of orderly government, but they are the heirs of a civilisation older than our own. At any rate, while it is conceivable the American negroes and some other races are incapable of building up a highly-enlightened society by their own efforts, it is manifest that they are able to persist and multiply when civilised conditions are imposed on them. Not so the aborigines of the New World, some of whom--for example, the Maoris and the Polynesians--are admittedly of good mental type. They perish swiftly and helplessly of bodily ailments.
Very clearly, then, human races are capable or incapable of civilisation, not because they are mentally, but because they are physically, fit or unfit.
G. ARCHDALL REID
An attempt is made in these pages to compile a dictionary of the main existing races of the world, arranged in alphabetical order. The accompanying Ethnological Chart on page 352, will enable the reader to see at a glance the relationship of the various main divisions, families, and stocks under which these races are distributed. The Dictionary and the Chart, if used in conjunction, will thus supply information about any race named in the list, and will tell the inquirer to what branch of the human race it belongs. It is obviously impossible to make the Dictionary inclusive of every tiny and out-of-the-way tribe of Africa or South America, but all important races are included. If the reader wants to know something about the Abyssinians, he will look them up in the Dictionary, and find that they are partly Semitic Himyarites, partly Hamitic Gallas, etc. The Chart will then show him that the Hamitic and Semitic families belong to the great Caucasic Division of mankind, that the Himyarites are one of the main stocks of the Semitic family, and that the Gallas belong to the Eastern branch of the Hamitic family. The student should familiarise himself with the names and places of the families and chief stocks of mankind, as given in the Chart, and so greatly facilitate the task of reference. The intention of both Chart and Dictionary is, of course, to serve as a kind of index to the History proper, which must be consulted for further information. As far as can be discovered, no previous attempt has been made to summarise the conclusions of modern ethnology in this convenient form. The illustrations depict some of the most interesting races.
=Ababua.= A tribe of Sudanese negroes in Central Africa. See WELLE GROUP.
=Abaka.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Abkhasians.= A Western Caucasian tribe occupying the Black Sea coast from Pitzunta to Mingrelia, akin to CIRCASSIANS (q.v.).
=Abo=, or =Ibo=. See NIGERIAN GROUP.
=Abors.= An Assamese tribe in the Brahmaputra Valley, belonging to the Tibetan branch of the Southern Mongolic family. Wild jungle-dwellers.
=Absarakas.= See SIOUAN.
=Abukaya.= A negro tribe in the Sudan. See NILITIC GROUP.
=Abunda.= A settled and fairly civilised race of Bantu Negroes, occupying the seaboard and inland districts of Portuguese West Africa, south of Ambriz.
=Abyssinians.= A mixed race of Hamitic, Semitic, and Negro stock, inhabiting Abyssinia (from Arabic habashi--mixed). The main racial element--Abyssinians proper--consists of brown-skinned Semitic Himyarites, who probably emigrated from Arabia in prehistoric times, and profess themselves descended from the Queen of Sheba. Since the sixteenth century Abyssinia has been over-run by the Hamitic Gallas (q.v.), who have largely mingled their blood with this older element. There is also a considerable admixture of Sudanese Negro blood. Since the fourth century the religion of Abyssinia has been a corrupt form of Christianity; the mediæval myth of Prester John perhaps relates to this fact.
=Acadians.= French settlers of seventeenth century in Nova Scotia.
=Achcæans.= See ARGIVES.
=Achinese.= A warlike Malay race of Sumatra, long at war with the Dutch colonists.
=Accras.= See GA.
=Achuas=, or =Wochua=. A pygmy Negrito race, well-proportioned, though dwarfish, inhabiting the forests of the Welle and Aruwimi districts in Central Africa, and living by hunting.
=Adamawa Group.= A group of Sudanese Negro tribes inhabiting the district of the Upper Benue in Northern Nigeria.
=Adansis.= Negro tribe on Guinea coast. See TSHI.
=Æolians.= See HELLENES.
=Aetas.= A Negrito race of the Philippine Islands, belonging to the Oceanic family of Ethiopic Man. Short of stature, black-skinned, with woolly hair, they present many points of resemblance to the Negritoes of Central Africa. There are many crosses between Aetas and Malays.
=Afars.= A nomadic Turki tribe of Persia. See also DANAKILS.
=Afghans.= A race of Iranian stock, belonging to the great Aryan family, who form about half the population of Afghanistan. They are divided into various tribes, of which the Duranis are the dominant one, the Ghilzais the most warlike, and the Yusufzais the most turbulent. There are also large tribes known as Pathans, who are of the same stock as the Afghans, but are classed separately. The Afghans are a handsome and athletic race, inured to war from their childhood, lawless and treacherous, but sober and hardy. Throughout the nineteenth century they were a constant source of trouble to British India, but a new era seems to have opened under the present Amir. For non-Afghan inhabitants of Afghanistan, see HAZARAS, KIZIL-BASHIS, and TAJIKS.
=Afridis.= A warlike and turbulent Pathan race, occupying the neighbourhood of the Khyber Pass, and often at war with the English.
=Afrikanders.= Persons of European descent born and living in South Africa.
=Agaos.= An indigenous Hamitic race of Northern Abyssinia.
=Ahoms.= Primitive inhabitants of Assam, belonging to the Indo-Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family.
=Ainus.= An aberrant family of Caucasic Man in the Far East. They were probably the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan, but are now few in number, and confined to Yezo, the Kurile Islands, and part of Sakhalin. They have regular and often handsome features of Caucasic type, but are of low stature, and characteristically marked by an abundance of coarse, black, wavy or crisp hair on head, face, and body, whence they are commonly called the “Hairy Ainus.”
=Akawais.= See CARIBS.
=Akkas.= A pygmy Negrito race of the Welle district in Central Africa, akin to the Achuas (q.v.), who are specially interesting because they are represented on Egyptian monuments of 3400 B.C., with their existing racial characters.
=Akkads=, or =Akkadians=. An extinct Mesopotamian race, founders of the oldest known civilisation in Babylonia, who belonged to the Northern Mongolic family, and probably to the Turki or Finno-Ugrian stock. They invented the cuneiform alphabet, which was adopted by their Semitic successors--see BABYLONIANS--and it is thought that they may have been the ancestors of the Chinese.
=Akpas.= See NIGERIAN GROUP.
=Alani.= A warlike nomadic race, probably belonging to the Turki stock of the Northern Mongolic family, and allied to the Tartars (q.v.). In the fifth century they made settlements in Gaul and Spain, where they were absorbed by the Vandals and the Visigoths respectively. The remnant left in the East of Europe were conquered in the thirteenth century by the Golden Horde, and their name disappeared from history.
=Albanians=, or =Arnauts=. The warlike race of mountaineers who inhabit Albania, on the western coast of the Balkan Peninsula. They are semi-civilised, live in a perpetual state of tribal warfare, and make admirable soldiers, forming the best part of the Turkish Army. They are probably the oldest of the Balkan races, and represent the earliest Aryan immigrants into Europe [see ILLYRIANS]. They are partly Christian, partly Mohammedan.
=Albigenses.= A heretical sect, mostly of Provençal descent, who appeared in the South of France about the eleventh century, and were rigidly persecuted until they became extinct in the middle of the thirteenth century.
=Alemanni.= An ancient German tribe on Upper Rhine, of Teutonic stock, from whom the modern Swabians and Swiss are in great part descended.
=Aleutians.= Natives of Aleutian Islands, belonging to Eskimo stock of Northern American family.
=Alfuros.= A half-breed race between Malays and Papuans: in Malaysia, a term given by Malays to their rude non-Mohammedan neighbours.
=Algonquian.= A group of North American Indian tribes, formerly inhabiting the Central and Southern States of America, east of the Rocky Mountains, and as far south as South Carolina, now gathered into Indian Reservations. They include the Algonquin, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Cree, Delaware, Fox, Illinois, Massachusett, Mohican, Ojibway, Sac, Shawnee, and many smaller tribes.
=Alibamus.= See MUSKHOGEAN.
=Ali-Elis.= See TURKOMANS.
=Alsatians.= Natives of Alsace, of High German stock, allied to the Swabians (q.v.).
=Amadis.= See WELLE GROUP.
=Ama.= Prefix of many Bantu racial names, as Ama-Zulu, Ama-Xosa. See ZULU, etc.
=American.= One of the four main divisions of the human race, comprising three families, occupying North, Central, and Southern America respectively. Typically red-skinned, with lank, black hair, retreating foreheads, high-bridged noses, and either long or broad skulls--dolichocephalic or brachycephalic.
=Americans.= The English-speaking white inhabitants of the United States, mainly of Anglo-Saxon descent. See also LATIN AMERICANS.
=Amharas.= Natives of Central Abyssinia, of Hamitic descent.
=Amorites.= A branch of the ancient Libyan race, of Semitic origin, inhabiting Canaan before the arrival of the Israelites from Egypt.
=Anatolian Turks.= See TURKS.
=Andamanese.= Natives of Andaman Islands, a race belonging to the Oceanic Negrito family, possibly representing the primitive type from which both Negroes and Papuans have sprung. They exhibit the lowest stage of civilisation.
=Andis.= See LESGHIANS.
=Angles.= A Teutonic race of Low German stock, who formerly inhabited the country round Schleswig, in North Germany. In the fifth century they migrated in large numbers to Britain, and with the Jutes and Saxons formed the stock of the Anglo-Saxon or English people.
=Anglo-Saxons.= A general name now given to the English-speaking races of English, Scotch, and even Irish and Welsh descent, who inhabit the British Empire; in a wider sense, to all people of British descent.
=Annamese.= Natives of Annam, or Cochin-China, belonging to the Indo-Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family; now under French rule.
=Apaches.= See ATHABASCAN.
=Appalachis.= See MUSKHOGEAN.
=Arabs.= One of the main branches of the Semitic family, inhabiting the Arabian peninsula. They are usually divided into two branches, the Ishmaelites of the north and the Joktanides of the south. The latter probably represent the oldest Arab stock, and may be of African origin. The primitive Arabs were nomadic horse-breeders and shepherds, very warlike, and of fine physical development. Under Islam they reared an enduring religious civilisation, which has had the greatest influence on the world after Christianity.
=Arakanese.= Natives of Arakan, in Lower Burma, of Indo-Chinese stock.
=Aramæans.= One of the main groups of the Semitic family, Syro-Chaldeans, who anciently inhabited Syria, Palestine, and the Euphrates Valley. The modern Syrians (q.v.) belong to it.
=Araucanians.= The chief Indian race of Chili, possessing an ancient civilisation like those of Peru and Mexico, though less advanced. The Araucanians are probably the finest native race of the New World. They are a fierce and warlike people, who have always preserved their independence.
=Arawaks.= A group of South American Indian tribes in the Guianas, including Maypuris, Wapisianas, Atorais and others.
=Arcadians.= A race of ancient Greece, inhabiting the central highlands of the Peloponnesus, whose seclusion from the world caused them to be identified with the quality which we still call Arcadian simplicity.
=Arecunas.= See CARIBS.
=Argentines.= White natives of the Argentine Republic in South America, mainly of Spanish descent.
=Argives.= Natives of Argos, the most important state of Homeric Greece: hence a generic term for Greeks or Hellenes in the Homeric Age. Achæans is another term similarly used.
=Armenians.= Natives of Armenia, the mountainous country round Mount Ararat, now divided between Russia, Persia, and Turkey. They belong to the Iranian stock of the Aryan family, blended with Semitic blood, and with a still older unknown but probably non-Aryan element. They are not warlike, but of quick intelligence and specially successful in commerce.
=Arnauts.= See ALBANIANS.
=Aryans.= The most important family of Caucasic Man, to which all the chief civilisations of modern times belong. A tall, fair-skinned, long-headed race, whose origin is still doubtful--though it was probably in Central Asia--and who spread in prehistoric times over the whole of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. Almost all modern Europeans are of Aryan descent. The family is also called INDO-EUROPEAN or INDO-GERMANIC, but these names are open to objections from which the term Aryan is free.
=Ashantis.= See TSHI.
=Assamese.= Natives of Assam, between India and Burma, belonging to the Hindu stock of the Aryan family.
=Assinaboins.= See SIOUAN.
=Assyrians.= One of the main branches of the Semitic family. The Assyrians founded a great empire in the northern part of Mesopotamia, of which Nineveh was the capital, and afterwards conquered the older Babylonian state (710 B.C.) and Egypt (671 B.C.), thus forming the first world-empire known to history. Within a century Assyria had become a Median province, and its people ceased to have an independent existence.
=Athabascan= or =Tinney=. A group of North American Indian tribes, formerly inhabiting Alaska and the greatest part of Canada. It includes the Apaches, Chippewayans, Hupas, Kutchins, Navajos, Tacullis, and Umbquas.
=Athenians.= The most important race of ancient Greece, whose city of Athens was the earliest centre of civilisation in the historical age of Europe.
=Australians.= The aborigines of Australia, a branch of the Oceanic Negro family. Their numerous tribes present a general uniformity of physical and mental development, under which two main types may be recognised. The earlier of these is probably that shown by the extinct Tasmanians (q.v.), one of the lowest races in point of culture yet discovered, who were probably still in the earliest stage of the Stone Age. The other type was perhaps akin to the Dravidians of India, or to a very low Caucasic race. The Australians are among the lowest of savage races, and present many features which have thrown light on the manners, customs and beliefs of primitive man.
=Australians.= White inhabitants of Australia, mostly of Anglo-Saxon descent.
=Austrians.= Inhabitants of the Austrian empire, including a great diversity of races. The name is properly applied only to the German-speaking people, of High-German Teutonic stock, who predominate in Austria proper.
=Auvergnats.= Natives of Auvergne, in Central France. A short, sturdy, dark, round-skulled race, formerly regarded as typical Aryan Celts, but possibly descended from an older non-Aryan people. Much employed in Paris as porters.
=Avars.= See LESGHIANS.
=Avars.= A Tartar tribe, belonging to the Turki stock of the Northern Mongolic family, who appeared in the district round the Caspian Sea about the fourth century, and later made predatory raids over a large part of Eastern Europe. They were subdued by Charlemagne, and disappeared from history in the ninth century. They seem to have been closely allied to the Huns, whom they resembled in physical characteristics and warlike qualities.
=Awawandias.= Bantu Negroes of the Nyassa plateau in British Central Africa.
=Aymaras.= A race of South American Indians in Bolivia, probably related to the Incas (q.v.) and perhaps their ancestors.
=Azandeh=, or =Niam-Niam=. Sudanese Negroes of the Welle group. Notorious cannibals.
=Aztecs.= The dominant Indian race in Mexico at the arrival of the Spanish invaders. They entered the country about the end of the thirteenth century, and founded the city of Mexico in 1325. Around it they reared a remarkable civilisation and a sanguinary religion. They were warlike, ferocious and cruel, but had a considerable aptitude for the arts of peace. Their empire was destroyed by Cortes in 1521, and annexed to Spain. Every trace of Aztec nationality was suppressed, but their name still lingers among the Nahuan Indians, and their blood is mixed with that of the conquerors. Many attempts have been made to find an Old World origin for Mexican culture, but they are not convincing.
=Babylonians.= The Semitic race which founded one of the greatest of ancient civilisations in the rich alluvial plains of Chaldæa and on the arid plateau of Mesopotamia. Their history is too long to summarise here, but it may be stated that the Semitic peoples, variously known as Babylonians, Chaldæans, Elamites, Medians, and Assyrians, invaded and dispossessed at different times the primitive Mongolic race of Akkads (q.v.). Their earliest settlement seems to have been at Ur of the Chaldees, on the right bank of the Euphrates. Babylon and Nineveh were afterwards the seats of the Babylonian and Assyrian powers, whilst Elamite and Median conquerors intervened at various times. These powerful Semitic races made great advances in art, science, literature, religion, and social policy. Their first incursion, probably from Arabia, into the Euphrates Valley dates back to about 3800 B.C.
=Baggaras.= A fierce and warlike race settled in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and formerly dominant under the Mahdi.
=Baghirmis.= See LAKE CHAD GROUP.
=Bakairi.= See CARIBS.
=Bakatla=, =Bakwena=. Bantu Negroes of Bechuana stock.
=Bakwiri.= Bantu Negroes settled in the Cameroons.
=Balinese.= A Malayan race of the East Indian Archipelago.
=Balolo.= Bantu Negroes of the Middle Congo; one of the finest negro races.
=Balong.= Bantu Negroes of West Africa.
=Baltis.= A hardy Tibetan race, inhabiting the Alpine valley of the Upper Indus.
=Baluba=, or =Basonge=. A dominant Bantu Negro race of the Kassai basin in Equatorial Africa.
=Baluchis=, or =Beluchis=. Natives of Baluchistan, south of Afghanistan, of Iranian (Aryan) descent, with a mingling of Tartar (Mongolic) blood. The dominant race of the country is the Brahui, aboriginals who are probably of Mongolic descent, allied to the Dravidians (q.v.) of India. The Brahui are of Mongolic type, short, with round flat faces, hospitable and generous. They are the more settled portion of the inhabitants. The Baluchis are chiefly nomads, taller, with more Aryan features, a warlike and predatory people.
=Balunda.= Bantu Negroes of South Central Africa, occupying the Congo-Zambesi divide.
=Bamangwato.= Bantu Negroes of north Bechuanaland; Khama’s semi-civilised people.
=Bambaras.= See MANDINGAN.
=Banandi.= Bantu Negroes of apish type, in the Semliki forests.
=Bangalas.= Bantu Negroes of Middle Congo, on the Ubangi river.
=Bantus.= One of the two subdivisions of the African Negro family of Ethiopic Man, occupying the southern half of the African continent, south of the Cameroons and Albert Nyanza. A Negro race modified from the Sudanese type by Hamite influences.
=Banyai.= Bantu Negroes, south of the Middle Zambesi.
=Banyoro.= See WANYORO.
=Bapedi.= Bantu Negroes of Bechuana stock.
=Bareas.= Sudanese Negroes inhabiting the Abyssinian slopes.
=Barguzins.= See BURIATS.
=Baris.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Barolongs.= Bantu Negroes of Bechuana stock, between Vryburg and Molopo river. Mafeking is their capital.
=Barotse.= Bantu Negroes of Bechuana stock, about headwaters of Molopo river.
=Barrés.= South American Indians in Venezuela and Guiana.
=Basés.= Sudanese Negroes of Abyssinian slopes, a very low negroid type.
=Bashkirs.= A branch of the Turki stock of the Northern Mongolic family. They are first mentioned in the tenth century as a warlike and idolatrous race, noted for their large, round, short heads, from which their name is derived. They now inhabit the Orenberg and Perm districts of Russia, on the western slopes of the Ural. Some are settled agriculturists, others pastoral nomads.
=Bashukulumbwe.= Bantu Negroes of Kafue basin in Zambesia.
=Basimba= or =Cimbebas=. Aboriginal Negroes of South Angola; a low Bantu type, or possibly Negrito, allied to Bushmen.
=Basonge.= See BALUBA.
=Basques.= One of the few non-Aryan races still existing in Europe, where they inhabit the districts on the French and Spanish sides of the Western Pyrenees. They originally occupied a much wider area in this neighbourhood, and preserve their ancient costume and language. Their ethnological affinities are still in dispute, but the best opinion is that they represent the ancient Iberians (q.v.), a Western Hamitic race, related to the Berbers of North Africa on the one hand and to the Picts of Scotland and the ancient Irish on the other. Probably they have occupied their present home since Neolithic times. They are mainly agriculturists, with all the rustic virtues, and make excellent soldiers and servants.
=Bassas.= See LIBERIAN GROUP.
=Bastaards.= See GRIQUAS.
=Bastarnæ.= See GOTHS.
=Basutos.= The most civilised race of Bantu Negroes, of the Bechuana stock, who inhabit the rugged uplands of Basutoland, a British Crown Colony. They have long been subjected to European and Christian influence, under which they have presented the sole instance of a pure negro community, which has made itself self-supporting and approximately civilised. They have succeeded in assimilating Western culture, and their little State--which always preserved its independence against other natives and Boers--is a very flourishing example of what the negro can do under favourable auspices.
=Batanga.= Bantu Negroes of the Cameroons.
=Batavi.= An ancient German race inhabiting the island formed by the Meuse and an arm of the Rhine. Ancestors of the modern Dutch.
=Bateke.= Bantu Negroes of Congo, above Stanley Pool.
=Batjans.= See INDONESIAN.
=Batlapi.= Bantu Negroes of Bechuana stock, near Vryburg.
=Batonga= or =Batoka=. Bantu Negroes of Zambesia, Manicaland and Tongaland.
=Battaks.= A pre-Malay race of North Sumatra, probably allied to the Polynesians (q.v.).
=Batwas.= A pygmy (q.v.) Negrito race south of Congo, allied to Bushmen.
=Batwanas.= Bantu Negroes of North Bechuanaland.
=Bavarians.= A branch of the High German stock of the Teutonic family, in Bavaria.
=Bayansis.= Bantu Negroes of Middle Congo, on Kwa River. Strong negro element.
=Bechuanas.= A main stock of Bantu Negroes, occupying what is known as British Bechuanaland. The name is of European origin, and has no native significance as applied to the race, but is a convenient general term.
=Bedawi= or =Bedouins=. Nomadic Arabs (q.v.) who inhabit the deserts of Arabia and the neighbouring countries, and live by stock-breeding and robbery. Their breed of horses is world-famous. They are independent, chivalrous and hospitable. They correspond to the Biblical Ishmaelites, whose race and customs they preserve practically unchanged.
=Bejas.= A race of Eastern Hamites, of splendid physique, occupying the eastern seaboard of Africa north of Massowah, including Bisharis, Hadendowas, and other tribes.
=Belgae.= The northernmost of the three races occupying Gaul in Cæsar’s time, probably of Low German stock, with perhaps a Celtic element.
=Belgians.= The inhabitants of Belgium, formerly the Spanish or Austrian Netherlands, of very mixed origin. The natives are either Flemings of Teutonic stock, or Celtic Walloons (q.v.). Mingled with these are large numbers of German, French and Dutch immigrants; and constant crossing of blood has tended to produce a truly Belgian type out of all these fluctuating elements. They are among the most patient and productive of agriculturists, mostly small proprietors; and they possess flourishing manufactures and a rich commerce through the great port of Antwerp.
=Beluchis.= See BALUCHIS.
=Bengalis.= The majority of the natives of Bengal belong to the Hindu stock of the Aryan family, which was probably the first to develop a true civilisation and a great literature (in the ancient Sanscrit tongue). The typical Bengali is quick-witted, versatile, and successful in the arts of peace, but not warlike--though the native army of the old East Indian Company was largely recruited from Bengal. The Bengali Babu, of the professional or lower official class, is well known.
=Beluchis.= See BALUCHIS.
=Benin.= See NIGERIAN GROUP.
=Berbers.= A Western Hamitic race occupying the Atlas Mountains and the Northern Sahara, of predatory and warlike habits. They are known in Algeria as Kabyles, and in Sahara as Tuaregs. Largely dark-haired and swarthy, with prominent noses, they belong to the Melanochroid branch of Caucasic Man. They correspond to the ancient Numidians.
=Betsimisarakas.= One of the three main divisions of the Malagasy, or Malayo-African race which inhabits Madagascar. They occupy the east coast.
=Bhils.= Primitive and still wild non-Aryan inhabitants of Central India, of Kolarian family (q.v.).
=Bisharis.= See BEJAS.
=Blackfoot Indians.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Bœotians.= A branch of the Æolian race in ancient Greece. The Bœotians were supposed to be peculiarly dull, and were the typical rustic clowns of Greek literature.
