The western group is composed of Turkomans of Persia (Khojars, Afshars) and Russian (Turkmen) or Afghan Turkestan (Jemshids, etc.), of Aderbaijani, Turkish-speaking Iranians of the Caucasus and Persia, and lastly the Osmanli Turks. Included under this name are subjects of the Sultan speaking the Turkish language and professing Islamism. We must distinguish among them the settled Osmanli, much intermixed, and the nomadic tribes (Turkomans, Yuruks, etc.), who exhibit several characteristics of the Turkish race.
The Turkish race, so far as can be gathered from recent anthropological works, is preserved in a comparatively pure state among the Turks of the central group, but in the eastern group it has been profoundly modified in consequence of intermixtures with the Mongolian, Tunguse, and Ugrian races; as also in the western group, in which we have to take into account elements of the Assyroid, Indo-Afghan, and Arab races, and certain European races (Adriatic chiefly). The Turkish race may be thus described: Stature, above the average (1 m. 67–1 m. 68); head, hyper-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub., 85 to 87), elongated oval face, non-Mongoloid eyes, but often with the external fold of eyelid (p. [78]); the pilous system moderately developed; broad cheek-bones, thick lips; straight, somewhat prominent nose; tendency to obesity.[416]
The Turks are essentially nomadic, and when they change their mode of life it is rather towards the chase, commerce, or trade that their efforts are directed; the true cultivators of the soil (Taranchi, Sartes, Osmanli, Volga Tatars) are Turks already powerfully affected by intermixtures. The Turkish tent is the most highly finished of transportable habitations (p. [164]–[166]). Meat and milk products form the staple foods, as they do among all nomads. With the exception of the Christian Chuvashes and the Shaman Yakuts, all the Turks are Mussulmans; but often they are only nominally such, at bottom remaining Shamans. The veneer of Islamism becomes thinner and thinner among the Turkish peoples as we go from west to east. The Osmanlis, the most fanatical of all the Turks, are the most mixed as regards type, language, manners, and customs. It is perhaps to this mixed origin that they owe the relative stability of the state which they have founded, for no nomadic Turkish tribe has been able to create a political organism of long duration, and the vast empires of the Hiungnu, the Uigurs, the Kipchaks, have had only an ephemeral existence.
2. The Mongols[417] form an ethnic group more homogeneous as regards manners and customs and physical type than the Turks. Their name is chiefly known on account of the great empire founded by Genghis Khan, but it must be observed that the nomadic hordes united into a single body, and led to victory by this conqueror, were only very partially composed of Mongols, other nomadic peoples, and especially Turks, formed more than half of them. Hence the practice among Europeans, as among the Chinese,—a practice which is kept up to the present time,—of giving the name of one of the Turkish tribes, Ta-ta or Tatar, transformed into Tartar, to the Mongols, and extending it to many of the Mongoloid peoples, like the Tunguses for example.
Three principal divisions are recognised in this group: Western Mongols or Kalmuks, the Eastern Mongols, and the Buriats.[418] The Western Mongols, who style themselves Eleuts, and whom the neighbouring peoples call Kalmuks, are scattered, owing to wars and migrations, over the immense tract lying between Siberia and Lassa, from the banks of the Hoang-ho to those of the Manich (a tributary of the Don). The more compact groups are found in European Russia (Kalmuks of Astrakhan, Figs. [20] and [44], and the Caucasus); in Dzungaria (the Torgoots) and north-western Mongolia, between Altai and Thian-Shan; lastly, in Alashan and farther to the west in the Chinese province of Kuku-Nor and northern Thibet. They number about a million.
The Eastern Mongols occupy almost the whole of the region known by the name of Mongolia properly so called. In the south of this country they are broken up into a multitude of tribes (Tumets, Shakars or Tsakhar, etc.); while in the north they form a single nation, that of the Khalkhas, which has still preserved, in spite of its submission to China, some traces of its ancient political organisation. The Khalkhas number about 200,000, and the southern Mongols 500,000.
The Buriats form a population sprung from the Khalkhas, intermixed at several points with various Siberian elements, Tunguse, Yakut, Russian; they occupy the steppes and forests of the province of Irkutsk, but their central seat is Transbaikal, whence they spread out even into Mongolia, into the valleys of the Orkhon and the Argun. They number about 250,000.
The type of the Mongolian race is very strongly marked among most of the Kalmuks and Khalkhas; it is less distinct among the Buriats, etc. It may thus be described: Nearly average stature (1 m. 63–64); head, sub-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 83); black straight hair, pilous system little developed; the skin of a pale-yellow or brownish hue, prominent cheek-bones, thin straight flattened nose, Mongoloid eyes (p. [77]), etc.
With the exception of some Buriat tribes the Mongols are typical nomadic shepherds. Their live-stock, camels, sheep, and horses supply them not only with food, the raw material for the manufacture of tents and garments, but also means of transport and fuel (camel excrement or dried dung). Unlike the nomadic Turks, who are fond of fighting, the Mongols of the present day are gentle and peaceable folk. Can this be the effect of the influence of Lama-Buddhism, which they all profess except a few small Buriat tribes, who have remained Shamans? We are inclined to believe this when we consider the important part which this religion plays in the daily life of the Mongols.
3. Thibetans.[419]—We may include under this name the non-Mongolian populations of Thibet and the surrounding countries, known by the name of Bod, or Thibetans properly so called in southern Thibet, by the name of Tanguts in the Chinese province of Kuku-Nor, of Si-fan in western Sechuen, by that of Ladaki and Champa in eastern Cashmere (province of Leh), of Gurong, Limbu, Mangar and Murmi in Nepal, of Lepchas or Rongs in Sikkin, of Bhutani in Bhotan, etc. The Abors, Mishmee, etc., of the Himalayan country who dominate Assam are also included among the Thibetans, but they approach the Indonesians in type. It is the same with the Garro and their neighbours on the east, the Khasia or Djainthia, whose language, however, differs from the Thibetan.[420]