III. The Negroids.
A large portion of the African continent is occupied by tribes of dark hue, but lacking some of the most prominent traits of the true negro. These are the “Negroids,” who are probably the products of a long and close fusion of the Negro with the Hamitic and Semitic types. Their color is not black, but a dark, reddish, coppery brown; the hair is crisp and frizzly, but not woolly; the nose is straight and better formed than that of the negro; the lips are thick, the skull long, and the peculiar odor of the negro is absent.
We find these traits in two groups, both of which unquestionably had their historic origin along the Nile, above the first cataract, and in the region drained by its tributaries—in other words, the locality where for ten thousand years or more the Hamites and the Negroes have been in constant contact.
We can only speculate on the numberless wars and marriages, on the extensive slave trade and commercial intercourse which throughout this period have blended the races into so many intermediate types that it becomes impossible in many cases to say with which a given tribe should be classified. To add to the confusion, a large Semitic element was added at two epochs, one when the Abyssinian branch of the Semites moved across from Arabia to occupy Abyssinia, the other when, under the impulsion of the fanaticism of Islam, the Arabs followed up the Nile in their proselyting campaigns.
The latter event began in the seventh century of our era and has continued ever since. The former probably began in earnest in the height of the power of the Himyaritic states of southern Arabia, which we may roughly put at seven centuries before Christ. A century or two later than this, negro tribes from the Sudan overran the decaying cities of the upper Nile and established a temporary control along its banks; and the emperor Diocletian induced many of them to settle as far north as Assuan.[123] These various influences combined to produce the numerous mixed types which one sees along the Nile, rendering its ethnography peculiarly obscure.
Under the pressure of increasing population and external inroads, these mixed peoples divided into two groups, one, the Nubian, remaining in the original district, the other, the Bantu, removing to the south and southwest.
1. The Nubian Group
Includes the Nubas proper, who are partly a mixed people, while some of them are pure negroes from Kordofan; the Barabras, who dwell on both sides of the Nile between the first and second cataracts; the Fundjas and Bertas, further south; and the Monbuttus and Nyam Nyams, or Sandehs, near Lake Victoria Nyanza, besides many tribes of less note. Most of them are more or less agricultural, and live in small villages. Their clothing is very slight, and many tattoo the skin. The Sandeh and Monbuttu are cannibals, and even eat those who die of disease. Nevertheless, they have a knowledge of metals, and are skilful iron-smiths.
The physical appearance of most of these tribes differs equally from the Arab and the negro. They are generally of medium stature with thin limbs and flat feet. The hair is crisp, but not woolly, and the color varies from a black to a white brown. The beard is meagre and the skin hairless. The features are not of the negro cast, but assimilate rather those of the European.
Most of them are agriculturists in a small way. They raise the “caffre corn” and millet, and make some efforts to irrigate their fields where it is necessary. Their dwellings are wretched huts, and their arts are of the rudest.
Not many centuries ago there was a large number of so-called Christians among them, but their religion seems to have left little impression on their character.
At present they are professedly Mohammedans, but really either fetichists or indifferent. Their morals are not well-spoken of, though it is also said that the class with whom travellers usually come into contact are not favorable specimens of the population—as is apt to be the case everywhere.
The Puls, or Fellahs, and the Fans, who live to the west in the Sudan, removed to the regions they now occupy from the Nile valley, and belong to the Negroid type. They have made extensive conquests in the vast unexplored country between Timbuctoo and the equator. Abstaining from alcohol and tobacco, condemning music and dancing, and blindly adhering to the precepts of the Koran, they are unpopular among their negro neighbors, but have brought many of them under subjection. Their occupations are both pastoral and agricultural, while as commercial travellers, and wandering smiths, they roam from one end of the Sudan to the other. They weave cotton cloth, tan and dye leather, and work it into various articles of use which are widely celebrated for their excellence, and in times past were among the most extensive slave dealers of Central Africa.
The languages of this group belong to four diverse linguistic stocks, all of the agglutinative character. It has been called the equatorial family of central Africa. They are usually agreeable to the ear, the verbs are simple, and the syntax not complicated.[124]
2. The Bantu Group
Occupies nearly the whole of Africa south of the equator, except the territory of the Bushmen and Hottentots. It includes the Suahelis, the Mazimbas and the Caffres on the east coast, the Sakalavas of Madagascar, the Bechuanas west of the Caffres, the Zulus, and nearly all the numerous tribes of the Congo basin, the Angola and Zambesi rivers.[125]
Their ancestors at one period resided to the northeast, probably somewhere in Ethiopia, where a prolonged fusion of Hamitic blood with the genuine Negro produced their physical type. They are usually tall and well built, the color is a dark coppery brown, the head is long (74), the hair is frizzly, and the nose rather straight.