=Boers.= White inhabitants of Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony, mainly of Dutch descent, with a French Huguenot element and a sprinkling of Negro blood. They were the original colonists of South Africa, which they entered in 1652. A race of farmers (Boer is derived from the Dutch boor, peasant), they also proved themselves to be hardy pioneers and admirable, though not at all romantic, fighters, learning in long native wars the arts of strategy, which they exercised so well against the English in the South African War of 1899-1902. They have now accepted the English rule, and promise to be among our most flourishing African subjects.
=Bohemians.= See CZECH.
=Bolivians.= White natives of Bolivia in South America, of Spanish descent, with a considerable admixture of Indian blood.
=Bongos.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Botocudos.= South American Indians on eastern seaboard of Brazil.
=Brahui.= See BALUCHIS.
=Brazilians.= White natives of Brazil, mainly of Portuguese descent, but with a considerable admixture, in many districts, of Indian and negro blood.
=Bretons.= Natives of Brittany, descended from a short, round-headed, dark race, generally called Celtic, but perhaps pre-Aryan.
=Bribris.= South American Indians of Costa Rica.
=Britons.= (1) The ancient Britons were a Celtic race, whose remnants are still to be found in the Welsh (q.v.). They attained a considerable degree of civilisation under the Roman conquerors, and adopted Christianity. The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain drove most of them back into Wales, Cornwall, and other outlying portions of the island, whilst the remainder were either destroyed or assimilated. (2) In the wide modern sense, Britons are the white citizens of the British Empire.
=Bugis= or =Buginese=. Natives of Boni in Celebes; a primitive Malay race.
=Bulalas.= See LAKE CHAD GROUP.
=Bulgars.= A branch of the Finns (q.v.), who were originally settled on the banks of the Volga. In the sixth century they crossed the Danube and conquered the modern Bulgaria, then occupied by the Slavonic Slovenians (q.v.). A speedy fusion took place between the Slovenians and the Bulgars, who adopted the language and customs of the former, and rose to greatness as a Slav power. In the ninth and tenth centuries they ruled the greater part of the Balkan Peninsula, and warred successfully with the Byzantine Empire, which, however, subjected them in 1019 under Basil II., “the slayer of the Bulgarians.” Later they passed under the Turkish rule, and ceased to have an independent national existence down to the nineteenth century.
=Bulgarians.= Inhabitants of the modern Balkan state of Bulgaria, descended from the Bulgars (q.v.) with considerable admixtures of Greek and Turkish blood.
=Bulloms.= See TEMNÉ GROUP.
=Burgundians.= An ancient people of Teutonic race (High German), who were originally settled between the Oder and Vistula. In the fifth century they invaded Gaul, where they formed the first kingdom of Burgundy, between the Aar and the Rhone. There were many later Burgundian kingdoms and duchies, of which the last and most famous was that of Charles the Bold, annexed to France in 1477. The Burgundians are now French subjects, but still show traces of their Teutonic origin.
=Buriats.= The Western or Siberian branch of the Mongol stock of the Northern Mongolic family. They occupy the vicinity of Lake Baikal The majority are nomad pastors, but some have taken to agriculture. A peace-loving, but lazy and drunken people; they include various tribes, such as the Barguzins, Selengese, Idinese, Kudaras and Olkhonese.
=Burmese=, or =Burmans=. A short-statured, thick-set and flat-featured people, approaching the Chinese type, the principal race of the Indo-Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family. They inhabit Burma--now a British possession--and are excitable, turbulent, and given to dacoity, or highway robbery. They make good farmers and shopkeepers, but are not warlike or methodical.
=Burus.= See INDONESIANS.
=Bushmen.= A nomadic Negro race of South Africa, who stand at the lowest stage of human culture. They are probably the aborigines of South Africa, where they have been dispossessed by Hottentots and Bantus from the north. They are thin and wiry, of small stature, not unlike the Hottentots in colour and features. They live by hunting, and possess a curious mythology. Their artistic powers, comparable to those of Palæolithic Man, are shown in the remarkable rock-drawings on the walls of their caves.
=Calchaquis.= South American Indians, in Plate River district.
=Cambojans.= Natives of Cambodia, Mongoloid approaching Caucasic type.
=Canaanites.= One of the main branches of the great Semitic family, inhabiting Palestine and the Mauritanian sea-coast in ancient times, including Jews, Phœnicians, Carthaginians, Moabites, Amorites, Idumæans and Philistines (q.v.). A fierce and warlike people, with a remarkable genius for religion, which has greatly influenced the modern world.
=Canadians.= White natives of Canada, of mixed French and Anglo-Saxon descent.
=Caribs.= South American Indians, formerly occupying the West Indian Islands, and now the shores of the Caribbean Sea, including Macusi, Bakairi, Akawai, Arecuna, and Rucuyenne tribes. They are strongly built, warlike and fierce, but honourable. The term cannibal is supposed to be a corruption of their name based on their habits.
=Carthaginians.= Natives of one of the great empires of the ancient world, which was founded at Carthage, near the modern Bizerta, by Phœnician colonists in the ninth century B.C., and was destroyed by Rome in 146 B.C. Carthage was the great rival of Rome as a Mediterranean power. Its inhabitants belonged to the Canaanite stock of the Semitic family, and were a nation of traders, cruel and gloomy in temperament, worshippers of Moloch with human sacrifices. Though in Hannibal they produced one of the greatest of generals, they were not warlike, and trusted chiefly to mercenaries, wherefore they fell.
=Catalans.= Natives of North-east Spain, mostly of Gothic descent, and still distinct from other Spaniards in language and costume. Honest and enterprising, turbulent, and intensely devoted to liberty.
=Caucasians.= One of the families of Caucasic Man, inhabiting the mountainous region of the Caucasus, and divided into southern, western, and eastern branches [see GEORGIANS, CIRCASSIANS, CHECHENZES, LESGHIANS]. They include a great number of different tribes, who seem to have settled there from the earliest historical times. Some of these, the Melanochroid highlanders, like the Georgians, Circassians, and Lesghians, present an almost ideal standard of physical beauty, whilst others are squat and ungainly. Some ethnologists see in the Caucasus the primitive home of the Aryan family, from whom the Caucasians would, on this view, be an offshoot. The Ossets (q.v.) are certainly Aryan. The Caucasians are very warlike, and struggled till quite recently with success against the Russian domination.
=Caucasic.= One of the four great divisions of the human race. Type, white-skinned, square-jawed (orthognathous), skull between broad and long (mesocephalic), hair soft, straight, or wavy; in intelligence, enterprise, and civilisation, much superior to other divisions.
=Cayugas.= See IROQUOIAN.
=Celts.= See KELTS.
=Chakhars.= A branch of Eastern Mongols, settled on the south-east boundary of the Desert of Gobi.
=Chaldæans.= See BABYLONIANS.
=Chamorros.= Aborigines of the Ladrone Islands, so named from their thievish propensities. A branch of the Oceanic Mongolic family, probably allied to the Formosans (q.v.).
=Chancas.= See INCAS.
=Chaudors.= A nomad tribe inhabiting the steppes east of the Caspian and south of the Oxus. See TURKOMANS.
=Chapogirs.= See TUNGUSES.
=Charruas.= An extinct race of South American Indians in South Brazil, peculiar for their extremely black colour with lank hair.
=Chechenzes.= A branch of the Eastern stock of the Caucasian family, inhabiting the northern slopes of the Eastern Caucasus. Their chief tribes are Ingushis, Kishis, and Tushis.
=Cheremisses.= See FINNS.
=Cherokees.= A brave and warlike tribe of North American Indians. See IROQUOIAN.
=Cheyennes.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Chibchas.= South American Indians of Bogota.
=Chichimecs.= See NAHUANS.
=Chickasaws.= See MUSKHOGEANS.
=Chilians.= White natives of Chili, of Spanish descent, with a mixture of Araucanian Indian blood.
=Chinese.= One of the most numerous races of the world, inhabiting the Chinese Empire. They are a stock of the Southern Mongolic family, and it is thought by some ethnologists that they are descended from the Mongolic Akkads (q.v.) of Mesopotamia. There is a remarkable uniformity in the physical type presented by the Chinese in all climates and environments; they are the most homogeneous of great peoples. They are yellow-skinned, short in stature, with obliquely set eyes, high cheek-bones, long skulls, and broad faces, with slight prognathism. They possess an ancient and highly organised civilisation, which is characterised by its conservatism and slowness to accept new ideas--so different in this from the Japanese. The Chinese are naturally frugal, industrious, and patient; they are excellent agriculturists, and very gregarious; they despise war, but make excellent soldiers when drilled by Europeans or Japanese. They are eminently literary, and have a high system of morality. There are many local varieties, such as the Puntis of the Canton districts, the Hakkas of Swatow, the Hoklas of Fohkien, the Dungans (q.v.), which need not be farther particularised.
=Chinooks.= A nearly extinct tribe of North American Indians on the Columbia River, on whose language is based the Chinook jargon, or traders’ Lingua Franca of British Columbia.
=Chins.= See SINGPHOS.
=Chippewayans.= See ATHABASCAN.
=Chiquitos.= South American Indians of Upper Paraguay basin.
=Chiriguanos.= South American Indians of Bolivia.
=Chitralis.= Natives of Chitral, in the Hindu Khush, rough, hardy hillmen, closely allied to the Kafirs (q.v.) of Kafiristan.
=Chocos.= A tribe of South American Indians of Matto Grosso.
=Choktaws.= See MUSKHOGEAN.
=Chontals.= Central American Indians of Nicaragua.
=Chols.= See MAYA-QUICHÉ.
=Chorasses.= See KALMUKS.
=Chorotegans.= Central American Indians of Nicaragua.
=Chukchis.= A Northern Mongolic race of North-east Siberia, closely akin to the American Eskimo in features and customs. They are of high character and very independent, but at a low stage of civilisation, and live by reindeer-breeding and hunting. A branch of the Chukchis, differing mainly in language, is known as the Koryaks.
=Chunchos.= South American Indians on tributaries of Beni River in Peru.
=Cimbebas.= See BASIMBA.
=Circassians=, or =Tcherkesses=. A race of Caucasian mountaineers, formerly inhabiting the Black Sea coast between Anapa and Pitzunta, of high physical type, who maintained an unavailing struggle against Russia till 1864, when their subjugation was followed by a wholesale emigration of the Circassian tribes to the Turkish Empire. Allied to them are the Abkhasians and Kabards (q.v.).
=Colombians.= White natives of Colombia, in Central America, mostly of Spanish descent, with an admixture of Indian and negro blood.
=Comanches.= See SHOSHONEAN.
=Conibos.= South American Indians of Peru.
=Copts.= Christian descendants of the ancient Egyptians (q.v.), of middle stature, slender limbs, and pale complexion, who inhabit Egypt, and preserve the language and customs of the last period of ancient Egyptian civilisation. They are essentially townsmen, clerks, or artisans.
=Coras.= See OPATA-PIMA.
=Cornish.= A race of Brythonic or P Celts, akin to Welsh and Bretons, inhabiting Cornwall in earlier times; now absorbed in English stock. Their language became extinct in seventeenth or eighteenth century. The crossing of the Cornish Celts with Anglo-Saxons has given birth to a singularly fine race of hardy fishermen and miners.
=Corsicans.= The aborigines of Corsica were probably a Western Hamitic race, allied to the Ligurians (q.v.). They were followed by Ionian invaders, and in turn by Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, Hun, Gothic, Saracenic, and Italian conquerors, each of whom has added something to the mixture of blood in the modern Corsicans, a turbulent, lawless, and warlike race (now belonging to France), whose greatest son was Napoleon.
=Costa Ricans.= White natives of Costa Rica, in Central America, mostly of pure Spanish descent.
=Crees.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Creek Indians.= See MUSKHOGEAN.
=Creoles.= Persons born in past or present French, Spanish, or Portuguese colonies, of pure European descent.
=Cretans.= An ancient race of prehistoric culture [see MYCENÆANS]; in modern times chiefly Greek, mixed with Turk.
=Croats.= Inhabitants of Croatia, now mainly of Slavonic race, mingled with an earlier short, dark race of non-Aryan descent. One of the motley races of the Austrian Empire. They are warlike, turbulent, and eager for independence.
=Cro-Magnon.= A prehistoric race settled in the Vezere district of France, which may be taken as the primitive type of Caucasic Man. It is only known by a few skulls and other relics, and probably dates back to the Glacial Period.
=Crow Indians.= See SIOUAN.
=Cymry.= See WELSH.
=Czechs=, or =Bohemians=. The most westerly branch of the Slavonic stock of the Aryan family, now occupying Bohemia, Moravia, and other parts of Austria. They are closely allied to the Slovaks of Hungary. They migrated from the Upper Vistula district to the modern Bohemia in the fifth century. Long an independent kingdom, and a bulwark of Christendom against the Turks, Bohemia passed to Austria in 1526. During the last century there has been a great recrudescence of the Czech nationality and language. The Czechs as a race are very musical and artistic.
=Daflas.= A Tibetan race inhabiting the northern border of Assam.
=Dahomans.= See EWE.
=Dakotas.= See SIOUAN.
=Dalmatians.= A Southern Slavonic race, crossed with Gothic blood. A fine race of hardy seamen, they manned the Venetian fleets, but now belong to Austria.
=Damaras=, or =Hau-Khoin=. See HEREROS.
=Danakils=, or =Afars=. An Eastern Hamitic race settled in the vicinity of Obock, between Abyssinia and the Red Sea. They are nomad pastors and fishermen, well-built, and slender.
=Danes.= Natives of Denmark, belonging to the Scandinavian stock of the Aryan family. Denmark was originally inhabited by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who colonised England. On their departure, the Danes from Zealand settled on the deserted lands, and there reared the kingdom which still exists. The early Danes were brave warriors and skilled seamen, who for a time ruled Saxon England under Canute. Their descendants, of comparatively pure blood, preserve these characteristics, and are also industrious agriculturists.
=Dards.= A warlike and hardy race of Aryan descent, inhabiting the mountainous country around Gilgit, in North-west India, of whom the Hunzas and Nagars are the chief tribes.
=Dargos.= See LESGHIANS.
=Delawares.= A North American Indian race with whom William Penn dealt in the 17th century: now fairly civilised. See ALGONQUIAN.
=Didos.= See LESGHIANS.
=Dinkas.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Dogras.= An Aryan race in the Punjab, between the Chinab and the Ravi, who contribute excellent soldiers to the British Native Army.
=Dorians.= See HELLENES.
=Dravidas=, or =Dravidians=. Indigenous non-Aryan inhabitants of South India, including the Telingas or Telugu of the Nizam’s Dominions, the Tamils of Karnatic and Ceylon, the Kanarese of Mysore, the Malayalim of Malabar Coast, those wild hunters the Gonds of Vindhya Hills, the Sinhalese of Ceylon, and perhaps the Veddahs (q.v.). A Mongoloid race originally, which has been assimilated to the Caucasic type by long intermixture of blood.
=Druses.= A brave, handsome and industrious white race, who have been settled in the Lebanon district of Syria for at least 800 years, and owe their unity to the possession of a special religion. Their origin is uncertain, but they are probably of a mixed stock, to which Arabs, Kurds, and Persians have all contributed. They are fair-haired and of light complexion. They are very warlike, have always preserved their independence against the Turks, and are the inveterate enemies of the Maronites (q.v.).
=Dungans.= Southern Mongolic inhabitants of Zungaria, between Tian-Shan and Altai. Allied to Chinese (q.v.).
=Durbats.= See KALMUKS.
=Duranis.= See AFGHANS.
=Dyaks.= The aborigines of Borneo, probably akin to the Malays (q.v.), whom they resemble physically, though of greater average stature. They are active and warlike, and formerly indulged in the practice of head-hunting, now dying out. The Sea-Dyaks were bold and inveterate pirates. They possess a considerable degree of indigenous civilisation, and their moral character is very fine.
=Easter Islanders.= (1) See POLYNESIANS. (2) Easter Island once possessed an older race of inhabitants, now extinct, who have left very remarkable traces in the shape of numerous colossal statues, thin-lipped and disdainful, standing on platforms of Cyclopean masonry, as well as many stone houses with thick walls, painted on the inside. Nothing farther is known of their race or history.
=Ecuadorians.= White natives of Ecuador, in South America, of Spanish descent; noted for their laziness and political instability.
=Edomites.= See IDUMÆANS.
=Egbas.= See YORUBAS.
=Egyptians.= (1) The ancient inhabitants of Egypt--known to them as Khem, the Biblical Mizraim--who reared one of the oldest and most important civilised states of the ancient world. The aborigines of Egypt were apparently a Palæolithic branch of Ethiopic Man, allied to the modern Bushmen. They were dispossessed and practically exterminated, probably about 7000 B.C., by a slender, fair-skinned race of European type, belonging to the Hamitic family, and resembling the modern Berbers (q.v.) in many respects. These were probably the same as the ancient Libyans (q.v.). Later this race was modified by the introduction of a Semitic element, partly from Syria, partly from the Phœnician conquerors who founded dynastic rule in Egypt under Menes, between 5000 and 4000 B.C. Their later history is written on their imperishable monuments, and need not be summarised here. In later times the Egyptian racial type was modified by Greek and Roman influence. The ancient Egyptians were highly skilled in agriculture and engineering, warlike but not aggressive, and with a highly developed literature and religion. (2) The modern Egyptians are partly descended from the ancient Egyptians, whose racial type as represented on the monuments is still to be found in purity, mingled with Bedouin Arabs, Turks, Syrians, and other races. See COPTS and FELLAHIN.
=English.= Natives of England; used in a wider sense as equivalent to citizens of the British Empire [See BRITONS, ANGLO-SAXONS]. The English people are a Low German branch of the Teutonic stock of the Aryan family, with a faint Celtic element derived from the primitive Britons, a strong Scandinavian element (especially in the north-east), derived from the invading Danes and Norsemen in the ninth to eleventh centuries, and a considerable Norman element--Norse modified by French culture. The typical Englishman is white-skinned and fair-haired, belonging to the Xanthochroi, but there are many deviations due to modifying influences. The race is eminently warlike and aggressive, and makes the most successful colonisers known to the world.
=Erie Indians.= See IROQUOIAN.
=Erse.= See IRISH.
=Eshi-Kongo.= A semi-civilised race of Bantu Negroes, belonging to the ancient Kongo Empire, now Portuguese West Africa.
=Eskimos=, or =Innuits=. An Arctic aboriginal race, now inhabiting Greenland and the northern coasts of the American continent. They are nomadic, live by hunting and fishing, and are inured to extremes of cold. They are very broad-headed, fat, and of short stature, with flat quasi-Mongolic features. They seem to occupy a place midway between the North American Indian and the Mongolic type, and there is some reason to suppose that they represent a prehistoric Mongoloid incursion from Northern Asia, or perhaps from Indo-Malaysia.
=Esthonians.= A branch of Baltic Finns (q.v.) settled in Esthonia, and possessing an ancient ballad literature and mythology.
=Ethiopians.= An ancient Berber tribe, settled in Egypt at least 5,000 years ago, now represented by the fair Berbers of Mauritania. Homer called them “blameless,” because he knew so little about them. See NUBIANS.
=Ethiopic.= One of the four great divisions of the human race, occupying Africa, Australia, and many islands of the Eastern Ocean. Its members are typically black-skinned and woolly haired, with projecting jaws and broad skulls.
=Etruscans.= An ancient Italian people, inhabiting Etruria in North Italy in pre-Roman times. They probably consisted of an aboriginal Pelasgian (q.v.) race, modified by a dominant race of invaders, who may have been of Mongolic type, or perhaps akin to the Hittites (q.v.). The Etruscans may be classed as Hamitic. They had a distinctive civilisation, and made great progress in art, of which many monuments remain. The Etruscan confederation, of which Veii was the chief city, long warred with the rising power of Rome, under whose dominion it fell in the fourth century B.C. Families of undoubted Etruscan descent are still found in North Italy.
=Europeans.= Natives of Europe, mainly Aryan.
=Ewe.= A group of Sudanese Negro tribes of Guinea Coast. The best known are the Dahomans, or natives of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey, on the Slave Coast. Of small stature, but robust and warlike, they are noted for their great human sacrifices and their employment of female warriors or “Amazons.” Now under French rule. The Togos are also an Ewe tribe.
=Fans.= A race of powerful and aggressive warriors, who intruded into Gaboon-Ogoway district about the middle of the nineteenth century; possibly related to Azandeh or Fulahs (q.v.). Cannibals, but otherwise of higher intellect and morality than the average Negro, from whom they differ in physical type.
=Fantis.= See TSHI.
=Fellahin.= The labouring peasantry of modern Egypt, industrious but not warlike, descendants of ancient Egyptians, with a mixture of Syrian and Arab blood.
=Felup.= A group of Sudanese Negro tribes on Casamanza and Cacheo estuaries.
=Fertits.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Fijians.= Natives of Fiji, belonging to the Melanesian stock of the Oceanic Negro family. Formerly ferocious cannibals, they are now civilised.
=Filipinos.= See PHILIPPINES.
=Fingus=, or =Ama-Fingu=. Bantu Negroes of the Kafir division in South-east Africa, regarded by Zulus and Ama-Xosa as an inferior race.
=Finno-Ugrian.= A stock of the Northern Mongolic family, including (1) Ugrian or Siberian Finns, of which the chief races are Soyots, Ostyaks, Samoyedes, Voguls, Permian Finns, Siryanians, and Magyars (q.v.); (2) European Finns, divided into: (a) Volga Finns, (b) Baltic Finns.
=Finns.= The Finns proper are the inhabitants of Finland, between Russia and Norway. They are a Northern Mongolic race, of Finno-Ugrian stock, who are supposed to have originated beside the head waters of the Yenisei River. They entered Finland about the end of the seventh century and established themselves there, being afterwards annexed, first by Sweden and then by Russia. They are a strong, hardy race, who make excellent seamen, with round faces, fair hair and blue eyes. They are honest, highly moral and religious, and possess a remarkable ballad and folk-tale literature, of which the Kalevala is the chief example. The Baltic Finns of allied race include Esthonians, Karelians, Lapps, Livonians and Tavastians (q.v.). The Volga Finns are another branch of the same people, whose chief tribe was the ancient Bulgars (q.v.). The Mordvins and Cheremisses, still settled on the banks of the Volga in small communities, belong to the same race.
=Flathead= or =Salish Indians=. A mixed race of North American Indians, in British Columbia and Montana.
=Flemings=, or =Flemish=. The inhabitants of Flanders, now divided between Belgium and Holland, descended from Belgic tribes settled there in Cæsar’s time. They are a Low German branch of the Teutonic stock. They are an industrious and honest, though phlegmatic, people, who played a great part in mediæval commerce.
=Formosans.= Natives of Formosa, of mixed Malayan and Negrito descent. They were divided into three classes by the Chinese invaders: the Pepohwan, civilised agriculturists, under Chinese rule; Sekhwan, settled tribes who acknowledged Chinese rule; and Chinhwan, the wild savage tribes of the mountains, who waged unceasing war against the invaders. The island has now passed under Japanese dominion. The Formosans in general approximate to the Malay type, but are more sturdily built.
=Fox Indians.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Franks.= A confederation of Germanic tribes, dwelling on the Middle and Lower Rhine in the third century. They belonged to the High German branch of the Teutonic stock. In the third and fourth centuries they began to invade Gaul, where they established a Frankish kingdom under Clovis (481-511), who adopted Christianity. This later developed into the modern State of France. The Franks were a brave and stalwart race of warriors, with blue eyes and long flowing hair, well-built and large-limbed. They were a nation of democratic fighting men, who practised agriculture in the intervals of war.
