260. Indo-China
Farther India or Indo-China, the great southeastern peninsula of Asia, falls somewhat short of India and China in area, is less densely inhabited, and contains a population which is of definitely Mongolian type except for some scattered fragments of hill tribes. On the basis of speech, four groups are to be distinguished. In the southwestern and southeastern corners of the peninsula, in the former kingdoms of Pegu and Cambodia, are the Mon and the Khmer, certainly related to each other and perhaps distantly connected with the Malayo-Polynesian family. On the east are the Anamese, with a monosyllabic, tonal language whose affiliations are doubtful. It contains a Chinese element, but perhaps by absorption rather than by original connection. The center and west of Indo-China are occupied respectively by the peoples of the T’ai or Siamese-Shan and Tibeto-Burman groups, both probably collateral offshoots with Chinese from what may be called the original Sinitic stock (§ [50]). The movement of population has clearly been out of inner Asia into the peninsula. The Mon-Khmer are situated like half submerged remnants. Burma on the map hangs from Tibet like the outgrowth that it probably is. Seven centuries ago, the T’ai empire was centered in Yünnan, in southwestern China. Siam represents a southward shift of the seat of T’ai power after Mongol conquest ([Fig. 12]).
The Malay peninsula is Siamese in its narrow or neck portion. The head is inhabited by three racial groups. The Semang in the interior are pure Negritos. The Sakai or Senoi, also in the interior, are short in stature, dark, and broad nosed, but wavy-haired. They resemble a series of hill tribes scattered from India to the East Indies: the Vedda of Ceylon, the Irula and other tribes of southern India, the Toala of Celebes (§ [27], [257]). Perhaps the Kolarians or Munda-Kol of central India, the Moi and other groups of Indo-China, the Nicobar islanders, and certain nationalities of Sumatra are also to be reckoned as partial representatives of the same type. This race, if it is such, is generalized, with certain Caucasian and other Negroid but few Mongoloid resemblances. It is perhaps to be classed as Australoid, and has been named Indo-Australoid. The third racial group of the peninsula are the Malays, who, at least in large part, are emigrants in comparatively recent centuries from Sumatra. Culturally the Malay peninsula belongs with the East Indies rather than with Indo-China.
Three main layers of civilization are evident in Indo-China. The old native culture was allied to that of the East Indies and the islands beyond—whatever the speech may have been. Even to-day backward tribes of both regions, especially inland, often show strikingly similar customs: the use of bark cloth, for instance, separate houses for unmarried men and girls. This culture remains fairly well defined in spots as far west as Assam and the Kolarian region of India.
The two other civilizations have flowed in from India and China. Practically everything of higher culture in Indo-China traces back directly to these two countries. The Indian influence has been both wider and deeper than the Chinese. It brought in Buddhism and writing, and colored art and architecture. This Indian influence began more than two thousand years ago, and while it may have weakened somewhat after India’s return from Buddhism to Brahmanism, it has never ceased. As there were no notable Indian conquests, this influence is an excellent example of the normal, gradual type of cultural pervading. Chinese contacts are equally old as the Indian, but have mostly remained confined to the area adjacent to the Middle Kingdom. The Anamese have adopted the Chinese system of family names, Confucianism, literary examinations, and the like, sometimes more largely as a conscious endeavor than in fact.