I. The Sinitic Branch.
This branch includes the people of the Chinese empire and Farther India. They are separable into three groups:—
1. The Chinese proper;
2. The Thibetans; and
3. The Indo-Chinese of Siam, Anam, Burmah, and Cochin China.
The languages of all these have peculiar features and such affinities that they all point to one ancestral stock.
1. The Chinese.
The population of China as we know it at present is the result of a fusion of a number of tribes of connected lineage. Those who claim the purest blood relate that somewhere about five thousand years ago their ancestors came from the vicinity of the Kuen-lun mountains, east of the Plateau of Pamir, and following the head waters of the Hoang-ho and Yang-tse-Kiang entered the northwestern province of China, Shen-si. Here they found a savage people, the Lolo and the Miaotse, whom they subjected or drove out, and pursuing the river valleys, reached the fertile lowlands along the coast. Their authentic annals begin about 2350 B. C. Even then they had attained a respectable stage of civilization, being a stable population, devoted to agriculture, acquainted with bronze, possessing domestic animals, and constructors of cities. The hoariest traditions speak of the cultivation of the “six field fruits,” which were three kinds of millet, barley, rice, and beans. The sorghum, wheat, and oats now common in parts of China are of comparatively recent introduction.
It is interesting to inquire whether these ancient arts possessed by the Chinese were self-developed, or were borrowed in part from the Eurafrican peoples of Iran or Mesopotamia. The former opinion is that defended by Peschel and some other ethnographers. They claim that the culture of the Chinese was developed independently in the secluded and fertile valleys of their great rivers, and owed nothing to the evolution of other civilizations until commerce and travel brought them together within historic times. The individual character of Chinese ancient culture speaks strongly for this view; certainly the Chinese system of writing is one based entirely on their range and method of thought; their domestic animals are of varieties formerly unknown in western Asia; and the growth of many undoubted local industries, silk for instance, for which they were celebrated in the days of the prophet Ezekiel, prove an ancient capacity for self-development not inferior to the Eurafrican race.
On the other hand, their astronomical system, which was in use 2300 B. C., is practically identical with that of the Arabs and Indo-Aryans, and points for its origin to the Chaldees of Babylonia. In later days, that is, since the beginning of our era, undoubtedly much that has been looked upon as the outcrop of Chinese culture is due to the Indo-Aryans. My own conclusion is that in all important elements the ancient Chinese civilization was a home product, a spontaneous growth of an intellectually gifted people, but one whose capacity of development was limited, and that later generations were satisfied to borrow and appropriate from the nations with whom commerce brought them into contact.
This insufficiency of development is the weak point of Chinese character, and is strikingly illustrated by the little use they made of important discoveries. They were acquainted as early as 121 A. D. with the power of the magnet to point to the north; but the needle was never used in navigation, but only as a toy. They manufactured powder long before the Europeans, but only to put it in fire-crackers. They invented printing with movable type in the eleventh century, but never adopted it in their printing offices. They have domesticated cattle for thousands of years, but do not milk the cows nor make butter. Paper money has been in circulation for centuries, but the scales and weight still decide the value of gold and silver, coins of these precious metals being unknown. Their technical skill in the arts is astonishing, but the inspiration of the beautiful is wholly absent.
These historic facts disclose the psychical elements of Chinese character. Its fundamental traits are sobriety, industry, common sense, practicality. The Chinaman regards solely what is visibly useful, materially beneficial. His arts and sciences, his poems and dramas, his religions and philosophies, all revolve around the needs and pleasures of his daily life. Such terms as altruism, the ideal, the universal, have for him no sort of meaning, and an explanation of them he would look upon as we do on the emptiest subtleties of the schoolmen—a chimera bombinans in vacuo. Such an action as the martyr dying to atone for the sins of others he could understand only as the action of a deranged mind.
Their mental character is well shown in their religions. Originally, the Chinese combined a simple worship of the powers of nature with that of the spirits of their ancestors. The principal deity was Tien, the Heaven or Sky, in union with whom was the Earth, and from this union all nature proceeded. This natural and sexual dualism extended through all things. The affairs of life are governed by countless demons and spirits, whose tempers should be propitiated by offerings and prayers. Days and seasons are auspicious or the reverse, and most of the rites at present in use are divinatory rather than devotional.
The Buddhist religion was introduced into China about two centuries before Christ, and was officially recognized as a state cult by the Emperor Ming-ti in the year 65 A. D. Its spirit is, however, quite different from the Buddhism of Ceylon, as it has degenerated into a polytheism, a worship of the Bodhisattvas, or saints who have reached the highest stage of perfection, and might enter Nirvana, but do not, out of compassion for men. In general, it may be said that the philosophical and moral principles taught in the Buddhistic classics are not known and would not be admitted as representing their faith by Chinese Buddhists.[133]
The teachings of the celebrated philosopher, Confucius (Con-fu-tse), which are a substitute for religion among the most intelligent Chinese, are in reality wholly agnostic. He declined to express himself on any question relating to the gods or the possible after life of the soul, asserting that the practical interests of this life and the duties of a man to his family and the state are numerous enough and clear enough to occupy one’s whole time. When asked for some model or code of such duties, he replied by the sententious expression “When you are chopping out an axe-handle, the model is near you,” meaning that it is in the hand, and that in a similar manner in practical life we always have the rule of right action in our own mind, if we choose to look for it.