=French.= The inhabitants of modern France, a race of mixed origin. Among their ancestors are the Celtic Gauls, the Teutonic Belgae and Franks, the Hamitic Iberians, the Romans, and the Scandinavian Normans (q.v.). They are probably the quickest-witted and most intelligent race of modern Europe. Extremely warlike and aggressive in earlier days, they are now displaying greater devotion to the arts of peace, especially agriculture. Paris has long been the chief centre of ideas in Europe.
=Frisians.= A Teutonic race of Low German stock, living between Scheldt and Weser in Roman times, now belonging to the Netherlands.
=Fuegians.= Natives of Tierra del Fuego in South America, savages of a very low physical and mental type.
=Fulahs.= A warlike and predatory race of Saharan Hamites, formerly occupying small communities throughout the West and Central Sudan, who over-ran the native Hausa States about 1800-1810, and founded the empire of Sokoto.
=Furs.= See NUBA GROUP.
=Ga.= A Sudanese Negro group in Guinea, including Accras and Krobos.
=Gaels.= See HIGHLANDERS.
=Gaikas= and =Galekas=. See XOSAS.
=Galchas.= Highlanders of Hindu Kush and Turkistan, of Iranian descent.
=Gallegos.= Natives of Galicia, in Spain, of Gothic descent.
=Gallas.= A branch of Eastern Hamites, occupying Gallaland, south of Abyssinia. The finest people in all Africa, strongly built, of a light chocolate colour. They are distinguished for their energy and honesty. They are divided into numerous tribes, and are inveterate foes of the Somalis.
=Gallinas.= Sudanese Negroes of Sierra Leone.
=Garamantes.= An ancient Hamitic race inhabiting the neighbourhood of Tripoli in Roman times.
=Garhwalis.= Tibetan natives of Garhwal, on the border of Tibet.
=Gascons.= Natives of Gascony, of Basque descent, modified by Frank and French blood. They are notorious for their lively imagination and boasting “Gasconades.”
=Gauchos.= A mixed race of Spanish and Indian descent, admirable horsemen, who are the chief herdsmen of Uruguay and the Argentine Republic. See PUELCHES.
=Gauls.= In Cæsar’s time the Gauls occupied the central part, and formed the chief race, of modern France, which, after them, was called Gaul. They probably belonged to the Brythonic division of the Celtic stock, being closely allied to the ancient Britons, as well as to the modern Welsh and Bretons, who respectively represent the remnants of the primitive Celtic population of England and France. It is possible that there was a still earlier Celtic element in France, corresponding to the Goidelic division of the Celtic stock. Mingled with the Celtic element in the Gauls were traces of the earlier Iberian and Ligurian aborigines (q.v.). The Gauls were blue-eyed, fair-haired and long-headed, in distinction to the older dark-eyed, black-haired, round-headed type, which is more commonly known as Celtic, but is probably characteristic of an older race. Under Roman rule the Gauls acquired a considerable degree of civilisation. They were dispossessed in the decline of the empire by Franks, Burgundians and Visigoths (q.v.), but became in part ancestors of the modern French.
=Georgians.= The chief race of the Southern Caucasus, a fine athletic race of pure Caucasic type, noted for the personal beauty of its individuals. The Georgians were formerly fierce and warlike, but under Russian rule have become industrious in the arts of peace. They are noted for a passionate love of music. They first appear in history in the time of Alexander the Great, when they were already settled in their mountains. The Georgian kingdom had an independent existence for about seven centuries, but suffered much from Mongolian and especially Turkish invasions. Georgia and Circassia furnished the majority of white slaves for Turkish harems. In 1801 Georgia was annexed to Russia. Other important South Caucasian races are the Imerians and the Mingrelians, who closely resemble the Georgians in physical characteristics, but have displayed less aptitude for civilisation.
=Gepidæ.= See GOTHS.
=Getæ.= An ancient race of Thracian (q.v.) descent, who settled in Wallachia in the fourth century B.C. They were warlike and turbulent, but were conquered by Trajan and incorporated in the Roman Empire. In later centuries they appear to have been fused with the Goths (q.v.).
=Germans.= The Germans first appear in history as a multitude of independent and warlike tribes living amongst the dense forests which stretched in Roman times from the Rhine to the Vistula. They belonged to the Teutonic stock of the Aryan family. They were a tall and vigorous race, with long, fair hair and fierce blue eyes, who delighted in war and the chase. Their democratic social organisation has greatly influenced all Teutonic history; their love of liberty was a passion. At an early period they were divided into High and Low Germans, differing in type, according as they inhabited the central and southern portions of modern Germany or the low-lying lands towards the North Sea and the Baltic. The chief races of the former were the Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Swiss, Swabians, Austrians; of the latter, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Frisians, Flemings, Batavi--from whom the modern English and Dutch are descended, whilst the High Germans represent the modern Germans. These are a very enterprising, thorough, and industrious race, alike in war and peace, and have thus given birth to one of the greatest Powers of the modern world.
=Ghilzais.= See AFGHANS.
=Gilyaks.= A Siberian Mongolic race of Saghalien.
=Gipsies.= A nomadic race, which was first described as appearing in Europe in the fifteenth century, and is now found in nearly all civilised countries. At first they were believed to come from Egypt, and their name is a corruption of “Egyptians.” They have a dark, tawny skin, black hair and eyes, are small-handed and often very handsome, and live by tinkering, basket-making, fortune-telling, and other arts which can be practised on the road. Their chief characteristic is independence and love of a wandering life. Their origin is still uncertain; though their language, Romany, is known to be a corrupt dialect of Hindi, which supports the older theory that they are of Indian descent. A later and well-supported theory is that they are the descendants of the prehistoric race which introduced metal-working into Europe. On this view they must have existed in Europe from time immemorial, without being noticed in literature. The gipsy problem still awaits solution.
=Goajiris.= See TUPI-GUARANI.
=Golden Hordes.= See KIPCHAKS.
=Gonaquas.= Hottentot Negro half breeds on Kafirland frontier.
=Goads.= See DRAVIDAS.
=Goths.= One of the chief Teutonic races of ancient times, who played a great part in European history from the third to the eighth century, but have left no descendants as a distinct race. They first appear in history in the third century, as a confederation of German tribes who had made a settlement in the district north of the Lower Danube. They soon split up into two distinct peoples, the East Goths or Ostrogoths, and the West Goths or Visigoths. There was a third and unimportant race of Mœsogoths, settled in Mœsia, for whom Ulfilas made his famous translation of the Scriptures. The Goths were extremely warlike and aggressive, a typical race of German warriors. The Ostrogoths remained north of the Danube, where they were subjugated for a time by the Huns of Attila. Recovering their independence, they invaded Italy, destroyed the Western Empire, and established a new kingdom under Theodoric. This was conquered by the Byzantine Narses in 552, after which the Ostrogoths disappear from history. The Visigoths, unwilling to submit to the Huns, crossed the Danube and settled in the Roman Empire, where they furnished many recruits for the army. In 395 they rebelled, and under Alaric invaded Italy and besieged Rome. Afterwards they founded kingdoms in the south of Gaul and in Spain, where the Visigoths ruled till the invasion of the Saracens, and where their blood is still found incorporated with that of the older races. A branch of the Ostrogoths which settled in the Crimea preserved its nationality and language down to the sixteenth century, or even later. The Bastarnæ, Gepidæ, and perhaps the Vandals (q.v.), were branches of the Gothic race.
=Greeks.= (1) For ancient Greeks, see HELLENES. (2) The modern Greeks are partly descendants of ancient Greeks, with a large admixture of Albanian, Wallachian and Slavonic elements. They are great in commerce, but not warlike.
=Griquas.= A race of Hottentot-Dutch half-breeds, also known as Bastaards, in Griqualand.
=Guaicuris.= Central American Indians of Lower California.
=Guanches.= Aborigines of Canary Islands: so-called “White Africans,” probably of Berber Hamitic stock.
=Guatemalans.= White natives of Guatemala, in Central America, of Spanish descent.
=Guatusas.= Central American Indians of Costa Rica.
=Guebres.= See PARSEES.
=Gujeratis.= Natives of Gujerat in Western India, Aryans of Hindu stock.
=Gurkas.= The dominant race of Nepal, who claim a Hindu (Aryan) origin, but have probably acquired a Mongoloid tinge from inter-marriages. They are of small stature, yet eminently warlike, and supply some of the best troops to our Indian Army.
=Gypsies.= See GIPSIES.
=Hadendowas.= See BEJAS.
=Haidas.= North American Indians in British Columbia.
=Hamites.= A family of Caucasic Man, belonging to the Melanochroid or dark type, ranging in colour from white to brown, and even black; hair soft, straight or wavy; skull, medium (mesocephalic); square-jawed (orthognathous); generally of fine physical development. Divided into Eastern Hamites--e.g., Somali, and Western Hamites--e.g., Berbers and Basques. Closely related to Semites.
=Hau-Khoin.= See HEREROS.
=Hausas.= The most important Sudanese Negro race of Northern Nigeria. Keen traders, physically well developed, they make excellent soldiers, and are largely utilised for this purpose by their British rulers. The Hausa States were over-run by the Hamitic Fulahs (q.v.) about 1800-1810, and now form part of the Empire of Sokoto. The Hausa language is the common medium of commerce in the Central Sudan.
=Hawaiians.= Natives of Hawaii, of brown Polynesian stock, akin to Maoris. A remarkably fine and handsome race, steadily decreasing since contact with European civilisation and diseases. Peculiarly subject to leprosy.
=Haytians.= Natives of the negro republic of Hayti, descended from negro slaves imported by the earlier Spanish and French owners, who freed themselves at the time of the French Revolution. The Spanish portion afterwards formed the Dominican Republic in the eastern part of the island. Of mixed Bantu and Sudanese Negro descent, with a cross of white blood.
=Hazaras.= Mountaineers of N.W. Afghanistan, a vigorous and turbulent race of Mongolo-Persian descent, often troublesome to British India.
=Hebrews.= See JEWS.
=Hellenes.= Inhabitants of ancient Greece, which they called Hellas. The Proto-Hellenes, or aborigines, were probably of Pelasgian origin, belonging to the Western Hamitic family, of whom the ancient Cretans and Mycenæans (q.v.) may represent the ancestral type. These were followed by the true Hellenes--Achæans or Argives--divided into three main branches--Dorians, Ionians, and Æolians. Later they were divided into many local states, such as Athens and Sparta. The modern Greeks are in part descended from the Hellenes, crossed with Albanian, Wallachian, and Turkish blood. It is to the Hellenes that we owe the first important developments of civilisation in Europe.
=Helveti.= Ancient inhabitants of Switzerland in Cæsar’s time, probably a German tribe, from whom the modern Swiss are in part descended.
=Hereros=, or =Ovaherero=. Bantu Negroes inhabiting the plains of Damaraland, or German South-West Africa. The Damaras or Hau-Khoin are a cross between Hereros and the Hottentot aborigines. A pastoral nation who migrated thither about two centuries ago from the inland districts, and dispossessed the aboriginal Hottentots, now represented by the Namas of Namaqualand, with whom they are perennially at war. Recently they rose against the German authorities, and have given them much trouble. A fine, warlike race.
=Highlanders.= The Gaelic-speaking inhabitants of Northern Scotland, a branch of the Goidelic or Q Kelts, also known as Gaels. They are descended from the ancient Scots (q.v.), who originally migrated from Ireland in the fifth century. One of the finest races of the British Islands, who give them their finest soldiers.
=Himyarites.= A branch of the Semitic family (“Red Men,” whence the Red Sea), formerly occupying Arabia Felix and Abyssinia; they form the main stock of the Abyssinian race. They included the kingdoms of the Minæans and Sabæans, the latter being identified by some with the Biblical Sheba.
=Hindus.= A stock of the Aryan family, comprising a large proportion of the natives of India, described under the headings of Kashmiris, Punjabis, Rajputs, Marathas, Bengalis, Sindis, Gujeratis, Assamis, etc. The original Hindus entered India--hence called Hindustan--from the north-west at some prehistoric time, and soon became the predominant race in the peninsula.
=Hittites.= A forgotten but once mighty people of Semitic race, who contested the entry of the Israelites into Canaan, and waged war with Egypt and Assyria for many centuries. Little is known about them, but they seem to have reared a mighty empire between Lebanon and the Euphrates, which endured for more than a thousand years, and was destroyed by the Assyrian Sargon II. in 717 B.C.
=Hondurans.= White natives of Honduras, of Spanish descent; few in numbers, the population being mostly of mixed blood.
=Hor-Soks.= A primitive Mongol-Turki race of the Tibetan plateau.
=Hottentots=, or =Khoi-Khoin=. The aboriginal Negro inhabitants of South Africa, which they shared with the Bushmen (q.v.). Possibly the Bushmen are degraded Hottentots, or the Hottentots are a cross between the Bantus from the north and the Bushmen, who would on this view be the true aborigines. The only surviving race of pure Hottentots are the Namas of Namaqualand: the Damaras, Griquas, Gonaquas, and Koranas, are other races in which Hottentot blood is mixed with that of Bantu Negroes or of Europeans (mostly Boers). The Hottentots are a distinct branch of the Negro family, marked by extremely long heads and high cheek-bones, a brownish-yellow complexion, with other physical peculiarities exemplified in the so-called “Hottentot Venus,” and also found in the Bushmen. Their language is peculiar for its unique “clicks,” which no European can pronounce, and which seem to stand between articulate and inarticulate speech.
=Hovas.= The dominant Malagasy race of Madagascar, of Malay descent, mixed with Bantu Negro blood from Africa. They stand nearest to pure Malays of all Malagasy peoples. The existing French Protectorate was only established after much fighting with the warlike Hovas, who had conquered all the other native tribes.
=Huastec.= See MAYA-QUICHÉ.
=Hungarians.= See MAGYARS.
=Huns.= A nomad race of the Northern Mongolic family, probably of Turki stock, who settled in the neighbourhood of the Volga and the Urals about the dawn of the Christian era. In the fourth century they conquered and dispossessed the Ostrogoths and Visigoths on the Danube. Under Attila, in the fifth century, they invaded Greece and Gaul, and pushed their arms as far as Rome, which was only saved by the diplomacy of the Pope. Their cruel fierceness in war caused their great leader to be known as the Scourge of God. Like the Mongols, they were essentially a race of horsemen, and their “deformed figures and hideous Mongolic faces” added to the terror which they inspired. After Attila’s death in 453 the Huns fell to pieces, and soon were absorbed into other nations--especially, perhaps, the Bulgars.
=Hunzas.= See DARDS.
=Hupas.= See ATHABASCAN.
=Hurons=, or =Wyandots=. A North American Indian race of Iroquoian stock, formerly inhabiting the shores of Lake Huron.
=Hyksos.= A Northern Mongolic race who invaded Egypt and established the dynasty of the Shepherd kings about 2000 B.C.
=Ibeas.= A Negro race which recently invaded the Cameroons from the East: they bring down ivory from the unexplored interior. Either Bantu, or Sudanese--perhaps connected with the Azandeh (q.v.).
=Iberi=, or =Iberians=. An ancient race of Western Hamites, related to the fair Berbers of Mauritania. The Basques are probably descended from them, and there is good reason for identifying them with the Picts of Scotland and the Irish aborigines.
=Ibo.= See ABO.
=Icelanders.= Inhabitants of Iceland, originally Norwegians, who settled there about the end of the ninth century. A typical tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian race. The Icelandic Sagas form the chief part of ancient Scandinavian literature.
=Idumæans= or =Edomites=. A warlike Semitic race of Canaanite stock, thought to be descended from Esau, who were conquered by the Israelites under Saul and David, and again by Judas Maccabæus in 165 B.C., after which they disappear from history.
=Ife.= See YORUBAS.
=Igorrotes.= An industrious agricultural race of the Philippine Islands. Indonesians of Malay descent, with a possible Chinese or Japanese element.
=Illinois Indians.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Illyrians.= A savage piratical race of the eastern Adriatic sea-board, who were conquered by the Romans, and were the last of the Balkan peoples to be civilised. Probably the modern Albanians are descended from them, and they were among the first Aryan immigrants to Europe.
=Ilocanos.= A Malay race of the Philippine Islands.
=Imerians.= See GEORGIANS.
=Incas.= The chief of the six Indian races, including the Quichuas and the warlike Chancas, which formerly occupied the central mountain-region of Peru. The Incas became the dominant race about 1000 A.D., and built up a vast and peaceful civilisation, in which a purely socialistic government was successfully administered. This Inca Empire was destroyed by the Spanish under Pizarro in 1533, but the Inca Indians still survive as a race in Central Peru, where they are known as industrious and honest agriculturists.
=Indians.= Native races (1) of India; (2) of North, Central, and South America.
=Indo-Chinese.= A section of the Southern Mongolic family, inhabiting the countries between India and China.
=Indo-European, Indo-German.= See ARYAN.
=Indonesians.= The light-coloured, non-Malay inhabitants of the Eastern Archipelago and South Sea Islands, who are of Caucasic type, and are mostly brown-skinned Polynesians (q.v.). They also include the Batjans of Batjan I., the Burus, Korongui, and Suvu of the Malay Archipelago, and the Mentawey Islanders (q.v.).
=Ingushis.= See CHECHENZES.
=Innuits.= See ESKIMOS.
=Ionians.= (1) One of the three main Hellenic races of ancient Greece. (2) Greek inhabitants of the coast districts and islands of Western Asia Minor, forming the Ionian League, who passed in the sixth century B.C. under the Persian sway.
=Iowa Indians.= See SIOUAN.
=Iranians.= Ancient inhabitants of the Asian plateau bounded by the Indus, the Tigris, and the Hindu Kush. A stock of the Aryan family, now including Persians, Afghans, Baluchis, Kurds, and Armenians (q.v.).
=Irish.= (1) The aborigines of Ireland, probably Iberians (q.v.). (2) The later Erse-speaking inhabitants of Ireland, a branch of the Goidelic or Q Celts. (3) Modern inhabitants of Ireland, mostly Celtic, but largely mixed with Teutonic elements in the north.
=Iroquoian.= One of the families of North American Indians, including the Iroquois, or “Six Nations,” who comprised the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, Tuscaroras and Cayugas; the Hurons, or Wyandots, including the Eries, and the Cherokees. Their territory was Upper Canada, round the great lakes, New York, and the Virginian Highlands, and they played a large part in the Franco-British warfare of the eighteenth century. They are now few in numbers and confined to Indian Reservations in the U.S. and Canada.
=Israelites.= See JEWS.
=Italians.= (1) Ancient inhabitants of Italy, of Ligurian stock, probably Eastern Hamites, related to the Pelasgians [see LATINS and ROMANS]. (2) Modern Italians, mostly of Latin stock, crossed with Teutonic (Gothic and Lombard) blood.
=Italic.= A stock of the Aryan family, including ancient and modern Italians (with ancient Romans), modern French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Roumanian, with Latin (Spanish and Portuguese) Americans.
=Jallonké.= See MANDINGAN.
=Jangalis.= An aboriginal Indian tribe, inhabiting the forest district north of Cuttack--the most primitive race in all India. Perhaps an early Dravidian (q.v.) stock.
=Japanese.= A race of the Northern Mongolian family, probably originating in Korea, whence they spread to Japan and dispossessed the Ainu aborigines, about the dawn of the Christian era. The most enterprising and civilised people in Asia, often called “the English of the Far East.” They possess a singularly high standard of honour and patriotism, which was the main factor in their recent victory over Russia, and they are eminently warlike, besides producing industrious agriculturists and enterprising traders. Of short but sturdy stature, white skin and yellow or sallowish complexion, oblique eyes, black hair.
=Jats.= A numerous agricultural race of the Punjab in North-west India. They are probably of an Aryan stock, but ethnologists disagree as to their history, assigning them ancient Scythian invaders, the Rajputs, or the Gipsies, for ancestors.
=Javanese.= A Malay race inhabiting Java, where they dispossessed the Negrito aborigines [see KALANGS] in prehistoric times. The Sundanese and Madurese are allied tribes, possessing parts of the island of Java, now under Dutch rule.
=Jebus.= See YORUBAS.
=Jews=, =Hebrews=, or =Israelites=. The most important of Semitic races, of the ancient Canaanite stock. The Israelites descended from Abraham, who came from Mesopotamia to Canaan about 2000 B.C.; thence they migrated to Egypt, and returned to take possession of Palestine. Their history is familiar to all from the Bible. After the Roman capture of Jerusalem under Titus, 70 A.D., the Jews--as they were now called--were dispersed through the world, but they have retained their racial characteristics in remarkable purity through long persecutions, and now play a great part in the commerce and finance of nearly all civilised countries, though they have no national unity or racial home.
=Jivaros.= South American Indians, in Peru, on the head-waters of the Amazon.
=Jolofs.= See WOLOFS.
=Jutes.= Early inhabitants of Jutland, a Low German branch of Teutonic stock, who invaded England in the fifth century and made the first Teutonic settlement in that country, in Kent.
=Kabards.= A Western Caucasian race, allied to the Circassians (q.v.) and presenting a high standard of physical beauty.
=Kabyles.= See BERBERS.
=Kacharis.= Natives of the Terai at the foot of the Himalayas, belonging to the Tibetan stock of the Southern Mongolic family.
=Kafirs=, or =Kaffirs=. Generic name of the fierce and warlike Bantu Negro races which occupied the south-eastern seaboard of South Africa when Europeans first colonised that country. They then held all the coast lands from the Gamboos to the Limpopo. The southern part (Kaffraria) belonged to the Kafirs proper, and the northern (Zululand) to the Zulus, an allied race, but usually distinguished from the Kafirs, or Ama-Xosa, whose chief tribes are Galekas, Gaikas and Tembus (q.v.). Throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century the English settlers were engaged in constant Kafir wars, which resulted in the gradual subjugation of both Kafirs and Zulus.
=Kafirs.= Fair-skinned mountaineers of Kafiristan, between the Kabul River and Hindu Kush. An offshoot of the Aryan family, thought by some to be descendants in part of the Greek troops with which Alexander the Great invaded India.
=Kakhyens.= A race of freebooters, inhabiting the northern frontiers of Burma, whence they raid the more civilised agriculturists of the plains and levy blackmail. A Southern Mongolic race of Indo-Chinese stock.
=Kalangs.= A recently extinct Negrito race of Java, remnants of the aborigines of that island; small, black and woolly-haired, with very retreating forehead and projecting jaws. The most ape-like of human beings, and the nearest approach yet found to the “missing link” between man and ape. They belonged to the Oceanic Negro family.
=Kalmuks.= The Western Mongol stock of the Northern Mongolic family, scattered through Central Asia, and extending into Southern Russia. Nomadic pastors, owning large flocks and herds, and living in tents on the great steppes, they include the tribes of the Chorasses, Turguts, Khoshots, and Durbats. A large horde of Kalmuks invaded Russia in 1650, and settled there for a century, but in 1771 most of them were expelled, and endured great sufferings on the march to China, so brilliantly described by De Quincy. These were mainly Khoshots and Durbats.
=Kamchadales.= A Siberian branch of the Northern Mongolic family, inhabiting Kamchatka; a hardy race of hunters and fishers.
=Kanakas.= A name given to South Sea Islanders, generally by sailors and traders, and especially to Polynesian labourers imported to Queensland.
=Kanakas=, or =Bakanaka=. Negro aborigines of Angola, probably akin to the Bushmen. Other similar tribes are the Korokas, Kulabes, Kwandes and Kwisses.
=Kanarese.= Mongoloid aborigines of Mysore in India. See DRAVIDIANS.
=Kanembu, Kanuris.= See LAKE CHAD GROUP.