All the Caffre people are pastoral in habits, and have large herds of cows. Agriculture is practised on a limited scale. Their temperament is turbulent and warlike, and many of them are cannibals. Their social organization is military, but slavery is unusual. Singular to say, they do not know the bow and arrow, their weapons being the war-club and a lance called an assegai. Their religion is a fetichism, and polygamy is universal. On the whole, they are on a higher level of culture than the Negroes of the Sudan. All the Bantu tribes are mono-glottic, that is, they speak dialects traceable to one original stem. These have a peculiar alliteration, and form their words by means of prefixes of elements placed before the root, this being their special method of agglutination. It is divided into three principal dialects, and is the most widely extended of any of the African linguistic stocks, except the Libyan.
The vast basin of the Congo river, including over two million square miles, is now mostly included in the “Congo Independent State.” Its native inhabitants are connected by language with the Negroids of the Bantu group, and several of them retain traditions of their immigration into the districts they now inhabit. The Waganda, for instance, report that their ancestors came from the northeast, the Watuta and Masiti from near the Zambesi river. Many of them are of a light, bright brown, and are devoid of the peculiar odor of the true negro. All the tribes from Lake Tanganyika to the Atlantic speak dialects manifestly akin.
They are divided into independent nations, some of large extent, and are subject to chiefs, who rule with despotic power. Their religion is fetichistic, and though they generally are agricultural, and possess a certain degree of culture, cannibalism is or was frequent among them. Slavery also existed in some of its most deplorable forms, and up to a very recent date, if not still, there was a regular trade in young slaves to be fattened, killed and eaten on certain solemn occasions.
General Observations on the Race.—Although the true Negroes occupied but a small portion of the African continent, the infusion of their blood into their Hamitic and Semitic neighbors, resulting in the Negroid type, was to such a degree that these mixed stocks became assimilated in character much more to the black than to the white race, and were brought approximately to the mental level of the former.
Neither the Negroes nor the Negroids ever carried out a conquest of lands occupied by the Hamites or Semites. We have vague histories of bloody wars on a large scale among themselves, and the erection of apparently powerful monarchies, but which soon fell to pieces.[126]
The low intellectual position of the Austafrican race is revealed by the facts that in no part of the continent did its members devise the erection of walls of stone; that they domesticated no animal, and developed no important food-plant; that their religions never rose above fetichism, their governments above despotism, their marriage relations above polygamy. It is true that many of them practise agriculture and the pastoral life, but it is significant that the plants which they especially cultivate, the “durra” or sorghum, millet, rice, yams, manioc, and tobacco, were introduced from Asia, Europe or America.[127] Their cattle and sheep are descended from the ancient stocks domesticated by the Egyptians, and differ from those represented on the early monuments of Assyria and India. The brick-built cities of the Sudan were constructed under Arab influence, and the ruins of stone towers and walls in the gold-bearing districts of South Africa show clear traces of Semitic workmanship.[128] The knowledge of smelting and forging iron is of ancient date throughout Africa, and they can temper steel with skill, but the art of the smith is regarded as degrading, and their long acquaintance with this most useful of metals has not lifted them from a condition of barbarism.[129]
In many of the useful arts they reveal considerable skill. The weaving of grass into mats and cloth, the tanning and working of leather, the preparation of salt and soap, dyeing and pottery, are occupations which are wide spread. The true negroes are passionately fond of music, singing and dancing, and the invention of one instrument, the marimba, which is played by beating wooden keys with a stick, is attributed to them.
The tendency of the negro race in Africa is that which we observe among negro children in the public schools of the United States. Their powers develop quite as rapidly as those of white children up to a certain point, up to the age of thirteen or fourteen; but then there comes a diminution, often a cessation, of their mental development. The physical overslaughs the psychical, and they turn away from the pursuit of culture. They are unwilling to undertake, they are unequal to, the more arduous intellectual tasks.
I have already remarked that the Austafricans never of their own volition made any serious inroad into the territory of the white race. Yet there are to-day probably more than twenty millions of them, including the mulattoes, living among the whites, seven millions of whom are in the United States. This extraordinary condition is the result of the enormous deportation of the blacks as slaves, which has been going on for thousands of years.
The origin of the negroes in the United States may be traced partly by the physical appearance, partly by the few words of their mother tongues which have survived the acquisition by them of the English language. These words are generally connected with the Mande stem of tongues spoken by the Mandingoes and their neighbors, whom I have already referred to as dwelling in Senegambia and the Western Sudan.[130] They were a nation of some importance, and having early become in great part adherents of the Mohammedan faith, established the monarchy of Melli, which in the thirteenth century extended from Timbuctoo to the coast, and forced many of the subjected tribes to learn the Mande tongue.