The second great philosopher of China was Lao-tse, who lived in the generation following Confucius (about 500 B. C.). His doctrine was pantheistic and obscure, and his writings are considered the most difficult to decipher of all the old Chinese classics. Nor can his doctrine be called a religion. It was rather a mystical speculation on the universe. All-Being, he taught, is born of Not-Being, and existence, therefore, is an illusion.
Practically, all religions are looked upon as equally true. The Confucian will frequent the Buddhist temples, and the Buddhist priest will perform rites in the “house of reason,” as the Confucian holy place is termed; or he will distribute tracts for the Christian missionaries. The government is absolutely neutral in all religious questions, and the persecutions which have been carried on against the Christian missionaries have not been the promptings of fanaticism, but dislike of foreigners and suspicion of their intentions. The official documents of the Chinese government speak with equal contempt of every form of religion, and the rulers would never dream of interfering in any such question.[134]
Many of the Chinese are Mohammedans, Islam having been introduced by sea and land within the first century of the Hegira. The Chinese converts learn to repeat the Koran in Arabic, as it has not been translated into their tongue; but few understand much of it. Their rites and doctrines are learned by the verbal instruction of their religious teachers. The Chinese Mohammedans, however, recognize as their chief ruler the Khalif or Sultan, and not the Emperor at Pekin, and hence the bloody revolutions which have from time to time broken out among them.
Christianity was introduced by the Nestorians in the eighth century, and now may be freely taught in any part of the realm. It has, however, had little success. There are perhaps half a million Roman Catholic and Protestant members. They belong to the lowest classes, and can occupy no official position, owing to the conflict of their dogmas with the teachings of Confucius and the agnostic principles of the government.
Within the last generation or two the Chinese have displayed an unwonted desire for emigration. They have swept down in hundreds of thousands on the islands of Malasia, Australia, the Sandwich Islands, Mexico, and the United States. We have as a nation felt so impotent before them that, in open contradiction to the principles of our government we have closed our ports to them, and warned them from our shores. This feeble and ignoble policy is a disgrace to us. Far better to admit them, and to train earnest men among us in the Chinese language and customs, so that these foreigners could be brought to a knowledge of the superiority of our religions and institutions, and thus be united with us in the advancement of mankind.
2. The Thibetan Group.
The mountain-ringed land of Thibet is an arid region from 10,000 to 20,000 feet in height, thickly inhabited by a people whose principal interests in life are religious. It is the centre of northern Buddhism, and at the holy city of Lhasa the living incarnation of the founder of that cult is supposed to live. In the numerous monasteries, some on almost inaccessible mountain sides, tens of thousands of monks pass their lives in religious exercises. They are vowed to celibacy, and throughout the land it is looked upon as a distinct degradation to marry. The natural result is that the relations of the sexes are relaxed, and their morals debased. Polygamy is not uncommon, and in Thibet, more than anywhere else, we find the peculiar institution of polyandry, where a woman has two, three or four recognized husbands. It is usual for several brothers thus to have the same wife.
The women are small but well made, and exercise an unusual control in the affairs of life. The physical traits of both sexes are Mongolian, though the eyes are rarely oblique. The culture is rather low, the Thibetan not being an ardent agriculturist, but preferring the pastoral life. He milks his cows and makes butter, which with hides and fleece, leather and some local fabrics, are his principal articles of trade.
In the Himalayan valleys to the south are several nations in which the Asian blood dominates, such as the Ladakis of Cashmere, the Nepalese, the inhabitants of Bhotan and numerous others. They are generally mixed with Dravidian or Aryac blood, but speak dialects of the Sinitic type.
3. The Indo-Chinese Group.
The regions we call Farther India and Cochin China are at present inhabited by peoples speaking tonic, monosyllabic languages, who are, however, generally of mixed descent. Some of them have crimpled hair and a dark complexion, suggesting the presence of some Nigritic blood; others have features more Aryac than Mongolian, hinting at an ancient fusion of Hindoostanee strains. These form the modern nations of Birma, Siam, Annam, Cambodia, Tonkin, and Cochin China.
The Birmans have a well marked round head (about 83°), oblique eyes, prominent cheek bones, and are of medium stature and sturdy. Their color is a brownish yellow or olive. In religion they are Buddhists, but they are by no means celebrated for honesty and morality. By a curious freak of fashion, the dress of the women is open in front, but it is the height of immodesty to show the naked foot.
The Siamese call themselves “Thai,” under which designation come also the Laos. They are a mild mannered people, without much energy, but willing to be taught.
The Annamese and Tonkinese are somewhat superior in culture to their neighbors, and of well marked Asiatic physiognomy. The Cambodians, called Khmers, are a mixed people, descended partly from Mongolian ancestry, partly from Dravidian and Aryac conquerors who occupied their country about the third century, and left behind remarkable vestiges of their presence in ruins of vast temples and stone-built palaces.