=Kara-Kalpaks=, or =Black Bonnets=. A branch of the Turki stock of the Northern Mongolic family, dwelling on the south-east of the Aral Sea and in the Oxus basin. A pacific pastoral race, dominated by their warlike relatives, the nomadic Kirghiz, and now subject to Russia.
=Kara-Kirghiz.= See KIRGHIZ.
=Karelians.= An Eastern branch of Baltic Finns dwelling in the eastern parts of Finland and adjoining provinces of Russia. Probably a Slavo-Mongolic mixture in which the original Mongolic element has been largely eliminated.
=Karens.= Inhabitants of Burma, of the Indo-Chinese branch of the Southern Mongolic family. Largely Christianised. Formerly oppressed by the Burmans, than whom they are less clever, but more industrious. Agriculturists.
=Karons.= A Negrito race of New Guinea, of very degraded type, and addicted to cannibalism.
=Kargos.= See NUBA GROUP.
=Kashmiris.= Natives of Kashmir, belonging to the Hindu branch of the Aryan family. Of fine physique, but corrupt and untrustworthy.
=Kassonké.= See MANDINGAN.
=Kazaks.= See KIRGHIZ.
=Kelts=, or =Celts=. A stock of the Aryan family which settled in France and the British Islands in prehistoric times. The Gauls and Belgæ of Cæsar’s time and the early Britons represent them. They are divided into two branches, Goidelic and Brythonic Celts, respectively known also as Q and P Celts, from a linguistic peculiarity. The former are represented in modern times by Irish, Manx, and Scottish Highlanders; the latter by Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons. The typical Celt was probably a tall, broad-headed individual, with prominent nose, high cheek-bones, light hair and eyes. The small, round-headed, dark race which is also classed as Celtic, is more probably an earlier Hamitic type, allied to the Basques (q.v.).
=Khulkas.= A nomadic race of Eastern Mongols, occupying the Gobi desert.
=Khamtis.= An Assamese race--Indo-Chinese stock of Southern Mongolic family--in the Brahmaputra Valley.
=Khasis.= An Indo-Chinese hill tribe of Southern Mongolic family, in Khasi Hills of Assam.
=Khoi-Khoin.= The name given to themselves by the Hottentots (q.v.).
=Khoshots.= See KALMUKS.
=Kickapoos.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Kiowas.= A North American Indian race in Oklahoma.
=Kipchaks.= A Turki race of Northern Mongolic family, settled in eleventh century between Urals and Don. In the middle of the thirteenth century, Batu Khan, a son of Genghiz Khan, led them to conquer all Central and South Russia, where they founded the Empire of the Golden Horde. It was broken up by Tamerlane about 1390, and from its fragments arose the Khanates of Astrakhan, the Crimea, etc., now absorbed by Russia. From the Eastern Kipchaks are descended the Kirghiz (q.v.), one of whose hordes is still known as Kipchak. The modern Kipchaks are nomadic, and live by stock-feeding in the steppes of western Turkestan.
=Kirantis.= A Tibetan race of East Nepal, of Southern Mongolic family.
=Kirghiz.= A nomadic people of Central Asia, where they occupy the vast steppes which lie to the north of Turkestan. They are descended from the Kipchaks (q.v.) of the Golden Horde. They form a group of the Turki stock of the Northern Mongolic family. The Kara-Kirghiz, who inhabit the uplands between the Issik-Kul and the Kuen-Lun, are the oldest Turki nomads of whom there is any historical record, and are divided into On and Sol--right and left wings. The Kirghiz proper, who call themselves Kazaks, or “riders,” roam from Lake Balkash to the Volga, over the vast level steppes, where they dwell in skin tents and support themselves by breeding camels, horses, oxen, sheep and goats. They live in the saddle, and were formerly a warlike people, who once could put 400,000 fighting men in the field. They are divided into four hordes--Great, Middle or Kipchak, Little, and Inner. They are all now under Russian dominion.
=Kishis.= See CHECHENZES.
=Kissis.= See TEMNÉ GROUP.
=Kizil-Bashis.= Persianised Turkis of Afghanistan, belonging to Turki branch of Northern Mongolic family, who supply the chief commercial classes of Afghanistan.
=Kolajis.= See NUBA GROUP.
=Kolarians.= One of the three non-Aryan races to which the primitive inhabitants of India belonged, of the Indo-Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family. They entered Bengal from the north-east, and are now represented by a few scattered tribes, like the Santals, Mundas, Kurkus, and Bhils.
=Koranas.= See HOTTENTOTS.
=Koreans.= Natives of Korea, belonging to the Koreo-Japanese stock of the Northern Mongol family. They stand midway between Chinese and Japanese, the latter being probably their descendants, and are taller, with lighter complexion and more regular features, than the typical Mongol. Their civilisation is of Chinese origin. They are not warlike, but are prosperous agriculturists.
=Korokas.= See KANAKAS.
=Korungas.= See WADAI GROUP.
=Koryaks.= An Arctic race of North-east Siberia, allied to the Chukchis (q.v.).
=Krej.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Krim-Tartars.= See TARTARS.
=Krus=, or =Krooboys=. Sudanese Negroes of Liberian Group. Bold and skilful boatmen, employed for that purpose all along the West African Coast.
=Kulabes.= See KANAKAS.
=Kulfans, Kunjaras.= See NUBA GROUP.
=Kurds.= Native of Kurdistan, partly nomad and pastoral, partly settled and agricultural. A fierce and warlike people, they are much given to raiding, and were utilised by the Sultan to oppress the Armenians. They have settled in Kurdistan from time immemorial, and belong to the Iranian stock of the Aryan family.
=Kurile Islanders.= See AINUS.
=Kurinis.= See LESGHIANS.
=Kurkus.= A broken Kolarian tribe, allied to the Santals of Central India, belonging to the Indo-Chinese branch of Southern Mongolic family.
=Kutchins.= See ATHABASCAN.
=Kwandes, Kwisses.= See KANAKAS.
=Ladakhis.= Natives of Ladakh in the Upper Indus Valley, belonging to the Tibetan stock of the Southern Mongolic family, conquered by Kashmir in seventeenth century.
=Lake Chad Group.= A group of Sudanese Negro tribes, inhabiting the districts round Lake Chad, including Kanembus, Kanuris, Baghirmis (warlike slave-raiders), Mandaras, Yedinas, Logons, Mosgus, Bulalas, Saras, etc.
=Lampongs.= Malay inhabitants of Southern Sumatra.
=Lamuts.= See TUNGUSES.
=Landumans.= Sudanese Negroes of Senegambia.
=Laos.= See SHANS.
=Lapps.= A branch of the Finno-Ugrian stock of the Northern Mongolic family, inhabiting the parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia collectively known as Lapland. They are the shortest and broadest-skulled people in Europe. Most of them are nomads, who live by their vast reindeer herds, though some have become settled and live by fishing and hunting. They are closely allied to the Baltic Finns, and like them show traces of a mixture of Caucasic blood.
=Lascars.= A term applied to sailors of Indian and Malay seafaring races, employed on British vessels.
=Latins.= The ancient inhabitants of Latium, the district of Central Italy which lay between the Tiber and the Liris, and included the Roman Campagna. They absorbed the earlier allied races of Oscans, Sabines, Samnites and Umbrians, and formed a league of thirty cities, which warred for some generations with Rome and then fell under the Roman dominion. Rome itself was originally a Latin city. The ancient population of Italy was divided into three grades: Roman citizens--not necessarily residents in Rome--Latins, and Italians. The Latins are a branch of the Italic stock of the Aryan family.
=Latin= or =Romance Races=. A name often given to the modern races which speak a Romance language derived from Latin, and belong in whole or part to the Italic stock of the Aryan family. They include Italians, French (including Provençals), Spaniards, Portuguese, and Roumanians.
=Latin Americans.= The white inhabitants of South America, of Spanish or Portuguese descent, and speaking these languages.
=Lazes.= See GEORGIANS.
=Lencan.= A group of semi-civilised Central American Indian tribes, including Chontals, Ramas, Payas, Wulwas, and Guatusas.
=Lepchas.= Natives of Sikkim and Bhutan, belonging to the Tibetan stock of the Southern Mongolic family.
=Lesghians.= A branch of the Eastern stock of the Caucasian family, inhabiting the Eastern Caucasus. Wild mountain tribes, who long offered an unavailing resistance to the Russian arms under Shamyl (1859). Their chief tribes are the Avars (the most cultivated and powerful), Andis, Dargos, Didis and Kurinis.
=Lettic.= A stock of the Aryan family, including Letts, Lithuanians and the extinct Pruczi, Borussians, or Old Prussians, from whom modern Prussia takes its name. The Letts and Lithuanians in the fifteenth century formed a united people, inhabiting the south-west of Russia, from Courland to Odessa. Afterwards they passed under Polish and then Russian dominion. They are now mostly peasant agriculturists. They are fair and well-built, with fine features and blue eyes.
=Letts.= See LETTIC.
=Liberian Group.= Sudanese Negro tribes, inhabiting the Grain Coast of West Africa. The Krus or Krooboys (q.v.), Queahs and Bassas are their chief tribes.
=Liberians.= Natives of the negro republic of Liberia on the Guinea Coast, partly descended from freed slaves of all races, but mainly belonging to the Liberian group.
=Libyans.= An ancient fair-haired and light-skinned race of Northern Africa, akin to the modern Berbers, belonging to the western stock of the Hamitic family. They are depicted on Egyptian monuments of fifteenth century B.C.
=Ligures=, or =Ligurians=. An ancient race of the western stock of the Hamitic family, probably the aborigines of North-West Italy round Genoa, to whom the Siculi, Sards and Corsicans were apparently akin.
=Limbas.= See TEMNÉ GROUP.
=Lithuanians.= See LETTIC.
=Livonians.= A branch of Baltic Finns, belonging to the Finno-Ugrian stock of the Northern Mongolic family; a dwindled remnant now inhabits the Baltic provinces of Russia.
=Logons.= See LAKE CHAD GROUP.
=Lolos.= A fair-complexioned aboriginal race on the frontiers of China and Tibet, belonging to the Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family.
=Lombards.= A race of Teutonic stock, formerly settled in the district of the Lower Elbe, who invaded Italy in 568, and there founded a powerful Lombard kingdom under Alboin and his successors. The Lombards were at first fierce warriors and little more; but they soon fell under the influence of Italian civilisation, and were merged into the Italian race when Charlemagne destroyed their independence in 774. Their name and some traces of their racial character still remain in Lombardy, between the Alps and the Po.
=Luchuans.= Natives of the Luchu or Liu-Kin Archipelago, between Japan and Formosa, resembling the Japanese, but with differences which are attributed to a cross of the aboriginal Ainu blood. They belong to the Koreo-Japanese stock of the Northern Mongolic family.
=Lushais.= A warlike race of Tibetan stock inhabiting the Lushai Hills on the confines of Assam, Bengal and Burma.
=Mabas.= See WADAI GROUP.
=Macedonians.= A warlike people of ancient Greece, who attained their greatest power under Alexander the Great. They were not true Hellenes, but a race of wild mountain tribes probably of Hamitic origin. Modern Macedonia is peopled by an extremely mixed race of Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, etc., among whom some descendants of the ancient Macedonians may no doubt be found.
=Macusis.= See CARIBS.
=Madis.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Madurese.= A Malay race inhabiting Java, and allied to the Javanese (q.v.).
=Magars.= A Tibetan tribe of Western Nepal.
=Magwangwaras.= A fierce predatory race of Bantu Negroes, occupying the head-waters of the Rovuma River in East Central Africa.
=Magyars.= A warlike and now highly civilised race belonging to the Finno-Ugrian stock of the Northern Mongolic family. They first appeared in Europe about a thousand years ago, being probably Scythian (q.v.) immigrants from the Caspian district. They conquered the Roman provinces of Pannonia and Dacia, and there founded the Kingdom of Hungary in the year 1000. They are still the dominant race in Hungary, which now forms part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and preserve their Finno-Ugrian speech. They are a chivalrous and highly intelligent race, whose Mongolic descent is no longer perceptible in their white skins and regular, often handsome features. Probably this is due to frequent crossing of blood with German, Slav and Roumanian neighbours.
=Mahrattas.= See MARATHIS.
=Makololos.= A warlike branch of the Basuto race of Bantu Negroes who, in 1835, moved north and conquered the Barotses, only to be reduced by them to vassalage about 1864.
=Makuas.= A savage cannibal race of Bantu Negroes, living north of the Zambesi in Portuguese East Africa.
=Malagasy.= A Malayo-African people of mixed blood, inhabiting Madagascar. The Hovas (q.v.) are the dominant tribe.
=Malays.= The dominant native race of Malaysia, the chief stock of the Oceanic Mongolic family. They are of a distinctly Mongolic physical type, of low stature and yellowish colour, with high cheek-bones, black lank hair and broad skulls. They may be divided into three races: the Orang-Benua, or men of the soil, the indigenous Malay tribes at a low stage of culture; the Orang-Laut, or men of the sea, who live by fishing and piracy; and the Orang-Malayu, or civilised Malays proper. They inhabit the southern provinces of Sumatra, the native states of the Malay Peninsula (Kelantan, etc.), the British Straits Settlements (Johor, Perak, Selangor, etc.), parts of Borneo, Ternate, Tidor and the Banda Islands, and many islands of the Malay Archipelago. They have wandered as far as Madagascar, where the Malagasy (q.v.) are Malays crossed with Negro blood. They were formerly warlike and much given to piracy, but are now the chief trading race of South-eastern Asia. Their origin is dubious, but Sumatra is generally regarded as their original home. Of kindred blood are many so-called Proto-Malay races, such as the Achinese, Javanese, Sundanese, Dyaks, etc. (q.v.).
=Malayalim.= See DRAVIDIANS.
=Manchus.= The dominant native race of Manchuria, who conquered China in the seventeenth century and founded the existing Chinese dynasty. They are of the Mongol stock of the Northern Mongolic family. They first appear in history in the thirteenth century, when a number of nomad Manchu tribes were formed into a single people. They probably originated in Siberia, where the Tunguses (q.v.) represent their primitive stock.
=Mandans.= See SIOUAN.
=Mandaras.= See LAKE CHAD GROUP.
=Mandingans.= The chief race of Sudanese Negroes in the Western Sudan, with numerous branches between the Upper Niger and the coast, including Mandé or Mandingoes, Bambaras, Jallonkés, Kassonkés, Masinas, Sarakolés, Solimas, Susus, etc. Timbuctoo was formerly the capital of the Mandingan empire, before it fell under Berber domination. A large proportion of American Negroes are descended from slaves of Mandingan origin.
=Mangbattu.= Sudanese negroes of Welle group, noted for their pronounced cannibalism.
=Mangkassara.= Malay natives of Macassar, in Celebes, under Dutch rule.
=Manipuris.= Natives of Manipur, between Burma and Assam, mostly wild hillmen of mixed Burmese and Hindu blood, but classed with the Indo-Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family.
=Man-Tses.= Inhabitants of the mountain districts of Sze-chuen in China, akin to Lolos (q.v.). m
=Manx= or =Manxmen=. Inhabitants of the Isle of Man, belonging to the Celtic stock of the Aryan family, and the Goidelic or Q Celt branch of it. There is a strong Scandinavian element in their blood, from the numerous invasions of the old Norse pirates. Their customs are also strongly marked by the Scandinavian element.
=Manyuemas.= Warlike Bantu Negroes of the Upper Congo, long allied with the Arab slave-traders.
=Maoris.= The aborigines of New Zealand, belonging to the tall brown race of Polynesians (q.v.), a branch of the Indonesian family. A brave, generous and warlike people, who are said to have reached New Zealand from the Pacific islands about a thousand years ago, they are one of the few native races which promise to assimilate western civilisation with success.
=Marathis=, or =Mahrattas=. A numerous Indian race of mixed origin, probably of aboriginal (Dravidian) blood in the main, with a Hindu element. They inhabit West and Central India, where they became the dominant power under Sivaji in the seventeenth century. The English had long and bloody contests with these wild and warlike mountaineers, who founded several great native states, some of which (Gwalior and Indore) survive to this day.
=Maronites.= A sturdy, warlike Christian race of mountaineers in the Lebanon, belonging to the Syrian branch of the Aramæan stock of the Semitic family. Implacable foes of the Druses, with whom they are constantly at war.
=Marquesans.= See POLYNESIANS.
=Masais.= A branch of the Eastern Hamites, settled in British East Africa on the Tana River. A finely-built race, whom only their chocolate colour and frizzy hair prevent from passing for Europeans. Extremely warlike and intelligent, they are confirmed raiders and cattle lifters.
=Mashonas.= Natives of Mashonaland, in South-eastern Rhodesia, formerly the half-fabulous empire of the Monomotapa, and the home of a forgotten civilisation, to which the ruins of Zimbabye and other similar relics bear witness. The Mashonas are Bantu Negroes, a peaceful, industrious people, who were subjugated about 1838 by the Matabeles under Umsilikatzi, and are now under British rule.
=Massachusett Indians.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Massalits.= See WADAI GROUP.
=Matabeles.= A branch of the Zulu race of Bantu Negroes, which was expelled from Zululand in 1838, and conquered the Mashonas, in modern Rhodesia, under Umsilikatzi. Like the Zulus, they were proud and fearless warriors, who were only subjugated with difficulty by the English in 1893, and revolted unsuccessfully in 1896.
=Matacoans.= A South American Indian race on the Vermejo River in Argentine.
=Mauri.= See MOORS.
=Maviti.= Bantu Negroes of the Upper Shiré in British South Central Africa, of Zulu stock, who came as conquerors from the south.
=Maya-Quiché.= A group of Central American Indian races, mostly in Yucatan and Guatemala. It includes the Mayas of Yucatan, Zendals and Zotzils of Chiapas, Quichés, Chols, Pokomans, and Zutugils of Guatemala, Huastecs and Totonacs of Vera Cruz. Like the Aztecs, the Mayas possessed an ancient civilisation and system of picture writing.
=Maypuris.= See ARAWAKS.
=Mbengas.= Indigenous Bantu Negroes of French Equatorial Africa, about Corisco Bay.
=Melanesians.= The indigenous natives of the Western Pacific Islands, forming a distinct stock of the Oceanic Negro family of Ethiopic Man. They are long-skulled, or dolichocephalic, with the lowest cephalic index of all known races, prognathous, broad-nosed, of a sooty-black colour, with black frizzy hair, and of low stature. They are at a low stage of culture, being very savage, bloodthirsty, and treacherous, mostly cannibals and head-hunters, with little social organisation. They include the Fijians and the natives of the New Hebrides, the Solomon, Admiralty, Bismarck, and Loyalty Islands, New Britain, New Ireland, New Caledonia, and other islands of the Eastern Pacific. They are closely allied to the Papuans (q.v.), under which name some ethnologists prefer to class the whole body of Melanesians.
=Melanochroi.= A suggested division of Caucasic Man, in which a pale skin is typically accompanied by dark hair and eyes; it would thus include the Hamitic and Semitic families, with the Hellenic, Italic, and Celtic stocks of the Aryan family.
=Mendis.= See TEMNÉ GROUP.
=Mentawey Islanders.= A remnant of the aboriginal Polynesian race dispossessed by the Malays, off the coast of Sumatra.
=Mestizos.= Cross-breeds between Europeans and Indians, in Spanish and Portuguese America.
=Mexicans.= See AZTECS and NAHUANS. Also the modern inhabitants of Mexico, who are of Spanish descent, with a strong infusion of Indian blood.
=Micmacs.= An Indian race of Nova Scotia, in whom some ethnologists think that a trace of Norse blood, dating from the pre-Columbian discovery of America, is perceptible.
=Minæans.= See HIMYARITES.
=Mingrelians.= See GEORGIANS.
=Minh-huongs.= Franco-Annamese half-breeds in Cochin China, an increasing race who make very valuable colonists.
=Minnetarees.= See SIOUAN.
=Mishmis.= A wild Tibetan hill tribe occupying the jungle-covered hills through which the Brahmaputra flows, on the northern border of Assam. Warlike and turbulent.
=Missouri Indians.= See SIOUAN.
=Mixtecs.= An ancient Mexican race, contemporary with the Toltecs (q.v.), probably represented by the modern Miztecs of Oajaca.
=Moabites.= An ancient pastoral race of Semitic origin, ethnologically cognate with the Israelites, who dwelt on the east of the Dead Sea, and are now extinct.
=Mœsogoths.= See GOTHS.
=Mohawks.= See IROQUOIAN.
=Mohicans.= One of the most famous and warlike of redskin races, immortalised by Fenimore Cooper. See ALGONQUIAN.
=Mojos=, or =Moxos=. A yellowish Indian race of Bolivia, akin to the Chiquitos.
=Mokis.= See SHOSHONEAN.
=Mongolic.= One of the four great divisions of mankind. Typically characterised by yellowish skin, broad, flat features with prominent cheek-bones, broad skulls, mesognathous jaws, and oblique, almond-shaped eyes, with black, lank and coarse hair. The Manchus are a typical Mongolic race. The Mongolic races are mostly found in Asia, which is chiefly peopled by their stocks. The name “Mongolic” has replaced the older “Turanian.”
=Mongols.= A stock of the Northern Mongolic, otherwise known as Mongolo-Tartar or Ural-Altaic, family, from whom the general term of Mongolic is derived. The name seems originally to have meant “brave,” and the Mongols have provided some of the most fierce and warlike races of history. They originated as scattered tribes in modern Mongolia. Under Genghiz Khan they were formed into a confederacy which conquered the whole of Central Asia in the thirteenth century, thanks to an unlimited supply of hardy and very mobile horsemen. The existing Mongol tribes, nomad pastors of Mongolia in Central Asia, are divided into Sharras or Eastern Kalmuks, or Western Buriats, or Siberian Mongols, and Tunguses, including Manchus (q.v.).
=Montenegrins.= A Servian race of civilised mountaineers, inhabiting the rugged district of Montenegro; the only Balkan race which preserved independence and Christianity against the Turkish conquerors. Their history is one of constant warfare with the Turks, and they have thus preserved the primitive virtues of the warrior in great perfection.
=Moors.= The ancient Moors, or Mauri, were the inhabitants of the Roman province of Mauretania, roughly including the modern Algeria and Morocco. They were probably of mixed descent, partly Semitic from Arabia, partly Western Hamitic from indigenous sources. In modern times the name is applied (1) to the invaders and conquerors of Spain in the Middle Ages, who were mostly of Arab and Berber stock; (2) to the present inhabitants of Morocco and the Barbary States, of the same stocks, with a large infusion of Sudanese Negro blood. The Moors have always been a turbulent and warlike people, who furnished the most notorious pirates of modern history, thanks to their commanding position on the great highway of sea-borne commerce.
=Moquis.= See PUEBLO INDIANS.
=Mordvins.= A branch of the Finns (q.v.), forming small communities on the banks of the Volga.
=Mosgus.= See LAKE CHAD GROUP.
=Mossis.= See NIGERIAN GROUP.
=Mpongwes.= A Bantu Negro race on the Gaboon Estuary in French Equatorial Africa, given to drink and boasting, of little economic value, though once powerful.
=Mulattos.= Half-breeds between whites and negroes.
=Mundas.= A Kolarian race of Lower Bengal, with possible traces of Negroid blood.
=Mundrucus.= See TUPI-GUARANI.
=Mundus.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Mushi-Kongo.= Bantu Negroes of Portuguese West Africa, still in an absolutely savage state.