Scheme of the Asian Race.
| I. Sinitic Branch. | 1. Chinese Group. | Chinese. |
| 2. Thibetan. | Thibetans, Ladakis, Nepalese, Bhotanese. | |
| 3. Indo-Chinese Group. | Birmese, Siamese, Annamese, Cambodians, Cochin-Chinese, Tonkinese. | |
| II. Sibiric Branch. | 1. Tungusic Group. | Tungus, Manchus. |
| 2. Mongolic Group. | Mongols, Kalmucks. | |
| 3. Tartaric Group. | Turcomans, Yakouts, Turks (Osmanli), Usbeck, Kirghis, Cossacks, Huns. | |
| 4. Finnic Group. | Finns, Lapps, Esthonians, Ugrians, Magyars, Mordvins, Samoyeds, Ostyaks, Voguls, Livonians, Karelians. | |
| 5. Arctic Group. | Chukchis, Koraks, Kamschatkans, Namollos, Ghiliaks, Ainos. | |
| 6. Japanese Group. | Japanese, Koreans. | |
LECTURE VII.
THE ASIAN RACE.
Contents.—Physical geography of Asia. Physical traits of the Race. Its branches.
I. The Sinitic Branch. Sub-divisions. 1. The Chinese. Origin and early migrations. Psychical elements. Arts. Religions. Philosophers. Late migrations. 2. The Thibetan Group. Character. Physical traits. Tribes. 3. The Indo-Chinese Group. Members. Character and culture.
II. The Sibiric Branch. Synonyms. Location. Physical appearance. 1. The Tungusic Group. Members. Location. Character. 2. Mongolic Group. Migrations. 3. The Tartaric Group. History. Language. Customs. 4. The Finnic Group. Origin and migrations. Physical traits. Boundaries of the Siberic Peoples. The “Turanian” theories. 5. The Arctic Group. Members. Location. Physical traits. 6. The Japanese Group. Members. Location. History. Culture. The Koreans.
If you observe the relief of the continent of Asia, you will note that from the lofty plateau of Pamir, called by the orientals “The Roof of the World,” two tremendous mountain chains diverge, the one to the northeast, finally reaching the sea of Ochotsk, the other to the southeast, meeting the southern ocean on the west of the bay of Bengal. The region between them is one of high and arid table lands, intersected by mountain ranges, and giving birth to streams which flow in circuitous courses to the eastern sea. Along the coast the land sinks to alluvial plains, and north of this triangle, the endless forests, steppes, and “tundras” of Siberia and Turkestan continue to the Arctic sea.
The region thus described is the continent of Asia in the proper geological and zoölogical sense; the valleys of the Oxus, of Mesopotamia, and the land to the west of them, properly belong to Europe, and in fact, are included by naturalists in that continent, under the name “Eurasia.”[131]
Asia proper is thus divided into two contrasted geographical areas, that of the table-lands and mountains on the south, and that of the plains on the north. These features have been decisive in directing the migrations of its inhabitants, and to some extent in modifying their traits. The vast majority, however, are distinctly recognizable members of one race, which has been variously termed the Asiatic, the Mongolian, or the Yellow race.
Physical Traits of the Asian Race.—As the last mentioned adjective intimates, the prevailing color is yellowish, tending in different regions toward a brown or white, but never reaching the clear white of the western European. The hair is straight, coarse and black, abundant on the head, scanty on the face, almost absent on the body. The stature is medium or undersized, the legs thin, and the muscular power inferior to that of the Eurafrican race. The skull has a tendency to the globular form (meso- or brachycephalic), the face is round, the cheek bones prominent, the nose flat at the bridge and depressed at the extremity, the eyes are small and black, and the lids do not open fully at the inner angle, giving the peculiar appearance known as the oblique or Mongolian eye. This last trait is not uncommon in the children of Europeans, but it is generally outgrown. It is in the adult an arrest of muscular development, although in some instances it seems related to the bony confirmation of the orbit.[132]
Ethnic Chart of Eurasia and Asia.
Subdivisions.—These are the general traits of the Asian race, recurring more or less prominently wherever its members of pure descent are found. It is divisible, however, into two branches, corresponding roughly with the two geographical divisions of the continent to which I have alluded. The first of these branches I call the Sinitic, from the old Greek form of the word China, the other the Sibiric, an adjective from the proper orthography of the name Siberia (Sibiria). These branches are contrasted not only in geographical location, but quite as much so in language. The Sinitic peoples speak isolating, tonic, monosyllabic languages, while the tongues of the Sibiric population are polysyllabic and agglutinative.