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.
II. The Sibiric Branch.
The branch of the Asian race which I have called the Sibiric, as geographically designating its pre-historic home, has also been called the Turanian, the Ural-Altaic, the Finno-Ugric, the Mongolic, etc. Its geographical location is north of the Altai range, and the Caspian and Black seas, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The languages of all its members are polysyllabic and agglutinative, contrasting as much with the Sinitic stock on the one hand as with the Aryac on the other. In physical appearance individuals of reasonably pure descent present good specimens of the Asian type, the skull brachycephalic, the face round, the nose flat at the root, the eye small and black, the hair straight and coarse, the color yellowish. They are divided into many tribes, most of whom were until recently addicted to a wandering pastoral life, and though on the lower levels of culture and without coherent social bonds, they have at times loomed up as the most powerful and pretentious figures in the history of the world.