=Muskhogean=, or =Appalachian=. A group of North American Indian tribes, formerly occupying the south-eastern corner of the present United States, south of Tennessee, and east of Arkansas. Formerly a powerful confederacy of warlike hunters, they are now extinct or confined to Indian reservations. The chief tribes are Alibamus, Apalachis, Chickasaws, Choktaws, Creeks or Muskhogees, and Seminoles.
=Mycenæans.= The inhabitants of ancient Mycenæ, one of the chief centres of prehistoric culture in Greece before the Homeric age. Recent excavations, at Mycenæ itself, at Cnossos in Crete, and other contemporary sites of government, have thrown light on the remarkable civilisation which then existed. The Mycenæans, Cretans, and their kindred peoples were probably a mixed Caucasic race, with affinities to the later Aryan Achæans and to the aboriginal Hamitic Pelasgians; but nothing is yet certainly known of their ethnological place.
=Nagars.= See DARDS.
=Nagas.= Aborigines of the Naga Hills, in South Assam, semi-savage and formerly accustomed to raid the British provinces; now under British rule. They are of Tibetan stock.
=Nahuans=, or =Mexican Indians=. The aboriginal inhabitants of modern Mexico, whose history dates back to the sixth century. The oldest of the Nahuan races was that of the Toltecs, who established a civilisation marked by architectural and artistic monuments still existing, north of the valley of Anahuac. They were followed by the ruder Chichimecs and the Aztecs (q.v.). Other branches of the same race are the Pipils and the Niquirans of Nicaragua.
=Naimans.= (1) See SHARRAS. (2) A tribe of the Middle Horde of the Kazaks. See KIRGHIZ.
=Nairs.= A Hindu tribe of Malabar, distinguished by their peculiar marriage customs. They practise polyandry, and a Nair’s property descends not to his own but to his sister’s children.
=Namas= or =Namaquas=. A Hottentot tribe of Namaqualand, the true aborigines and the principal representatives of the Hottentots (q.v.). Scattered in small pastoral groups.
=Natchez Indians.= An extinct North American Indian race, formerly inhabiting the region of the Lower Mississippi.
=Navajos.= See ATHABASCAN.
=Neanderthal Man.= A race of primitive man, represented only by a skull and a few bones found in a limestone cave of the Neanderthal in Rhenish Prussia in 1856. The most ape-like race yet known, and probably the oldest.
=Negritoes.= A branch of Ethiopic Man, found in Central Africa, and in the Andamans, the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines, akin to negroes but of smaller stature and more ape-like. Possibly the primitive stock from which the Negroes (q.v.) were developed.
=Negroes.= The most numerous branch of Ethiopic Man, divided into African (Sudanese, Bantu, and Hottentot-Bushman) and Oceanic (Papuan, Melanesian, and Australian) sections. American Negroes are descended from African slaves, mostly of Sudanese origin. See HAYTIANS.
=Nempés.= See NIGERIAN GROUP.
=Nestorians.= A Syrian race, belonging to the Aramæan stock of the Semitic family, distinguished by a special form of Christian belief, who were driven out of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, and whose descendants now form a special community in the mountain ranges of Kurdistan. They are poor and illiterate. A branch of Nestorians is found in Travancore, where they go by the name of Syrian Christians.
=New Guinea Natives.= See PAPUANS.
=New Zealanders.= (1) Aborigines [see MAORIS]. (2) White inhabitants of New Zealand, of Anglo-Saxon descent.
=Nez Percés.= A tribe of North American Indians, in British Columbia and Idaho, part of whom are well advanced in civilisation.
=Niam-Niam.= See AZANDEH.
=Nicaraguans.= White natives of Nicaragua, in Central America, of Spanish descent, with Indian and negro elements.
=Nicobarese.= Natives of the Nicobar Islands, of Malay blood mixed with that of the Mongolic aborigines. Formerly given to piracy.
=Nigerian Group.= A group of Sudanese Negro tribes, all of allied stocks, inhabiting the Niger Delta, the Oil River, Lower Benue, and Niger region, including the Niger Bend. Amongst them are the people of Benin--noted for their vast human sacrifices--the Abo, Nempé, Nupé, Akasa, Qua, Efik, Okrika, Akpa, Mossi, Sienereh, and many other tribes.
=Nilitic Group.= Another group of Sudanese Negro tribes, inhabiting the districts of the White Nile, Sobat, and the northern slopes of the Nile-Congo divide. They include the Abaka, Abukaya, Bongo, Shuli, Falanj, Madi, Bari, Nuer, Shilluk, Dinka, Mundu, Rol, Mittu, Krej, and Fertit tribes. They are mainly hard-working agriculturists, from whom the British draw material for excellent soldiery.
=Niquirans.= See NAHUANS.
=Nogais.= A race of Caucasian Tartars (q.v.) inhabiting the steppes of the Kuma River; nomadic cattle-breeders.
=Normans.= Natives of Normandy, descended from the Norsemen (q.v.) who settled on the French coast under Rolf the Ganger in the beginning of the tenth century. The history of the Normans, who conquered England and Sicily, is well known. The modern Normans still preserve many signs of their Scandinavian ancestry, which distinguish them from their French or Breton neighbours.
=Norsemen= or =Northmen=. A name given in the Middle Ages to the piratical emigrants from Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and Norway, who descended on the coasts of England, France, Germany, and Southern Europe. They called themselves Vikings. These sea-rovers came, in the first instance, for portable plunder, but in many cases they were tempted by the look of the more fertile lands of the south to make settlements, among which those of the Danes in England and Ireland and of the Norwegians in Normandy, England, and Sicily were the most lasting and important.
=Norwegians.= A branch of the Scandinavian stock of the Aryan family. They are probably descended from Teutonic immigrants--perhaps of Gothic race--who entered the Scandinavian peninsula in prehistoric times, and drove out the aboriginal Lapps or Finns. Another theory makes Scandinavia the original home of the Aryans, of whom, on this view, the Norwegians would represent the primitive stock. Their history begins in the ninth century, when a Norwegian kingdom was established by Harold Fairhair. The old Norwegians were extremely warlike and piratical [see NORSEMEN]. Their modern descendants are a peaceful and industrious race, the most simple and democratic people of Europe, who recently threw off the Swedish rule and re-established the ancient Norwegian kingdom.
=Nsakkaras.= See WELLE GROUP.
=Nuba Group.= A group of Sudanese Negro tribes, occupying Nubia, Dar-Fur, and Kordofan, in the Egyptian Sudan. They include the Furs, Nubas, Nile Nubians, Tumalis, Kargos, Kulfans, Kolajis, and Kunjaras. They are an active and warlike race, in which the primitive Negro blood has frequently been modified by Semitic (Arab) and Hamitic influences. They supply many of our Sudanese regiments.
=Nubians.= Ancient inhabitants of Nubia, probably identical with Ethiopians (q.v.), but modified by the infusion of Negro blood. They established a Nubian kingdom in the Upper Nile basin about the sixth century.
=Nuers.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Numidians.= An ancient Hamitic race, inhabiting the district now known as Algeria. They were fine horsemen, warlike, but treacherous, and were conquered by Rome B.C. 46. See BERBERS.
=Nupés.= See NIGERIAN GROUP.
=Nutkas.= A collective name given to the Indian tribes of Vancouver Island and the adjoining districts of British Columbia.
=Obongos.= A Bushman-like race of pygmy Negritoes discovered by Du Chaillu on the western coast of equatorial Africa, physically and mentally degenerate.
=Ojibbeways.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Okrikas.= See NIGERIAN GROUP.
=Olkhonese.= A tribe of Buriats (q.v.) inhabiting the district of Lake Baikal.
=Omaguas.= See TUPI-GUARANI.
=Omahas.= See SIOUAN.
=Onondagas.= See IROQUOIAN.
=Opata-Pima.= A group of Central American Indian races, allied to the Nahuan group (q.v.), but of lower mental and physical type. It includes the Cora, Yuma, Papago, Tarahumara and Tepeguana tribes.
=Orang-Benua, Orang-Lauts.= See MALAYS.
=Ordos.= See SHARRAS.
=Orochs.= A nomadic tribe of the Siberian Tunguses (q.v.).
=Osages.= See SIOUAN.
=Oscans.= A primitive Italic race inhabiting Campania, who were conquered by and amalgamated with the Samnites (q.v.) in the fifth century, B.C. Their language was a ruder form of Latin.
=Osmanlis.= See TURKS.
=Ossets.= An isolated Aryan race inhabiting the Central Caucasus, and differing in language and customs from their Caucasian neighbours. They are probably allied to the Iranian stock, though some suppose them to be descended from Gothic settlers.
=Ostrogoths.= See GOTHS.
=Ostyaks.= A Ugrian race of Mongolic physical type, allied to the Samoyedes (q.v.), inhabiting the Obi basin in Western Siberia. They are mainly nomads, hunters and reindeer breeders. They are kind, gentle and honest, and show considerable artistic power.
=Otoes.= See SIOUAN.
=Otomis.= An Indian race of Mexico, assumed on linguistic grounds to represent the oldest of American Indian stocks.
=Ottomans.= See TURKS.
=Ovaherero.= See HEREROS.
=Ovampos.= The chief Bantu Negro race of German South-west Africa, tall and well-proportioned, with regular features--a fine Negro type. They are industrious agriculturists, given to raiding and inter-tribal warfare.
=Oworos, Oyos.= See YORUBAS.
=Pampas Indians.= See PUELCHES.
=Pangasinans.= A semi-civilised Malayan race in the Philippine Islands.
=Papagos.= See OPATA-PIMA.
=Papuans.= The savage aborigines of New Guinea and the neighbouring islands of the Torres Strait and East Malaysia. They belong to the Oceanic division of Ethiopic Man, and are allied to the African Negro, though they stand at a somewhat higher intellectual level. They are of Negroid physical type, characterised specially by their mops of frizzy hair; colour, a sooty brown to black, with projecting jaws, thick lips and retreating foreheads; nose sometimes flat, but oftener hooked and of Jewish appearance. The race has probably been modified by Malayan and Polynesian intermixture. Probably the Melanesians and the Australian aborigines are closely related to the Papuans. They are a fierce and treacherous race, hostile to strangers, and given to cannibalism and head-hunting. They show much agricultural skill, and in some cases are susceptible of European civilisation.
=Paraguay Indians.= See TUPI-GUARANI.
=Parsees.= Followers of Zoroaster, of Persian descent, who have settled in India, chiefly near Bombay, where they have become one of the most thriving sections of the community, owing to their marked ability for commerce. A small remnant of Parsees, known as Guebres, is still to be found in Persia itself.
=Parthians.= A warlike people of the ancient world, inhabiting a district of Northern Persia. They seem to have been of Scythian (q.v.) descent, and were noted for their habit of fighting on horseback and discharging their most fatal arrows whilst in pretended flight. Under Mithridates (171-138 B.C.), the Parthians became supreme in Persia, and afterwards warred for long successfully with the Romans.
=Patagonians= or =Tehuelches=. Natives of the most southerly region of the American continent, noted for their great stature, in many cases approaching the gigantic. They are one of the physically strongest races of the earth, of a yellowish brown colour, with well-formed and regular features. They are nomadic tribes of Araucanian (q.v.) descent, who live by fishing and hunting; and peacefully disposed to strangers.
=Pathans.= See AFGHANS.
=Payaguas.= A South American Indian race, in the Argentine, whose wealth of silver ornaments gave a name to the Rio de la Plata.
=Pawnees.= A brave warlike tribe of North American Indians, akin to the Shoshonean group (q.v.) and formerly settled in Nebraska.
=Pechenegs.= An ancient Mongolic race of Turki stock, a branch of the Kipchaks (q.v.).
=Pelasgians.= The pre-Aryan inhabitants of Greece, apparently the aborigines of that country, who were dispossessed by the Aryan Hellenes. Little or nothing is known of their racial characteristics and affinities; but the excavations recently made at Mycenæ, Knossos, etc., show that they had reached a high stage of civilisation in prehistoric times on the Ægean coast. Probably a branch of the Western Hamitic family, resembling Berbers (q.v.) in physical type. See MYCENÆANS and ETRUSCANS.
=Permians.= A branch of the Finnish race, inhabiting the district of Perm in Russia, and closely resembling the Karelians (q.v.).
=Persians.= The ancient Persians were the main branch of the Iranian stock of the Aryan family, a civilised and warlike nation, who taught their sons “to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak the truth.” They reared a great empire under Cyrus (B.C. 537) and his successors, which was destroyed by Alexander the Great and divided in 324 B.C. The modern Persians, known as Tajiks, and as Tats on the west of the Caspian, are the descendants of the ancient Persians with a considerable admixture of alien blood, due to a long period of Arab and Turkish domination. They present a fine Aryan type, however, and are cultivated and commercial, though not warlike.
=Peruvian Indians.= See INCAS.
=Peruvians.= White natives of Peru, partly of pure Spanish descent, partly crossed with Indian blood.
=Philippine Islanders.= The natives of the Philippines belong to three distinct races--Negritoes, Indonesians and Malays. The Negritoes are known as Aetas (q.v.). The Indonesians are confined to the island of Mindanao; they are light-skinned, tall and well-developed physically. Their chief tribe is that of the Igorrotes. The Malays are brown-skinned, with black hair and flat noses, being crossed with Negrito blood. Their chief tribes are the Visayans, Tagalogs, Bicols, Ilocanos, Cayagans, Pangasinans and Pampangas. These are all Christianised and fairly civilised. The interior is occupied by wild and savage tribes of similar race, and by the dwarfish and nomadic Negritoes. Many of these tribes practise head-hunting, cannibalism, and human sacrifices. The more civilised tribes, with the Spanish-Indian half-breeds, known as Filipinos, are turbulent and lawless, the source of much trouble to the new American as to the old Spanish rulers.
=Philistines.= An ancient race inhabiting the Mediterranean seaboard to the south-west of Judæa, who warred much with the Israelites, and were finally subdued by them. They were probably a Canaanitish people, belonging to the Semitic family; but some regard them as an immigrant Hamitic race, perhaps related to the Cretans or Pelasgians. The assumed inferiority of their culture to that of the Israelites has given rise to the modern use of “Philistine” as a term of reproach.
=Phœnicians.= The greatest seafaring and trading nation of ancient times, and the earliest of Mediterranean sea-powers. A branch of the Canaanite stock of the Semitic family, they inhabited the Mediterranean coast between Latakia and Acre, their chief cities being Tyre and Sidon. They possessed a remarkable polytheistic religion, disfigured by human sacrifices. They were an inventive race, to whom we owe glass and Tyrian purple. They seem to have entered Phœnicia from the direction of the Red Sea in prehistoric times, and were at first subject to Egypt, but about 1300 B.C. reared a great maritime empire, which endured for nearly a thousand years and was destroyed by Alexander the Great. They were the great traders of the ancient world, and carried on a commerce which ranged from Cornwall to Ceylon and Senegal. The Carthaginians (q.v.) were a colony of Phœnicians.
=Phrygians.= An ancient pastoral people of Asia Minor, closely related to the Armenians (q.v.), who were absorbed by the Persians in the sixth century B.C.
=Picts.= The aborigines of ancient Scotland, a short, round-headed, dark race, probably a branch of the Iberian stock of the Western Hamitic family, and thus closely related to the Basques (q.v.). The Picts were a wild and warlike race, who harassed the Roman province of Britain, and were exterminated by the invading Scots from Ireland in the early part of the Christian era. The whole Pictish problem is still unsolved by ethnologists, some of whom hold that the Picts were a Celtic race, allied to the modern Welsh or to the Scottish Highlanders of to-day.
=Picuris.= See PUEBLO INDIANS.
=Pipils.= See NAHUANS.
=Pitcairn Islanders.= Half-breed descendants of Englishmen (the mutineers of the “Bounty”) and Tahitian women. A peaceful and idyllic race.
=Pocomans, Poconches.= See MAYA-QUICHÉ.
=Poles.= A stock of the Western Slavonic family, originally dwelling between the Vistula and the Oder. In the tenth century Poland became an independent European Power, and remained an elective kingdom down to its partition in the eighteenth century between Russia, Austria and Prussia. The Polish peasantry have always been industrious and successful agriculturists, whilst the nobility were turbulent and warlike. The Poles who live under Austrian and German rule are fairly contented, but those of Russian Poland have carried on a long and often bloody series of struggles for liberty. Of late years, Russian Poland has become a manufacturing country, under German influence. The Poles have a considerable literature, and are eminently musical.
=Polynesians.= The chief stock of the Indonesian (q.v.) family, the tall, brown-skinned race of Caucasic type who inhabit the chief islands of the Eastern Pacific, and are generally known as South Sea Islanders. Their chief races are the Maoris (q.v.) of New Zealand, the Marquesans, Tahitians, Tongans and Samoans, besides the natives of Easter, Gambier, Hervey, and other smaller islands. They are of tall stature--only surpassed by the Patagonians--muscular frame, regular and often handsome features, with brown skins, square jaws, and broad skulls. They probably originated in Malaysia, where they are still represented by the Battaks of North Sumatra, some Dyak races, and certain tribes of the Philippines and Gilolo. They are a gay, pleasure-loving people, formerly addicted to cannibalism, but otherwise of pleasing manners, and are now rapidly acquiring civilisation, though their numbers are everywhere decreasing under the influence of European manners and diseases.
=Poncas.= See SIOUAN.
=Portuguese.= Natives of Portugal, a mixed race, probably of Iberian or Basque origin, with later Celtic elements. After falling successively under Roman, Visigothic, and Saracen dominion, they formed an independent kingdom in the twelfth century. The early Portuguese were enterprising seamen, who contributed largely to the exploration of the world, and founded many colonies in Africa, which they still possess. Brazil is their chief American settlement, now independent.
=Provençals.= Natives of Provence, in the South of France. Their primitive Ligurian (q.v.) stock was modified by many successive influences, such as the Greek colonists, who founded Marseilles, the Roman settlers in the Provincia (Provence), and, later, Gothic and Saracen invaders. The Provençals are a gay, impulsive and pleasure-loving people, markedly distinct from the more staid and industrious inhabitants of Northern France.
=Pruczi=, or =Old Prussians=. See LETTIC.
=Prussians.= The earliest inhabitants of Prussia were Slavonic tribes [see LETTIC]. The modern Prussians, the dominant race of the German Empire, belong to the High German branch of the Teutonic stock.
=Pueblo Indians.= A semi-civilised race of North American Indians, dwelling in New Mexico and Arizona. They inhabit “pueblos,” or huge houses, often large enough to contain a whole tribe under one roof. They possess interesting religious and social customs, much studied by anthropologists. Their chief tribes are the Zunis, Teguas, Taos, Picuris, and Tusayas. The Moquis of Arizona are closely related to them.
=Puelches=, or =Pampas Indians=. A strongly-built, dark-skinned race of South American Indians, who inhabit the great plains or pampas from the Saladillo to the Rio Negro in Argentina. They are expert horsemen, from whom the Gauchos (q.v.) are derived.
=Punjabis.= Natives of the Punjab, in North-West India, mostly Jats and Sikhs (q.v.) belonging to the Hindu stock of the Aryan family. An agricultural and warlike people.
=Puntis.= See CHINESE.
=Pygmies.= Dwarfish Negrito races of Central Africa, long considered to be mythical, but now well known to ethnologists. They include the Akkas and Wochuas of the Welle Basin, the Obongos of the Gaboon, the Batwas of South Congo, etc. In very early times they were known by repute to the Egyptians--on whose monuments they appear in the thirty-fourth century B.C.--and the Greeks. They live by the chase in the Central African forests, and use poisoned arrows. Other small races, such as the Bushmen, Lapps, Kalangs, Samangs, etc., have contributed to the fame of the Pygmies.
=Quas.= A Sudanese Negro tribe on the Ivory Coast, belonging to the Nigerian group (q.v.).
=Quapaws.= See SIOUAN.
=Queahs.= See LIBERIAN GROUP.
=Quichés.= A race of Central American Indians in Guatemala, rivalling the Aztecs in the possession of an ancient civilisation and a curious mythology. See MAYA-QUICHÉ.
=Quichuas.= See INCAS.
=Rajputs.= The predominant race of Rajputana, in Central India, belonging to the Hindu stock of the Aryan family. They are a proud and warlike aristocracy of soldiers and landowners, who rule many native states, of which Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur are the most important.
=Ramas.= See LENCAN.
=Redskins.= A term given in common parlance to North American Indians, from their colour.
=Rejangs.= A Malayan race of Sumatra, akin to the Achinese (q.v.).
=Rols.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Romans.= The most powerful and warlike, and in every sense the greatest race of ancient Europe, who acquired the dominion of the Western world, and laid the foundations of modern civilisation. The city of Rome was founded by Alban shepherds, of Latin (q.v.) race, in the eighth century B.C. Oscan, Sabine, Samnite, and Umbrian (q.v.) elements were added to the original stock, and thus the great Roman character was moulded. Rome later extended her power over the whole of Italy, and then over the whole of the known world.
=Romance Races.= See LATIN RACES.
=Romansch.= Natives of the Grisons in Switzerland, speaking a Romance dialect, and probably of Italic race.
=Roumanians=, or =Vlachs=. Natives of the modern Roumanian kingdom, the leading Balkan State, composed of the older principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, which were long subject to the Turks. The Vlachs (Wallachs, a name akin to our Welsh) are probably descended from the Latin-speaking inhabitants of the ancient Roman province of Dacia, a tribe of Thracian descent, which was subjugated by Trajan in the second century. They have preserved their language, but their blood has been mingled with that of numerous conquerors--Goths, Huns, Slovenians, Albanians, Turks, etc. The Roumanian peasantry are a hardy and thrifty race, retaining their old warlike traditions.
=Rucuyennes.= See CARIBS.
=Russians.= The chief of the Slavonic races inhabiting European Russia, and divided into Great, White, and Little Russians. The physical distinction between these races is attributed to the mixture of the primitive Russian stock respectively with Finnish, Lithuanian, and Turkish blood. The original Russians belonged to the Slavonic stock of the Aryan family, and seem to have been settled in prehistoric times between the Danube, the Elbe, and the south coast of the Baltic. Thus they must have entered Russia from the west in the early centuries of our era. There they conquered and drove out or assimilated the aborigines of Northern Mongolic (Finno-Turkish) stock, and established a number of small states, agricultural in character, which long suffered from Tartar invasion, notably that of the Golden Horde [see KIPCHAKS], and were gradually moulded into a single kingdom, with Moscow for its capital. Modern Russia, with its vast Asiatic dependencies, is one of the greatest Empires in the world, but it is in a state of transition, and its civilisation is consequently backward. The Russian peasants are very patient, industrious, and thrifty. When well led, they are admirable soldiers. Their chief occupation is agriculture.
=Ruthenians.= A branch of the Little Russian race, who inhabit the district of the Carpathians in Galicia and Hungary; poor, but hardy cultivators of the soil.
=Sabæans.= See HIMYARITES.
=Sabines.= An ancient Italic race, who inhabited the district between the Central Apennines--their ancestral home--and Rome. The Samnites were their descendants or near kinsmen, and the Umbrians were less closely related to them. When Rome was founded there was a strong Sabine element in its population, as indicated by the story of the Rape of the Sabine Women, and the statement that several of the early kings of Rome were of Sabine blood. The Sabines and Samnites warred against Rome for many years, but both were ultimately subdued and incorporated in the Roman State.
=Sac Indians.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Sakais=, or =Samangs=. An aboriginal Negrito race of the Malay Peninsula; a wild and uncivilised people, with black skins and woolly hair, often approaching the ape-like in physical development and intelligence.
=Sakalavas.= One of the principal groups of the Malagasy tribes, inhabiting the west coast of Madagascar; of mixed Malay and negro blood, and akin to the Hovas (q.v.).
=Salish.= See FLATHEADS.
=Samangs.= See SAKAIS.
=Sambos=, or =Zambos=. Half-breeds sprung from Negro and Indian parents.
=Samnites.= See SABINES.
=Samoans.= A Polynesian (q.v.) race, of fine physical development, lazy and pleasure-loving, inhabiting the Samoan group of islands.
=Samoyedes.= A Finno-Ugrian race, inhabiting the Obi basin in Siberia, once widely spread over the extreme north of Europe and Asia. They are short and dark haired, with Mongolic features, brave and honest, live by hunting and fishing, and are still in the Stone Age.
=Samsams.= A mixed Malayo-Siamese race, forming a large part of the population of the Malayan States of Kedah and Ligor.
=Santals.= A negro-like aboriginal tribe of Orissa in India, agriculturists, of the Kolarian family (q.v.).
=Saracens.= A term applied in the Middle Ages to the Moslem enemies of Christendom, especially to the nomadic Arabs and Bedouins of the Syrian deserts.
=Saras.= See LAKE CHAD GROUP.
=Sarakolés.= See MANDINGAN.
=Sards=, or =Sardinians=. The aboriginal inhabitants of Sardinia, probably of the Western Hamitic family, akin to the Iberians or Ligurians (q.v.). The modern Sardinians are descended from this race, with considerable admixtures of alien blood from the Carthaginian, Roman, Saracen, Spanish and Italian owners of the island in successive periods.
=Sarmatians.= An ancient nomadic and warlike people, probably akin to the Scythians (q.v.), who roamed over the wide plains of Eastern Europe. Fine horsemen. They were destroyed by the Goths in the fourth century, and disappeared from history.
=Sassaks.= Natives of Lombok in the Sunda Islands, of Malayan race.
=Savoyards.= Natives of Savoy, originally a short, round-skulled, dark race, akin to the Auvergnats (q.v.), now largely mingled with Teutonic blood.
=Saxons.= (1) The Old Saxons originally inhabited the estuary of the Elbe and the neighbouring islands. They were a warlike race, of Low German stock, whose name is said to be derived from the “Saxes,” or heavy knives which they used in war. They were one of the most adventurous of Teutonic races, and made many piratical and colonising excursions, of which the most important was their settlement in Britain in the fifth century, where they united with the Angles (q.v.) to lay the foundation of the modern English people. (2) The Saxons who remained on the Continent gradually extended their dominion till it reached modern Saxony. Under Charlemagne the Saxon power was subordinated to that of the Franks. Saxony later became an independent duchy, which is still one of the chief States of the German Empire. The modern Saxons are less adventurous than their ancestors, very industrious, and successful in agriculture and industry, and make excellent soldiers.
=Scandinavians.= A main stock of the Aryan family, sometimes classed as a branch of the Teutonic stock, including the Icelanders, Norwegians, Danes and Swedes, as well as the old Norsemen and Normans (q.v.). Some ethnologists regard them as the original stock of the Aryan family. They are tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired, warlike, and good sailors and colonists.
=Scots= or =Scotch=. (1) The ancient Scots were a Celtic race, belonging to the Goidelic or Q Celts (q.v.), originally settled in Ireland--the ancient Scotia--whence they made settlements in the fifth century in modern Scotland, to which they gave their name. They were gradually driven back into the Highlands by Anglo-Saxon, Norman and Danish invaders, and are now represented by the Highlanders (q.v.) or Gaels. (2) The modern Scots, or Lowland Scots, are mainly of Anglo-Saxon race, modified by Norman, Danish, and Flemish elements. They are one of the finest and most hardy and industrious races in the world, equally successful in the arts of war and peace.
=Scythians.= An ancient nomadic and warlike race, found in the seventh century B.C. on the vast plains of South-eastern Europe, where they lived by cattle-breeding and raiding. They dwelt in tent-covered waggons, fought on horseback with bows and arrows, and made drinking-cups of their enemies’ skulls. Their origin is in dispute. Some regard them as a Mongolic race, which was modified by association with Aryan races, and others as an Aryan stock; their kinsmen, the Sarmatians (q.v.), were almost certainly Aryans. They made several incursions into Asia, where they conquered a large tract of Northern India and established a kingdom which lasted till about the fourth century A.D. The Rajputs and Jats (q.v.) are sometimes held to be their descendants.
=Selengese.= See BURIATS.
=Seljuks.= A warlike Turkish people who were settled on the Jaxartes in the eleventh century and afterwards founded a considerable empire in Western Asia. See TURKS.
=Seminoles.= See MUSKHOGEAN.
=Semites.= An important family of Caucasic Man, who probably originated in North Africa, from a similar stock to that of the Hamites. They are characterised by fine regular features, large aquiline noses, black eyes and hair, white skins, long skulls and square jaws. They are very intellectual, though less practical than the Aryan type; poets, prophets, and dreamers, rather than men of action. They have given the world its two greatest religions--Christianity and Islam. Their chief divisions are Assyrians, Aramæans, Canaanites, Arabs and Himyarites (q.v.). In the modern world they are best known from the ubiquitous Jews (q.v.).
=Seneca Indians.= See IROQUOIAN.
=Serbs.= See SERVIANS.
=Serers.= Sudanese Negroes inhabiting Senegambia in the Cape Verde district. They are the tallest of Negro races, with herculean frames, and are akin to the Wolofs (q.v.)
=Servians=, or =Serbs=. A race of Southern Slavonic stock, now inhabiting Servia. They were at first identical with the Croats (q.v.), and seem to have originated in the Carpathian district, whence they migrated into the Balkan peninsula in the seventh century. The Serbs then separated from the Croats, and in the twelfth century founded a powerful Servian kingdom, which was conquered by the Turks in the fifteenth. The Servians recovered their independence in 1830, under Milosh Obrenovitch. The Servians are a well-built race, proud and martial in temperament, quick-tempered and prone to deeds of violence, as their recent revolution witnessed.
=Shangallas.= A mixed negroid race of the Abyssinian slopes. Sudanese Negroes with a Hamitic infusion.
=Shans.= Natives of the independent Shan States, lying to the north of Siam. They are identical with the Laos, and closely related to the Siamese (q.v.). They belong to the Indo-Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family, and are probably descended from an aboriginal race of China, which appeared on the Upper Irawadi about 2,000 years ago. They are a peaceful, pleasure-loving people, mainly agricultural, but not unwarlike. They have a sallow skin and Mongoloid features.
=Sharras=, or =Eastern Mongols=. A branch of the Mongol stock of the Northern Mongolic family. They are a nomad, tent-dwelling, pastoral race, who roam over the great steppes of Central Asia. They include the Khalkas, north of the Gobi Desert, the Tanguts of Northern Tibet, the Chakars, Barins, Durbans, Uruts, Naimans, and Ordos south of the Gobi. They are descended from the older Mongols (q.v.), whom they resemble in physical type.
=Shawnees.= See ALGONQUIAN.
=Shilluks.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Shoshonean.= A group of North American Indian tribes, all belonging to the Shoshone or Snake family, formerly occupying Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, with neighbouring districts. They include the Shoshones or Snakes, Bannocks, Comanches, Utahs, and Mokis. With the exception of the warlike Comanches, they are a peaceful race, who have received the white invaders with friendship.
=Shulis.= See NILITIC GROUP.
=Siamese.= Natives of Siam, belonging to the Indo-Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family. They are closely related to the Shans (q.v.). They are of medium height, olive complexion, with slightly flattened noses, prominent lips, and black hair. They are a peaceful and indolent race, who have recently shown promise of assimilating Western civilisation. Their blood is largely mixed with Chinese and Malay. Siam is still independent, forming a buffer state between British and French possessions.
=Siberian.= A stock of the Northern Mongolic family, including the Chukchi, Koryak, Kamchadale, Gilyak, and Yukaghir tribes (q.v.).
=Sicani, Siculi.= See SICILIANS.
=Sicilians.= The primitive inhabitants of Sicily were the Sicani, probably a Hamitic race allied to the Ligurians (q.v.). They were followed by the Siculi, an Aryan race of Italic stock, who crossed from Italy about 1000 B.C. They were civilised and modified by Phœnician, and especially Greek settlers, with later Norman and Saracen influences. Of all these elements the modern Sicilians are compounded. They are a handsome, industrious, and amiable race, but turbulent, lawless, given to blood-feuds and brigandage.
=Sienerehs.= See NIGERIAN GROUP.
=Sikhs.= A powerful and warlike race of Northern India, united by a common religious faith, dating from the eighteenth century, and mainly of Jat (q.v.) descent. Under Ranjit Singh, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, they reared a formidable military power in the Punjab, which was conquered by the British in 1846-1849. The Sikhs contribute many of the best and most trustworthy troops to the Indian Army.
=Silurians.= A dark, round-skulled, short race who inhabited South Wales and the neighbouring districts of England in Roman times. They were probably of Iberian stock, related to the ancient Picts and modern Basques.
=Sindis.= Natives of Sind in North-West India, of Hindu descent.
=Singphos.= A wild, daring hill-tribe of Tibetan stock bordering on the Assam valley, formerly given to raiding, but now peaceful agriculturists. The Chins of the Arakan uplands are probably an identical race; they are still predatory.
=Sinhalese.= See DRAVIDIANS.
=Siouan.= A numerous and formerly powerful group of North American Indians, inhabiting the western prairies between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. Their chief tribe was the Sioux or Dakotas, warriors of fine physique, courage, and military skill, who long maintained a successful resistance against the white settlers. Other allied tribes were the Assinaboins, Omahas, Poncas, Kaws, Osages, Quapaws, Iowas, Otoes, Missouris, Winnebagos, Mandans, Minnetarees, Absarakas or Crows, Tutelos, and Catawbas.
=Sioux=, or =Dakotas=. See SIOUAN.
=Siryanians.= A tribe of Ugrian Finns, dwelling on both sides of the Northern Urals, resembling the Samoyedes (q.v.), except in their white colour and fair hair, probably due to a mixture of Slavonic blood. See FINNO-UGRIAN.
=Slavonic Races=, =Slavs= or =Slavonians=. A main stock of the Aryan family, occupying the greater part of Eastern Europe, and formerly extending as far west as the Elbe. Many ethnologists consider them to be the primitive Aryan stock. They are a peaceful and industrious agricultural and pastoral race, broad-skulled, with fair hair and blue eyes; though the primitive type has been much modified by intermixture of blood, especially with Mongolic races, who have imprinted a Tartar character on many Slavonic physiognomies. The Slavs are divided into Eastern (Russians and Ruthenians), Western (Czechs and Slovaks, Poles and Wends or Sorbs), and Southern (Bulgarians, Servians, and Croats, Dalmatians, Slovenians, and Montenegrins). See under these heads.
=Slovaks.= See CZECHS.
=Slovenians.= A branch of Southern Slavonic stock, inhabiting Styria, Carinthia, and adjoining districts.
=Solimas.= See TEMNÉ GROUP.
=Somalis.= An Eastern Hamitic race of Somaliland in North-East Africa. They are a pastoral people, of good physique, handsome features, and light-brown colour, warlike and independent. The original Hamitic stock--closely akin to that of the Gallas (q.v.)--is modified by Semitic and Negro blood. They make excellent soldiers and servants.
=Sonrhays.= A Negro race of the Middle Niger, in whom the Sudanese stock is modified by Arab and Berber elements.
=Sorbs.= See WENDS.
=Soyots.= A tribe of Ugrian Finns, mixed with Tartar blood, in the Sayan Mountains of South Siberia. See FINNO-UGRIAN.
=Spaniards=, or =Spanish=. The earliest known race of Spain was the Hamitic Iberians (q.v.), now represented by the Basques. They were modified by Celtic invasions, which gave birth to the Celt-Iberian races of Central and Western Spain, who struggled so long against the Roman arms, by which they were finally subjugated and further modified. In the fifth century the Vandals and Visigoths (q.v.) invaded Spain, and founded a Gothic monarchy, which fell before the Saracens in 711. The Visigothic refugees in the northern mountains gradually recovered the country, and the kingdoms of Leon, Navarre, Castile, and Aragon were ultimately united into a single state. The modern Spaniards are thus of mixed race, in which the Iberian and Visigothic are the predominant elements. They are haughty, brave, and warlike, by which qualities they once owned the greatest power in Europe. But they are turbulent and lacking in political skill, so that Spain has decayed. There are now signs of a return to prosperity.
=Spanish Americans.= White natives of Central and South American States, except Brazil.
=Spartans.= Natives of Sparta, the greatest state of ancient Greece after Athens, of Dorian stock, eminently warlike and patriotic, but wanting in art or literature.
=Sudanese.= Full-blooded Negroes inhabiting the Western, Central, and Eastern or Egyptian Sudan--i.e. most of Africa north of the Victoria Nyanza. They are black in colour, with woolly hair, projecting jaws, long skulls, broad, flat feet and projecting heels, and form one of the main divisions of Ethiopic Man. They are less intelligent and susceptible of civilisation than the Bantus (q.v.), in whom the Negro blood is modified by Hamitic or Semitic admixtures. They are mostly of strong physique, warlike and predatory, fond of music and bright colours, with the most elementary notions of art and religion. They may be divided for convenience into several racial groups (q.v.), such as Wolof, Felup, Toucouleur, Mandingan, Temné, Nigerian, Nilotic, Liberian, Lake Chad, Wadai, Welle, Nuba, and Nilotic, besides the Tshi, Ga, Ewe, and Yoruba peoples of the Guinea district.
=Suevi.= See SWABIANS.
=Sundanese.= Natives of the Sunda Islands, of Malayan stock, closely allied to Javanese (q.v.).
=Susus.= See MANDINGAN.
=Sutughils.= See MAYA-QUICHÉ.
=Swabians.= Natives of Swabia, an ancient duchy occupying the south-western part of the modern German Empire; descended from the ancient Suevi, with whom the Alemanni (q.v.) were amalgamated. A strong, large-boned, and good-humoured race of High German stock. The Alsatians are closely allied to them.
=Swahilis.= Natives of Zanzibar and the adjoining mainland, Bantu Negroes, with a strong infusion of Arab blood, which has made them superior in intelligence and enterprise to the average negro. They play a large part in the commerce of East Africa, and their language--Ki-Swahili--is the principal medium of communication throughout the part of Africa between the Equator and the Zambesi.
=Swazis.= Natives of Swaziland, a native state on the south-east of the Transvaal. A cross between Zulus and other Kafirs, they are industrious and warlike.
=Swedes.= Natives of Sweden, a branch of the Scandinavian stock. They seem to have been originally a Teutonic race, who entered Northern Sweden about 3,000 years ago, and drove out the aboriginal Lapps and Finns. The inhabitants of Southern Sweden were called Goths, and may have been the ancestors of the Teutonic Goths. In time they amalgamated with the Swedes, and formed one nation, which has been an independent kingdom through most of the Christian era. The Swedes are warlike, and successful in commerce and industry; they make good sailors, and possess a considerable literature.
=Swiss=, or =Switzers=. The prehistoric inhabitants of Switzerland were the unknown builders of the lake dwellings. At the dawn of history, in Cæsar’s time, the country was largely occupied by a Celtic race, the Helvetii. Later, Switzerland was invaded by Teutonic races of High German stock, Alemanni, Burgundians, etc. The modern Swiss are mostly descended from these races; there is also a considerable mixture of French, Italic and Romansch elements. The Swiss have always been a warlike race, who preserved the independence of their mountainous country through all ages, and in earlier times furnished excellent mercenary soldiers to foreign armies. They are now very industrious and successful in many arts and crafts, such as watchmaking, wood-carving, hotel-keeping, etc. They are a simple and handsome race, possessing in full measures the virtues of the mountaineer.
=Syrians.= The ancient Syrians were a branch of the Aramæn stock of the Semitic family, and the modern Syrians are their descendants, with some Arab and Turkish elements added. They are tall, with white skins and dark complexions, black eyes and hair, often very handsome, and approaching the Jewish type. They are not warlike, but succeed in commerce.
=Tacullis.= See ATHABASCAN.
=Tahitians.= Natives of Tahiti, of Polynesian stock; pleasure-loving and polite, but immoral and untrustworthy; now civilised but formerly noted for their cruelty.
=Taipings.= The Chinese rebels who attacked the dynasty from 1850 to 1864.
=Tajiks.= See PERSIANS.
=Talaings.= An Indo-Chinese race who preceded the Burmese in the Irawadi Delta, and founded a state of which Pegu was the capital. They were subjugated by Burmese in the eighteenth century.
=Talamancas.= Wild hunting Indians, perfectly uncivilised, who occupy the forest-covered Atlantic slopes of Costa Rica.
=Tamils.= Natives of Northern Ceylon and the Indian Carnatic. See DRAVIDAS.
=Taos.= See PUEBLO INDIANS.
=Tanguts.= Nomadic Mongols of Northern Tibet. See SHARRAS.
=Tarahumaras.= See OPATA-PIMA.
=Tarascans.= A group of Indian tribes inhabiting the province of Michoaca in Mexico.
=Tartars= or =Tatars.= The modern Tartars are inhabitants of the Russian Empire, belonging to the Turki stock of the Northern Mongolic family. They are divided into various geographical subdivisions, such as the Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimean (or Krim) Caucasian and Siberian Tartars. The name has no definite ethnical significance. The Tatars--a Manchu word meaning “archers” or “nomads”--were Mongol tribes who were first so named in the ninth century. They formed a large part of the hordes of Genghiz Khan [see MONGOLS] and stood in the van of the mediæval Mongol incursions into Europe, whence they attracted an attention out of proportion to their importance. Europeans called them Tartars, confusing the name Tartar with the Greek Tartarus or Hell. See TURKI.
=Tasmanians.= The extinct aborigines of Tasmania, akin to the Australians (q.v.), but of a still lower Oceanic Negro type. They held a place at the very bottom of humanity, alike in physique, intelligence and culture, being still in the early Stone Age; savage, untamable, and degraded.
=Tatars.= See TARTARS.
=Tats.= See PERSIANS.
=Tavastians.= A branch of the Baltic Finns, with thick-set figures, small blue eyes, light hair, and white skins, probably the consequence of an admixture of German blood with the original Finnish stock. They inhabit central Finland.
=Tazis.= See TUNGUSES.
=Teguas.= See PUEBLO INDIANS.
=Tehuelches.= Another name for the gigantic Patagonians (q.v.) of South America.
=Telugus.= See DRAVIDIANS.
=Tembus=, =Amatembu=, or =Tambukies=. A group of Kafir (q.v.) tribes in Tembuland, to the north of the Kei River in Cape Colony. Formerly warlike and troublesome, now settled to agriculture and subjected to British rule.
=Temné Group.= A group of Sudanese Negro tribes, inhabiting the Sierra Leone district of West Africa, including the Temnés or Timnis, Kissis, Sherbros, Gallinas, Bulloms, Solimas, Limbas, and Mendis.
=Tepeguanas.= See OPATA-PIMA.
=Teutons.= An important stock of the Aryan family, inhabiting England and the Scottish Lowlands, with the United States and British Empire, Germany, Holland, and parts of Austria and Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The Teutonic races are divided into Low German and High German divisions, to which some add, but others do not, Scandinavians.
=Thlinkits.= A race of North American Indians inhabiting the Pacific coast from Mount St. Elias to the Simpson River, and the adjacent islands. They live chiefly by fishing and hunting.
=Thos.= An Indo-Chinese race of Lao descent [see SHANS], in the north of Tongking.
=Thracians.= The ancient inhabitants of Thrace, on the west of the Black Sea. Their origin is dubious, but they are generally assumed to have belonged to the Aryan family, and been related to the Teutons and the Greeks. They were wild hill tribes, who acquired in later days a certain amount of Roman culture and spoke the Latin language. There is some probability that they were the ancestors of the Vlachs or Roumanians (q.v.).
=Thuringians.= A High German tribe inhabiting Thuringia in the fifth century, probably a branch of the Suevi (q.v.). Now merged into the modern Saxons.
=Tibetans=, or =Bod-Pa=. Natives of Tibet, forming the Tibetan stock of the Southern Mongolic family, and allied to the minor races of Lepchas, Baltis, Ladakhis, etc. (q.v.). The Tibetans are akin to the Burmese, with Mongolic features, broad-shouldered and muscular. They are a secluded and archaic race, with many curious customs, such as polyandry. Their religion is full of elaborate ceremonials, and the land abounds in monasteries.
=Tibbus.= A race inhabiting the oases of the Sahara, intermediate between Berbers and Negroes; perhaps descended from the ancient Garamantes (q.v.).
=Timnis.= See TEMNÉ GROUP.
=Tinné=, or =Tinney=. See ATHABASCAN.
=Tobas.= A warlike and predatory race of South American Indians on the Rio Vermejo in Bolivia.
=Tocantins.= See TUPI-GUARANI.
=Todas.= An isolated group of Caucasic race inhabiting the Nilgiri Hills, and distinguished from the neighbouring Dravidian tribes by their fine physique and regular features of Caucasic type; a dying race.
=Togos.= See EWE.
=Toltecs.= The oldest of Nahuan (q.v.) races, who established a semi-civilised State in Mexico before the Aztecs.
=Tongans.= See POLYNESIANS.
=Tongas=, or =Amatonga=. A Kafir race of peaceful agriculturists, occupying Tongaland, to the north of Zululand.
=Tonkinese.= A branch of the Annamese (q.v.), skilled in agriculture and dyke-building.
=Toucouleurs.= Sudanese Negroes of Senegambia, probably crossed with Hamitic blood; formerly dominant in the Western Sudan.
=Tshi Group.= A group of Sudanese Negro tribes of the Guinea Coast, including the warlike Ashantis, Fantis and Adansis.
=Tuaregs.= The predatory Berber (q.v.) Nomads of the Sahara.
=Tudas.= See DRAVIDIANS.
=Tumalis.= See NUBA GROUP.
=Tunguses.= A branch of the Mongol stock of the Northern Mongolic family, who lead a nomad existence in the mountains of East Siberia and the Amur region. They are of Mongolic physical type, with square skulls, low stature, and wiry, well-knit figures. They are distinguished by fine moral qualities, a fearless race of hunters, industrious, trustworthy, and self-reliant. Their main tribes are the Lamuts, or “sea people,” Orochs, Chapogirs, Golds, and Tazis. The modern Tunguses probably represent the primitive stock of the Manchus (q.v.).
=Tupi-Guarani.= A wide-spread family of South American Indians, in Brazil, including numerous distinct tribes, of which the Chiriguanas of Bolivia, Caribunas of the Rio Negro, Paraguay Indians, Tupinambas of the Para coast, Mundrucus of the Tapajos, Omaguas, Goajiris and Tocantins, are the most important. They are copper-coloured, thick-set and muscular, with broad features, black hair and sometimes obliquely set eyes. They are of apathetic nature, and are slow to acquire civilisation.
=Tupinambas.= See TUPI-GUARANI.
=Turanian.= An ethnological term, now abandoned, roughly corresponding to the Northern Mongolic or Ural-Altaic family.
=Turguts.= See KALMUKS.
=Turkanas.= An African Hamitic race, allied to the Masais (q.v.), and dwelling between Lake Rudolf and the Nile.
=Turki=, or =Turks=. An important and wide-spread stock of the Northern Mongolic family, dwelling in Central Asia, Asia Minor, and in European Turkey. The primitive Turki stock--the Chinese Tu-kiu and ancient Turcæ--seem to have inhabited the Altai region as early as the second century B.C. Thence they spread far and wide, and founded many powerful and predatory, but unstable empires. The Huns (q.v.) who followed Attila were largely of Turki stock. Their chief modern race is that of the Ottoman Turks [see TURKS], who raised their empire on the ruins of Constantinople in 1453. Other Turki races are the Yakuts, Usbegs, Naimans Andijanis, Nogais, Tartars, Bashkirs, Kizil-Bashis, Anatolian Turks, etc. They are closely allied to the Kirghiz, Kipchaks, Kara-Kalpaks and Turkomans (q.v.). The Turki physical type, of Mongol origin, has been modified by intermixture with Caucasic races.
=Turks=, =Osmanlis=, or =Ottoman Turks=. The dominant inhabitants of the Turkish Empire in Europe and Asia Minor, the most powerful of Turki races. They trace their descent from the Seljuks, a confederacy of Turki tribes who were settled on the Jaxartes in the eleventh century, and there adopted Islam. They conquered Persia and established kingdoms in Syria--the great Saladin was one of their princes--and Asia Minor, or Anatolia. The true Ottoman Turks entered the service of the Seljuk rulers in the thirteenth century, being driven from Kharasan by the advance of the Mongol hordes, and under Othman and his successors they became the dominant Turk race. They reared a great military power, and soon invaded Europe, where they destroyed the Eastern Empire in the middle of the fifteenth century and founded the still existing Turkish Empire. The Ottoman Turks are proud, ignorant and fanatical, but honourable and upright. They make admirable soldiers, when properly led, but are surpassed in the arts of peace by their subject races, Greeks, Bulgarians, Jews, etc.
=Turkomans.= A race of Turki nomads who inhabit the steppes east of the Caspian and south of the Oxus. They include such tribes as the Chaudors, Tekkes (Akhal and Merv), Salors, Yomuds, Goklen, and Ali-Elis. They were formerly noted for their predatory and man-stealing habits, but under Russian rule have been forced to live a more peaceful life. m
=Tusayas.= See PUEBLO INDIANS.
=Tuscaroras.= North American Indians. See IROQUOIAN.
=Tushis.= See CHECHENZES.
=Tushilange.= A branch of the Baluba (q.v.).
=Tutelos.= See SIOUAN.
=Tyrolese.= Natives of the Tyrol, the ancient Rhaetia, a mountainous district now belonging to the Austrian Empire. They are of High German Teutonic stock, and are noted for their patriotism and bravery, illustrated by their resistance under Hofer to the arms of Napoleon. They are industrious and thrifty, but backward in education, and devout Catholics.
=Tyrrhenes.= An ancient pre-Hellenic race of Greece, found in Thrace and Etruria, who probably belonged to the Pelasgian stock of the Hamitic family, giving birth to the Etruscans (q.v.).
=Ugrian.= A branch of the Finno-Ugrian stock (q.v.) including the Samoyedes, Voguls, Ostyaks, Soyots and Siryanians of Siberia, the Permian Finns of Russia, and the Magyars of Hungary. See under these heads.
=Umbquas.= See ATHABASCAN.
=Umbrians.= An ancient Italic race, perhaps allied to the Etruscans (q.v.) or the Samnites, afterwards subjugated by Rome.
=Ural-Altaic.= A term applied to the Northern Mongolic family of races, corresponding nearly to the older Turanian. It includes the Mongol, Turki, Finno-Ugrian, Siberian, and Koreo-Japanese stocks.
=Uruts.= See SHARRAS.
=Utahs.= See SHOSHONEAN.
=Uzbegs.= Nomadic Turki race of the Oxus Basin.
=Vaalpens.= A Negrito race of the Kalahari Desert, probably a half-breed between Bechuanas and Bushmen, formerly the serfs of the dominant Bantu races, but now freed under British rule.
=Vandals.= A Teutonic race, settled at the dawn of the Christian era in North-east Germany between the Oder and the Vistula. Like the Goths, whom they physically resembled, they were a warlike and roving race. Early in the fifth century they invaded Gaul and formed a settlement in Spain, where Andalusia (anciently Vandalitia) preserves their name. Later, under the fierce Genseric, they crossed to Africa and over-ran Mauretania, where they established a short-lived piratical Empire. In 534 it was destroyed by a Byzantine army under Belisarius, and the Vandals thereafter disappeared as a separate race. Their name has become a by word on account of their turn for devastation.
=Vaudois.= See WALDENSES.
=Veddahs.= A primitive hunting people of Ceylon, who are sometimes classed as Dravidian, but more probably represent the still older (Negrito?) aborigines of the island. They are dwarfish, of dark complexion, with features intermediate between the Hindu and Papuan types. They rank among the rudest and least civilised of races, being equally unable to laugh, count, or cook. They are dying out.
=Veis=, or =Vey=. A Sudanese Negro race, of Mandingan stock, on the West Coast of Africa, who are said to be the only Negro race who have invented an alphabet.
=Venezuelans.= White natives of Venezuela, of Spanish descent. Most of them are crossed with Indian blood.
=Vikings.= See NORSEMEN.
=Visigoths.= See GOTHS.
=Voguls.= A nomadic Finno-Ugrian race who inhabit both slopes of the Urals. They closely resemble the Ostyaks and Samoyedes (q.v.). m
=Vuaregga=, =Vuarua=, =Vuarunga=, =Vuavinza=. Bantu Negro tribes inhabiting the Congo basin and the Tanganyika district.
=Wachaga.= A predatory Bantu race on the southern slopes of Kilimanjaro.
=Wadai Group.= A group of Sudanese Negro tribes inhabiting Wadai and East Darfur, including Birkits, Massalits, Korungas, Mabas (mixed with Hamitic blood), and other tribes. They are mainly of pastoral habit.
=Waganda.= A Bantu Negro race who founded the kingdom of Uganda and attained a remarkable degree of civilisation before the arrival of white men. They are very intelligent, and their skill in the industrial arts has caused them to be called the Japanese of Africa. They are also warlike, and formerly indulged in frequent plundering and slave hunting raids among the surrounding races.
=Wagogo.= A Bantu Negro race of German East Africa.
=Wahehe.= See WASAGARA.
=Wa-Huma.= A conquering pastoral race, of Eastern Hamitic stock, who migrated from Gallaland and penetrated as far south as Unyamwezi, founding various kingdoms on the way. They are of Hamitic features, fair complexion, and tall stature; very warlike. The ruling classes of Uganda and Unyoro are of Wa-Huma origin. The Wa-Huma are a branch of the Gallas (q.v.). Among their tribes are the Wajiji, Warundi, Waruanda, etc.
=Wajiji.= See WA-HUMA.
=Waldenses=, or =Vaudois=. A heretical sect which originated in the South of France in the twelfth century, and was formed into a separate race by persecution; of French, Swiss, and Italian elements. They are now settled in Savoy.
=Walloons.= Natives of South-eastern Belgium, of mixed Celtic and Romanic stock, probably descended from the ancient Belgae (q.v.). They are tall, bony, and of strong physique, and are very successful in industry, as shown in the great manufacturing town of Liege.
=Wanyamwezi.= A warlike Bantu race of German East Africa, who formerly composed a powerful predatory state.
=Wanyoro.= Natives of Unyoro, in British East Africa, of Bantu race, skilled in industrial arts, and formerly allied with Arab slave-traders.
=Wapisianas.= See ARAWAKS.
=Wapokomo.= The chief Bantu race of the Tana basin, skilled boatmen and hunters, formerly under Masai domination, now acquiring civilisation under British rule.
=Warraus.= An aboriginal Indian race of British Guiana.
=Warua.= A powerful, warlike, and barbarous Bantu race of the Lualaba district in the Congo Free State, forming a powerful native state, and skilled in industry and rude art.
=Waruanda=, =Warundi=. See WA-HUMA.
=Wasagara.= A warlike and widespread Bantu people of German East Africa; fierce mountaineers, much given to marauding. The Wahehe, who claim Zulu affinities, are one of their tribes.
=Waswahili.= See SWAHILIS.
=Wataveita.= A mild and settled agricultural Bantu race inhabiting the slopes of Kilimanjaro in German East Africa.
=Welle Group.= A group of Sudanese Negro races inhabiting the region of the Upper Welle River in Central Africa, including the cannibal Niam-Niam, or Azandeh, the Mangbattu, Nsakkara, Amadi, Ababua, and other tribes.
=Welsh=, or =Cymry=. The chief surviving branch of the Brythonic or P Celts, inhabiting Wales, where they preserve their ancient language and customs. They probably represent the ancient Britons who inhabited England at the time of the Anglo-Saxon immigrations. “An old and haughty nation, proud in arms.”
=Wends.= A stock of the Western Slavonic family, settled in the north and east of Germany in the sixth century. They were gradually absorbed by the Teutonic Germans. A remnant of the Wendish race, preserving their ancient language and customs, survives in Lusatia, on the borders of Saxony and Prussia, where they are also known as Sorbs.
=Winnebagos.= See SIOUAN.
=Wochuas.= See PYGMIES.
=Wolofs.= Sudanese Negroes, dwelling between Lower Senegal and Gambia; very black, but with regular features, indicating a trace of Hamitic blood. Their chief branch is that of the Jolofs.
=Wulwas.= See LENCAN.
=Xanthochroi.= A suggested division of Caucasic Man, opposed to the Melanochroi, characterised by fair hair, blue eyes, and rosy complexion. It would thus include the Teutonic, Scandinavian, and Slavonic stocks of the Aryan family.
=Xosas=, or =Amaxosa=. The southern stock of the Kafir race (q.v.), allied to the Zulus, or northern stock. They are eminently warlike, and have an interesting system of social organisation. They are of Bantu origin, immigrants from the north, who have dispossessed the Hottentot or Bushman aborigines. They are tall, well-built, and muscular, with Negro features and complexion, and woolly hair. They are semi-nomadic cattle-breeders and hunters, but many have taken to the settled pursuits of agriculture. They were long at war with the British and Boer settlers, but are now a peaceful and contented people under British rule.
=Yakuts.= A Mongolic race of Turki stock, inhabiting the province of Yakutsk in East Siberia. They are of middle height, with black hair, flat noses, and narrow eyes. They are laborious and enterprising, and show more aptitude for civilisation than the Buriats or Tunguses. They inhabit log “yurtas” in winter, but camp out in summer. Cattle-breeding, and to a less degree agriculture, are their chief occupations.
=Yankees.= Natives of the New England States. In a wider sense, the northern inhabitants of the United States.
=Yaos.= Agricultural aborigines of French Indo-China, perhaps allied to the Chinese proper.
=Yedinas.= See LAKE CHAD GROUP.
=Yomuds.= See TURKOMANS.
=Yorubas.= A group of Sudanese Negro races inhabiting the eastern half of the Slave Coast district, and united by a common Yoruba language, though much broken up by political feuds. They are peacefully disposed, industrious, and friendly to strangers. Their main pursuit is agriculture, but they also practise many industries; they are the best architects in Africa. Their chief tribes are those of Egba, Jebu, Oworo, Ondo, Ife, and Oyo. Abeokuta, the Egba capital, owes its fame to the success with which it held out as a city of refuge against the slave-hunters of Dahomey and Ibadan.
=Yukaghirs.= A nomadic tribe of north-east Siberia, probably identical with the Tunguses (q.v.).
=Yumas.= See OPATA-PIMA.
=Yuruks.= A nomadic Turki race in the Konia vilayet of Turkey-in-Asia.
=Yusufzais.= See AFGHANS.
=Zambos.= See SAMBOS.
=Zaparos.= South American Indians, on the Upper Napo in Peru.
=Zapotecs.= Central American Indians of Oajaca in Mexico.
=Zendals=, =Zotzils=. See MAYA-QUICHÉ.
=Zulus=, or =Amazulu=. A very warlike Bantu race, allied to the Xosas and other Kafir tribes, whom they resemble in physique and organisation. Originally a small Kafir clan, the Zulus were raised to eminence at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the genius of Tchaka, a kind of Negro Napoleon, who established a severe military despotism, and dominated South Africa from the Zambesi to Cape Colony by the courage and military skill of his regiments. Tchaka’s descendants ruled Zululand proper, and waged war against Kafirs, Boers, and English, until their country was annexed by Britain in 1887. The Zulus are both physically and mentally one of the finest of African races.
=Zunis.= See PUEBLO INDIANS.
ETHNOLOGICAL CHART OF THE HUMAN RACE
This Chart, intended for reference in connection with the Dictionary of Races beginning on page 311, gives a view of the various main divisions, families, and stocks into which the human race is divided by ethnologists. It is impossible to give a complete list of the individual races within the necessary limits, but the chief typical races are named under each stock in the right-hand column. The races marked with an asterisk are extinct.
ETHIOPIC DIVISION
Family Stock Typical races
AFRICAN NEGRO
Sudanese {Mandingan {Ashanti {Hausa {Azandeh
Bantu {Herero {Wanyamwezi {Basuto {Waganda {Ama-Xosa (Kafir) {Zulu
Hottentot-Bushman {Nama {Griqua {Bushman
AFRICAN NEGRITO
Pygmy {Wochua {Akka {Obongo
OCEANIC-NEGRO
Papuan {New Guinea natives
Melanesian {Fijian {Solomon Islanders
Australian {Australian aborigines {Tasmanian*
OCEANIC NEGRITO
Negrito {Andamanese {Sakai {Aeta
MONGOLIC DIVISION
Family Stock Typical races
NORTHERN MONGOLIC
{Sharra {Kalmuk Mongol {Buriat {Tungus
{Turks {Tartars Turki {Bashkirs {Kirghiz {Turkoman
{Samoyede {Magyar Finno-Ugrian {Finn {Bulgar {Lapp
Siberian {Chukchi {Kamchadale
Koreo-Japanese {Korean {Japanese
Dravidian(?) Tamil
SOUTHERN MONGOLIC
{Tibetan Tibetan {Balti {Lushai
{Burmese Indo-Chinese {Siamese {Bhil {Annamese
{Chinese Chinese {Punti {Lolo
OCEANIC MONGOLIC
{Malay Malaysian {Dyak {Javanese
Malagasy Hova
Philippine {Visayan {Ilocano
Formosan
AMERICAN DIVISION
Family Stock Typical races
ARCTIC
Eskimo {Eskimo {Aleutian
NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN
Athabascan {Apache {Navajo
Algonquian {Delaware {Mohican {Blackfoot
Iroquioan {Huron {Mohawk {Cherokee
Thlinkit Thlinkit
Haida Haida
Chinook Chinook
Siouan {Sioux {Dakota {Omaha
Shoshonean {Shoshone {Utah {Comanche {Pawnee
Muskhogean {Choktaw {Seminole
Natchez Natchez*
Kiowa Kiowa
Salish Flathead
Pueblo {Zuni {Taos
CENTRAL AMERICAN INDIAN
Otomi Otomi
Opata-Pima {Cora {Tarahumara
Guaicuri Guaicuri
Tarascan Tarascan
Nahuan {Toltec {Aztec {Mexican
Maya-Quiché {Maya {Quiché {Huastec
Lencan {Chontal {Guatusa
Bribri Bribri
Talamanca Talamanca
Zapotec Zapotec
Miztec Miztec
Chorotegan Chorotegan
SOUTH AMERICAN INDIAN
Inca {Quichua {Chanca
Aymara Aymara
Chibcha Chibcha
Choco Choco
Zaparo Zaparo
Jivaro Jivaro
Mojo Mojo
Chiquito Chiquito
Barré Barré
Charrua Charrua*
Chuncho Chuncho
Conibo Conibo
Carib {Macusi {Rucuyenne
Arawak {Maypuri {Wapisiana
Warrau Warrau
Botocudo Botocudo
Tupi-Guarani {Paraguay {Caribuna {Tupinamba
Payagua Payagua
Matacoan Matacoan
Toba Toba
Araucanian Araucanian
Puelche {Puelche {Gaucho
Patagonian Patagonian
Fuegian Fuegian
CAUCASIC DIVISION
Family Stock Typical races
HAMITIC
Eastern { Egyptian { Somali { Galla { Masai
Western { Numidian Berber { Iberian { Basque { Pict* { Ligurian Corsican { Pelasgian { Mycenæan* { Etruscan*
SEMITIC
Assyrian Chaldæan* Aramæan { Syrian { Hittite* Canaanite { Israelite { Phœnician* { Carthaginian* Arab { Arab { Bedouin Himyarite Abyssinian
ARYAN
Hindu { Punjabi { Bengali Iranian { Afghan { Persian { Armenian { Kurd Hellenic { Albanian { Greek Italic { Roman { Italian { French { Spanish { Portuguese { Latin American Keltic { Goidelic { Irish { or { Manx { Q Kelts { Highland Scottish { Brythonic { Welsh { or { Breton { P Kelts { Cornish* Lettic { Lithuanian { Lettish Slavonic { Russian { Czech { Polish { Servian Scandinavian { Norwegian { Swedish { Danish Teutonic { Low { Old Saxon* { German { Dutch { { Flemish { { Anglo-Saxon { High { German { German { Saxon { Swiss { Austrian
CAUCASIAN
Southern Georgian Western Circassian Eastern { Chechenz { Lesghian
INDONESIAN
Polynesian { Samoan { Maori { Marquesan
AINU
Ainu Ainu
THE BIRTH & GROWTH OF NATIONS
BY PROFESSOR RATZEL
In order that the cosmic conception of the life of man may be more than a mere isolated idea, incapable of being applied and developed, it is necessary to indicate the relation which human life bears to the collective life of the earth.
[Sidenote: Man is Bound up with the Earth]
Human existence is based upon the entire development of vegetable and animal life; or, as Alexander von Humboldt said, in reality the human race partakes of the entire life on earth. Just as plants and animals, vegetable and animal remains and products, occupy an intermediate position between man and the inanimate substance of the earth, so almost without exception the life of man depends not directly upon the earth, but upon the animals and plants, which in turn are immediately bound to the earth by the necessities of existence. It is the dependence of later and more evolved types upon the earlier and less evolved. In 1845 Robert Mayer, the German scientist, published his epoch-making thesis on “The Relations of Organic Motion to Metabolism,” in which he described the vegetable world as a reservoir wherein the rays of the sun are transformed into life-supporting material and are stored up for use. According to his view the physical existence of the human race is inseparably linked together with this “economic providence”; and he even went so far as to connect it with the instinctive pleasure felt by every eye at the sight of luxuriant vegetation.
[Sidenote: Man’s Fight with Plants and Animals]
[Sidenote: Spreading Life Over all the Earth]
The history of mankind shows how various are the elements contained in this reservoir, and how manifold their action. Originally plants and animals share the soil with man, who must struggle with them for its possession. The plains favour and the forests obstruct historical movement; the inhabitant of the tropics is hardly able to overcome the growth of weeds that covers his field; for the Esquimau the vegetable world exists but two months in the year, and then only in stunted, feeble species. The unequal distribution of edible plants has in a large measure been the cause of divergence in the developments of different races. Australia and the Arctic countries have received almost nothing; the Old World has had abundance of the richest gifts showered upon it, Asia receiving more than Africa or Europe. The most valuable of domestic animals are of Asiatic origin. America’s pre-European history is incomparably more uniform than that of the Old World, and this is owing to her moderate endowment of useful plants and almost complete lack of domestic animals. The transplanting of vegetable species from one part of the earth to another, carried on by man, is one of the greatest movements in the collective life of the world. Its possibilities of extension cannot be conjectured; for the successful diffusion of single cultivated plants--the banana, for example--over a number of widely separated countries is yet problematical. This process can never be considered to have come to an end so long as necessity forces man to get a firmer and firmer hold on the store of earthly life.
The relations of man to the earth are primarily the same as those of any other form of life. The universal laws of the diffusion of life include also the laws of the diffusion of the human species. Hence the study of the geographical distribution of man must be looked upon only as a branch of the study of the geographical distribution of life, and a succession of the conceptions belonging to the latter.
[Sidenote: The Material Tie that Binds Men Together]
To these conceptions belong the main area of distribution, the habitable world, and all its various parts: zones, continents, and other divisions of the earth’s surface, especially seas, coasts, interiors of lands, bordering regions, divisions exhibiting continuity with others as links in a chain, and isolated divisions. Also relations as to area: the struggle for territory, variations in the life development in small or inextensive regions, in insular or in continental districts, on heights of land and plateaus, and, in addition, the hindrances and the aids to development presented by different conformations; the advance development in small, densely populated districts; or the protection afforded by isolated situations. All must be included. Finally, properties of boundaries must be conceived of as analogous to phenomena occurring on the peripheries of living bodies.
As races are forms of organic life, it follows that the state cannot be comprehended otherwise than as an organised being; every people, every state is organic, as a combination of organic units. Moreover there is something organic in the internal coherence of the groups and individuals from which a state is formed. However, in the case of a people and a state, this coherence is neither material nor structural; states are spiritual and moral organisms. But, together with the spiritual, there is also a material coherence between the individual members of a race or a nation. This is the connection with the ground. The ground furnishes the only material tie that binds individuals together into a state; and it is primarily for this reason that all history exhibits a strong and ever-increasing tendency to associate the state with the soil--to root it to the ground, as it were.
[Sidenote: The State and the Soil]
The earth is not only the connecting principle, but it is also the single tangible and indestructible proof of the unity of the state. This connection does not decrease during the course of history, as might be supposed, owing to the progressive development of spiritual forces; on the contrary, it ever becomes closer, advancing from the loose association of a few individuals with a proportionately wide area in the primitive community, to the close connection of the dense population of a powerful state with its relatively small area, as in the case of a modern civilised nation. In spite of all disturbances, the economic and political end has ever been to associate a greater and greater number of individuals with the soil. Hence the law that every relation of a race or tribe to the ground strives to take a political form, and that every political structure seeks connection with the ground. The notion of an unterritorial and a territorial epoch in the history of man is incorrect; ground is necessary to every form of state, and also to the germs of states, such as a few negroes’ huts or a ranch in the Far West. Development consists only in a constant increase in the occupation and use of land, and in the fact that, as populations grow, so do they become ever more firmly rooted in their own soils.
[Sidenote: If One State Embraced the Whole Earth]
At the same time the nature of the movements of peoples must change. Penetration and assimilation of one race by another occur instead of displacement of one by another; and with the rapid decrease of unoccupied territory the fate of the late-comers in history is irrevocably sealed. Since the state is an organism composed of independent individuals and households, its decay cannot be analogous to the death and corruption of a plant or an animal. When plants decay, the cells of which they are composed decay also. But in a decayed state the freed individuals live on and unite together into new political organisms; they increase, and the old necessity for growth continues in the midst of the ruin. The decay of nations is not destruction; it is a remodelling, a transformation. A great political institution dies out; smaller institutions arise in its place. Decay is a life necessity. Nothing could be more incorrect than the idea that the growth of nations would come to an end were one state to embrace the whole earth. If this were to happen, long before the great moment of union came, there would be a multitude of processes of growth already in operation, ready to rebuild in case of decadence, and to provide for a new organisation if needed. As yet the political expansion of the white races over the earth has not resulted in uniformity, but in manifoldness.
[Sidenote: Earth and the Movements of Peoples]
All conditions and relations of peoples and states that may be geographically described, delineated, surveyed, and, for the greater part, even measured, can be traced back to movements--movements that are peculiar to all forms of life, and of which the origin is growth and development. However various these movements may be in other respects, they are always connected with the soil, and thus must be dependent upon the extent, situation, and conformation of the ground upon which they take place. Therefore, in every organic movement we may perceive the activity of the internal motive forces which are peculiar to life, and the influences of the ground to which the life is attached. In the movements of peoples, the internal forces are the organic powers of motion common to all creatures, and the spiritual impulses of the intellect and will of man.
In many a view of history these forces alone appear; but it must not be forgotten that they are conditioned by the fact that they cannot be active beyond the general limits of life, and they cannot disengage themselves from the soil to which life is bound. In order to understand historical movements it is first necessary to consider their purely mechanical side, which is shown clearly enough by an inquiry into the nature of the earth’s surface. Neglect of this occasions a delay in the understanding of the true character of such movements. Men merely spoke of geography, and treated history as if it were an atmospheric phenomenon.
[Sidenote: National Emigrations in History]
Nations are movable bodies whose units are held together by a common origin, language, customs, locality, and often necessity for defence--the strongest tie of all. A people expands in one direction and contracts in another; in case of two adjacent nations, a movement in the one betokens a movement in the other. Active movements are responded to by passive, and vice versa. Every movement in an area filled with life consists in a displacement of individuals. There are also currents and counter-currents: when slavery was abolished in the Southern States of America, an emigration of white men from the South was followed by an influx of ex-slaves from the North, thus causing an increase in the black majority of the South.
[Sidenote: Why Nations Must Seek New Homes]
Such external movements of peoples assume most varied forms. History takes a too narrow view in considering only the migrations of nations, looking upon them as great and rare events, historical storms as it were, exceptional in the monotonous quiet of the life of man. This conception of historical movements is very similar to the discarded cataclysmic theory in geology. In the history of nations, as in the history of the earth, a great effect does not always involve a presupposition of its being the immediate result of a mighty cause. The constant action of small forces that finally results in a large aggregate of effect must be taken into account in history as well as in geology. Every external movement is preceded by internal disturbance: a nation must grow from within in order to spread abroad. The increase of Arabs in Oman led to an emigration to East Africa along highways of traffic known to times of old. Merchants, craftsmen, adventurers, and slaves left their native land and drew together in Zanzibar, Pemba, and on the mainland. The process was repeated from the coast to the interior, and as a result of the aggregate labour of individuals as merchants, colonists, and missionaries, Arabian states grew up in the central regions of Africa. Instances of the occupation of vacant territories are of the greatest rarity in history as we are acquainted with it. The best example known to us is the settlement of Iceland by the Northmen. The rule is, a forcing in of the immigrating nation between other races already in possession; the opposition of the latter often compels the former to divide up into small groups, which then insinuate themselves peacefully among the people already established in the land.
[Sidenote: The Human Will Knows no Obstacle]
The movements of nations resemble those of fluids upon the earth: they proceed from higher altitudes to lower; and obstacles cause a change of course, a backward flow, or a division. Though at first there may be a series of streams running along side by side, there is a convergence at the goal, as shown by the migration of different peoples to a common territory; there is concentration when there are hindrances to be overcome, and a spreading out where the ground is level and secure. One race draws other races along with it; and, as a rule, a troop of wanderers come from a long distance will be found to have absorbed foreign elements on its way. But it would be wrong to look upon the movements of nations as passive onflowings, or even to deduce a natural law from the descent of tribes from the mountains to the river valleys and to the sea--an idea that once led to the acceptance of the theory of the Ethiopian origin of Egyptian civilisation. Either the wills of individuals unite to form a collective will, or the will of a single man imposes itself upon the aggregate. The human will knows no insurmountable obstacle within the bounds of the habitable earth.
[Sidenote: Bursting Nature’s Barriers]
As time goes on, all rivers and all seas are navigated, all mountains climbed, and all deserts traversed. But these have all acted as obstructions before which movements have either halted or turned aside, until finally they have burst the barriers. At least two thousand years passed from the time of the first journey of a Phœnician ship out through the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic until the arrival of the day when a voyage across was ventured from Southern Europe. The Romans turned at the Alps, both to the right and to the left, seven hundred years after their city had been founded, but how many nooks in the interior of those mountains were unknown to them even centuries later! Yet to-day Europe feels the effect of this circumstance, the fact that the Romans did not advance straight through the Central Alps into the heart of the Teutonic country. They followed a roundabout way through Gaul, and thus Mediterranean culture and Christianity were brought to Central Europe from the west instead of from the south; hence the dependence of the civilisation of Germany upon that of France.
It is precisely the Romans who, contrasted with barbarians, show us that will or design in the movements of nations does not necessarily increase with growth of culture, even though culture constantly puts more means of action at its disposal, improved methods of transportation, by which the way may be lightened. The mounted bands of Celts and Germans crossed the Alps quite as easily as did the Roman legions; and in spreading about and penetrating to every corner of the Alps and the Pyrenees, the barbarians were always superior to the Romans.
[Sidenote: The Great Wanderers of the Earth]
Wandering tribes of semi-civilised people are smaller, less pretentious, and less encumbered. In every war that has taken place in a mountain land, the greater mobility of untrained militia has often led to victories over regular troops. Races of inferior culture are invariably more mobile than those of a higher grade of civilisation; and they are able to equalise the advantages of the superior modes of locomotion with which culture has supplied the latter. Mobility also indicates a weaker hold upon the ground, and thus uncivilised peoples are more easily dislodged from their territories than are nations capable of becoming, as it were, more deeply rooted. In nomadic races, mobility bound up with the necessity for an extensive territory assumes a definite form, and, owing to a constant preparedness for wandering and to the possession of an organised marching system, such peoples have been among the greatest forces in Old World history.
Movements of nations are often spoken of as if certain definite directions were forced upon them by some mysterious power. This view not only wraps itself in the garment of prophecy--for example, when announcing that the direction in which the sun travels must also be that of history--but it formally presupposes a necessary east-to-west progression of historical movements, endeavouring to substantiate its doctrine by citation of examples, from Julius Cæsar to the gold-seekers of California. But this necessity remains always in obscurity. Not only is it contradicted by frequently confirmed reflex movements in historical times, but it is also disproved still more by the great migrations which have taken place on the same continent in contrary directions. In Asia the Chinese have spread over the entire area of interior plain and desert, westward to the nation-dividing barriers of the Pamir Mountains; other Asiatic races have overflowed into Europe--also from east to west. Contrariwise, ever since the sixteenth century we have seen the Russians at work conquering the entire northern part of the continent, constantly pressing on towards the east. Even the sea proved no obstacle, for they both discovered and acquired Alaska during the course of this same movement.
We shall not attach any universal significance to such fashionable terms employed in historical works as political or historical attraction, elective affinity or balance; least of all shall we presume to discover occult, mysterious sources for them. It is obvious that a powerful nation will overflow in the direction of least resistance; and in the case of a strong Power confronting one that is weak there is a constant movement toward the latter. Thus, from the earliest times, Egypt has pressed on toward the south; and everywhere in the Sudan we find traces of similar movements to the south as far as Adamawa, where they are still to-day in energetic continuance. The history of colonisation in America shows a turning of the streams of immigration, in the south as well as in the north, towards the more thinly settled regions; the more thickly populated are avoided. The migrations of nations, which took place during periods of history when a surplus of unoccupied land existed, were determined to a great extent by natural causes. The more numerous nations become, the greater the obstacles to migration, for most of these obstacles arise from the very nations themselves.
Nations increase with their populations; lands with enlargement of territory. So long as a country has sufficient area, the second form of growth need not of necessity follow the first--the race spreads out over the gaps which are open in the interior, and thus internal colonisation takes place. If there is need for emigration, occupiable districts may be found in the lands of another people--for centuries Germans have thus found accommodation in Austria, Hungary, Poland, and America.
[Sidenote: How New States are Born]
Of course, such colonists gradually become absorbed into the people among whom they have settled. This is simple emigration, which is therefore connected with the internal colonisation of a foreign land. External colonisation first comes into being when a state acquires territory under its control, into which territory, if it be suitable, a portion of the inhabitants of the state move and settle. Colonisation is not necessarily a State affair from the first. If a race inhabit a country so sparsely as the Indians did America in the sixteenth century, a foreign people, having the power of spreading out, may press into the gaps with such success that this initial internal colonisation may also be advantageous from a political standpoint. The State then intervenes and appropriates the territory over which groups of its inhabitants have previously acquired economic control.
The emigrants formed a social aggregate in the new country, and from this aggregate a state, or the germ of a state, develops. Since such an economic-social preparatory growth greatly assists in the political acquirement of land, it is obvious that this form of colonisation is especially sound and effectual. The opposite method follows when a state first conquers a territory which it occupies later with its own forces; this is colonisation by conquest. It can be capable of development only when subsequent immigration permanently acquires the land as a dwelling-place.
[Sidenote: Why Rome’s Empire Endured Long]
Conquest that neither can nor will take permanent possession of the soil is characteristic of a low stage of culture; thus the Zulu states in Africa, surrounded by broad strips of conquered yet uncontrolled territory, and the old “world-empires” of Western Asia, exhausted themselves in vain efforts to obtain lasting increase of area through aggressive expeditions. That the Roman Empire lasted a longer time than any of the preceding universal empires was due to the single fact that agricultural colonisation invariably followed in the footsteps of its political conquests.
The enlargement of a nation’s area is associated with soil and inhabitants. If the increase of territory--for example, through conquest--is much more rapid than the increase of population, an inorganic, loosely connected expansion results, which, as a rule, is soon lost again. If, on the contrary, population increases at a proportionately greater rate than area, a crowding together, checks to internal movements, and over-population follow. In consequence, great discrepancies between growth of territory and increase of population lead to the most varied results. The conquering nation expands over extensive regions for which there are no inhabitants. Passive races in India and in China become so crowded together that it is impossible for their soil to support them any longer; hence a continuous degradation and recurrent periods of famine, which may bring with them a relatively feeble and unorganised emigration.
[Sidenote: The Modern Nations as Colonisers]
There are nations with whom conquest and colonisation seem to follow in most profitable alternation: this appears to have been the case with all colonising countries of modern history that have followed the example of the Roman Empire. But there are great contrasts presented even by these nations. Germany, Austria, and Russia, in immediate connection with their conquered provinces, have colonised and expanded toward the east. In spite of a rapid increase of population, Germany has been backward in establishing trans-marine colonies, while France, with a proportionately smaller increase of population, began by colonising in all directions, but occupied more land than she was able to master; for which reason colonization in the history of France has taken more or less the character of conquest. England, on the contrary, with a vigorous emigration and an expansive movement in all directions, presents an example of the soundest and strongest method of founding colonies which has been seen since early times.
[Sidenote: Some New National Problems]
Through the entire course of history an ever-increasing value attached to land may be traced; and in the expansion of nations we may also see that mere conquest is growing less and less frequent, while the economic acquisition of territory, piece by piece, is becoming the rule. The getting of land assumes more and more the character of a peaceful insinuation. The taking possession of distant countries without consideration for the original inhabitants, who are either driven away, or murdered--speedily with the aid of bullets, or slowly with the assistance of gin or contagious diseases or by being robbed of their best land--is to-day no longer possible. Colonisation has become a well-ordered administration combined with instruction of the natives in useful employments. The old method has left scarcely a single pure-blooded Indian east of the Mississippi in the United States, and not one native in Tasmania; the new method has before it the problem how to share the land with negroes--in the Transvaal with 74 per cent. and in Natal with 82 per cent. Climatic conditions are also to be taken into consideration, for Caucasians are able to develop all their powers in temperate regions only; a hot climate impels them to ensure the co-operation of black labour through coercion.
[Sidenote: Mankind Ages with Civilisation]
During the course of centuries a motley collection of countries has developed, all of which are called colonies, although they stand in most striking contrast with one another. Several are nations in embryo, to which only the outward form of independence is lacking; not a few have once been independent; and many give the impression that they will never be fit for self-government. There are some in which the native population has become entirely extinct, such as Tasmania, Cuba, and San Domingo; others in which the original inhabitants, still keeping to their old customs and institutions, are guided and exploited by a few white men only; and, finally, colonies in which the rulers and the natives have assimilated with one another, as in Siberia. Once upon a time such tokens of the youth of races as may be seen in rude but remunerative labour on unlimited territory were widespread in many colonies. But the new countries fill up visibly, and even they show that mankind, as a whole, ages the more rapidly the more the so-called progress of civilisation is hastened. However, an examination of the peoples of the present day shows that the differences in age between mother-countries and colonies will, indeed, continue for a long time yet. Such differences exist between west and east Germans as well as between New Englanders and Californians; they are even to be detected in Australia, between the inhabitants of Queensland and of New South Wales. Such differences are shown not only in the characteristics of individuals, but also in the division of land and in methods of labour.
[Sidenote: Nations Hold fast to Nature]
Divergence and differentiation are the great factors of organic growth. They govern the increase of nations and states from their very beginnings. Since, however, these organisms are composed of independent units, differentiation does not consist in an amalgamation and transformation of individuals, but in their diffusion and grouping. Therefore the differentiation of nations becomes eminently an affair of geography. Never yet has a daughter people left its mother-country to become an independent state without a previous disjunction having taken place. All growth is alteration in area, and, at the same time, change in position. The further growth extends away from the original situation, the sooner dismemberment follows. In Australia, New South Wales spreads out towards the north, and at the new central point, Brisbane, a new colony, Queensland, is formed, which already differs materially from New South Wales. And Queensland itself expands towards the north, beyond the tropic of Capricorn into the torrid zone; and a younger, tropical North Queensland develops.
[Sidenote: The Genius of the Coloniser]
The fact that nations hold fast to their natural conditions of existence, even when growth impels them towards expansion in various directions, is a great controlling force in historical movement. Russia expands in its northern zone to the Pacific ocean; England continues its growth on American soil, across the Atlantic, in almost the same latitude. The Phœnicians, as a coast-dwelling people, remained on the coasts and on the islands; the colonising Greeks ever sought out similar situations to those of their native land; the Netherlanders are found everywhere in Northern Germany as colonists of the moors and marshes. All German colonies beyond the Alps and the Vosges have disappeared; and the few Germans that remain are Latinised. Nations that are accustomed to a limited territory, as were the Greeks, always search for a similar limited area; on the other hand, the Romans discovered a main factor of empire-building in their judicious agricultural colonisation of broad plains; and the Russians sought and found in Siberia the endless forests, steppes, and vast rivers of their native land. Every nation, in expanding, seeks to include within its area that which is of the greatest value to it. The victorious state acquires the best positions and drives the conquered race into the poorest districts. For this reason competition between the colonizing nations has become very keen; they all judge of the character of territory according to the same standard. Therefore, wherever England has colonised, only a gleaning remains for the rest of the Northern and Central European Powers.
Differentiation, arising from the valuation of land, is the cause of a constant creation of new political values and of a constant lapsing of old. Every portion of the world has its political value, which, however, may become dormant, and must then be either discovered or awakened. Such a discovery was the selection of the Piræus as the harbour for Athens from among a number of bights and bays.
[Sidenote: The World is Being Centralised]
Every settlement and every founding of a city is at bottom an awakening of dormant political value. Capacity for recognizing this value is a part of the genius of a statesman, whose policy may be called far-seeing partly because he is able to discern the dormant value while yet on the most distant horizon. It is obvious that political values vary; each is determined by the point of view from which it is looked upon. The French and the German valuations of the Rhine borderland are very different. Every nation endeavours to realise the political value which it recognises; and in respect to political growth, ends are set up in the shape of the portions of the earth to which that growth aspires. Peculiarities in the conformation of states may be traced back to an appreciation of the value of coasts, passes, estuaries, and the like. With the spreading out and the concentration of nations, such portions of the world as are important from a political point of view have marvellously increased both in number and in value. But for this very reason a choice of selection has become necessary, and this we see in the use of fewer Alpine passes during the age of railways than before, and in the concentration of a great commerce into fewer seaports--into such as are capable of accommodating vessels of the deepest draught. Others must withdraw from competition. To-day there are hundreds of worthless harbours, passes, and fortresses in Europe that were once situated on the highways of historical movement; now however, they are avoided, deserted by the current of traffic.
[Sidenote: All the Rubbish of Civilisation]
There are more things necessary to an understanding of the dependence of history on natural conditions than a mere knowledge of the land upon which the development has taken place, particularly than a mere knowledge of the ground as it was when history found it. Although each country is in itself an independent whole, it is at the same time a link in a chain of actions. It is an organism in itself, and, in respect to a succession or a group of lands forming a whole, of which it is a member, it is also an organ. Sometimes it is more organism than organ; sometimes the opposite is true; and an eternal struggle goes on between organism and organ. If the latter be a subjected province, a tributary state, a daughter country, a colony, or member of a confederation, the striving for independence is always a struggle for existence.
This by no means presupposes a state of war. Not only war, but the outwardly peaceful economic development of the world’s industries reduces organisms to organs. When the wholesale importation of bad but cheap products of European industries into Polynesia or Central Asia causes decay in the production of native arts and crafts, it is a loss to the life of the whole people; henceforth the race will be placed in the same category with tribes that must gather rubber, prepare palm-oil, or hunt elephants to supply European demand, and who in turn must purchase threadbare fabrics, spirits that contain sulphuric acid, worn-out muskets, and old clothes--in a word, all the rubbish of civilisation.
Their economic organisation dies; and in many cases this is also the beginning of the decline and extinction of a people. The weaker organism has succumbed to the more powerful. Is the case so different--that of Athens, unable to live without the corn, wood, and hemp of the lands on the Northern Mediterranean coast?--or of England, whose inhabitants would starve were it not for the importation of meat and grain from North America, Eastern Europe, and Australia?
In vain have men sought for characteristics in the rocks of the earth and in the composition of the air by which one land might be distinguished from another.
[Sidenote: How Man is Levelling the Earth]
The idea of great, lasting, conclusive qualitative variations in different parts of the earth is mythical. Neither the Garden of Eden nor the land of Eldorado belongs to reality. There is no country whose soil bestows wondrous strength upon man or an exuberance of fruitfulness upon woman. In India precious stones are as little apt to grow out of the cliffs as silver and gold are likely to exude from fissures in the earth. Nor is there any basis for the slighter differences between the Old World and the New which the philosophers of history of the eighteenth century believed they had discovered. The opinion that the New World produces smaller plants, less powerful animals, and finally a feebler humanity, was not unconditionally rejected by even Alexander von Humboldt. The degeneration and wasting away of the American Indians would certainly be a less disgraceful phenomenon could it be attributed to some great natural law instead of to the injustice, greed, and vices of the white men. In the course of development of the European daughter-nations in America we cannot recognise any such great and universal distinction. The course of history in America, just as in corresponding periods of time in Northern Asia, in Africa, and in Australia, only confirms the belief that lands, no matter how distant from one another they may be, whenever their climates are similar, are destined to be scenes of analogous historical developments.
It is certain that, so far, one of the greatest results of the labour of man has been the levelling and overcoming of natural differences. Steppes are made fertile through irrigation and manuring; the contrast between open and forest land becomes less and less--indeed the destruction of forests is being far too rapidly and widely carried out--the acclimatisation of men, animals, and plants causes variations to disappear more and more as time passes. We can look forward to a time when only such extremes as mountains and deserts will remain--everywhere else the actions of the earth will be equalised. The process by which this is carried out may be described shortly. Man, in spite of all racial and national differences, is fundamentally quite as much of a unity as the soil upon which he dwells; through his labour more and more of this character of unity is transmitted to the earth, which, as a result, also becomes more and more uniform.
[Sidenote: History from Heaven to Earth]
One of the most powerful of the ties by which history is bound to Nature is that of its dependence on the ground. At the first glance any given historical development is involved with the earth only--the earth upon which the development takes place. But if we search deeper we shall find that the roots of the development extend even to the fundamental principles of the planetary system. By this it is not meant that every history must be founded on a cosmological basis, that it must begin with the creation, or, at least, with the destruction of Troy, as was once thought necessary; but it is certainly safe to say that a philosophy of the history of the human race, worthy of its name, must begin with the heavens and then descend to the earth, filled with the conviction that all existence is fundamentally one--an indivisible conception founded from beginning to end on an identical law.
The 316,250,000 square miles of the earth’s surface is the first area with which history has to do. Within it all other surface dimensions are included; it is the standard for measurement of all other areas, and also comprehends the absolute limits of all bodily life. This area is fixed and immutable so far as the history of mankind is related to it, although in respect to the history of the world it is not to be looked upon as having been unalterable in the past, or as being likely to remain unchanged in the future.
[Sidenote: 316,250,000 Miles of History]
The earth’s surface may be divided into three unlike constituent parts--84,250,000 square miles of land, 220,000,000 square miles of water, and 13,750,000 square miles of ice-covered, and for the greater part unexplored, land and sea in the Northern and Southern Polar regions. The land is the natural home of man, and all his historical movements begin and end upon it. The size of states is computed according to the amount of land which they include; their growth has derived its nourishment from the 84,250,000 square miles of earth as from a widespread fundamental element. The sea is not to be looked upon as an empty space between the divisions of land, merely separating them one from another, for the 220,000,000 square miles of water are also of historical importance, and the area of every ocean and of every portion of an ocean has its historical significance. History has extended itself over the sea, from island to island, from coast to coast, at first crossing narrow bodies of water, later broad oceans; and states whose foundations arose from connections by sea remain dependent on the sea. The Mediterranean held together the different parts of the Roman Empire just as the oceans unite the Colonies of the British Empire.
The variations of the earth’s form from that of a perfect oblate spheroid are so small that they may be entirely disregarded from the point of view of history. All portions of the earth’s surface may be looked upon as of equal curvature; the pyriform swelling which Columbus believed to be a peculiarity of the tropic zones in the New World was merely an optical illusion. Thus all portions are practically similar, and uniformity obtains over the entire earth to such an extent that there is room left only for minor inequalities in configuration. To these belong the differences in level between lands and seas, highlands and lowlands, mountains and valleys. Such variations amount to very little when compared with the earth as a whole; for the height of the tallest of the Himalayas added to the earth’s radius would increase its length by about 1/700 only; and the same may be said of the greatest depressions beneath the level of the sea--inequalities that cannot be represented on an ordinary globe. Their great historical significance is due chiefly to the fact that the oceans and seas occupy the depressions, from which the greatest elevations emerge as vast islands.
[Sidenote: Irregular Surface of the Earth]
The remaining irregularities of the earth’s surface are not sufficient to produce any permanent variations in the diffusion of races or of states. Their influence is merely negative; they may only hinder or divert the course of man in his wanderings. Even the Himalayas have been crossed--by the Aryans in the west, and by the Tibetans in the east; and British India has extended its boundaries far beyond them to the Pamirs. The historian is concerned with but two of the variable qualities of the land--differences in level and differences in contour. Variations in constitution, development, elementary constituents, and the perpetual phenomena of transformation and dissolution which present a thousand problems to the geographer, scarcely exist for the historian. Nor are those great inequalities, the depressions in which the seas rest, of any interest to him. It is indifferent whether the greatest of such depressions be covered by five miles of water, or, as we now know, by almost six miles. The fact that the Mediterranean reaches its greatest depth in the eastern part of the Ionian Sea has nothing whatever to do with the history of Greece.
[Sidenote: Depths of The Sea]
To be sure, there is a general connection between the depth of the Mediterranean, shut up within the Straits of Gibraltar, and the climate of the neighbouring regions, which has a direct influence on the inhabitants of Mediterranean countries; but it is a very distant connection, and it is only mentioned here in order to remind the reader that there is not a single phenomenon in Nature that is not brought home to mankind at last. Still, as a rule, history is concerned with the depths of the sea only in so far as they are the resting-places for submarine telegraph cables; and this is a fact of very recent times. It may be said that the formation of the earth’s crust occurred at a period too remote to have had any influence on the history of man, and that therefore all questions concerning it should be left to geology. The first statement may be admitted, but the latter does not follow by any means; for if the whole Mediterranean region from the Caucasus to the Atlas Mountains, and from the Orontes to the Danube, is a region of uniform conformation, it is purely by reason of a uniformity in development. In the same manner there is an extensive region of uniform conformation to the north, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Sudetic Mountains in Austria.
[Sidenote: Nature Divides and Unites]