Most Thibetans are cultivators of the soil or shepherds, pillagers in case of need, and fervent votaries of numerous Lamaite-Buddhist sects, of which that of the Geluk-pa (yellow caps) represents the ruling church. Its chief, the Dalai-Lama, residing at Lassa, is at the same time the sovereign of Thibet.
From the somatological point of view the Thibetans exhibit certain sufficiently marked variations. The Bothia are below the average stature (1 m. 62 or 1 m. 63); the Lepchas are short (1 m. 57); and the Thibetans of Nepal vary as regards average stature from 1 m. 59 (Mangars) to 1 m. 67 (Murmis). The head is mesocephalic (ceph. ind. 80.7 on the liv. sub.), but sub-dolichocephalic or sub-brachycephalic forms are frequently met with. As a general rule, side by side with the Mongoloid type may be seen among the Thibetans, singly or united, the traits of another type, a somewhat slender figure, thin, prominent, often aquiline nose, straight eyes with undrooping eyelids, long and sometimes wavy hair, reminding one, in short, of the Gypsy type.[421] This type, moreover, is found beyond Thibet. The Lo-lo or Nésus, as they call themselves, of western Sechuen and the north-east of Yunnan, with whom we must connect the Kolo or Golyk of the country of Amdo (east of Thibet), perhaps represent it in its purest form, if the portrait of them drawn by Thorel is correct. With slight figure, brownish complexion, they have a straight profile, oval face, high forehead, straight and arched nose, thick beard even on the sides of the face and always frizzy or wavy hair.[422] Their language, however, fixed by a hieroglyphic mode of writing, appears to belong to the Burmese family.[423] The Lo-lo not under Chinese rule are of a gay disposition; they love dancing and singing. Woman is held among them in great respect; there are some tribes even whose chiefs belong to the weaker sex.
We must connect with the Lo-lo a multitude of other tribes, less pure in type: the various Miao-tsé, mountaineers of the southern part of the province of Hunnan, of Kwei-chow, of the northern part of the Kwang-si, the north-west district of Kwang-tung, more or less intermixed with the Chinese; the Lissus of the Lu-tse-Kiang (Upper Salwen) and the Lantsan-Kiang (Upper Mekong), near to the new boundary of China and British India; the Mosso or Nashis of the district of Li-Kiang to the east of the Lissus, related to the latter and having an iconomatic writing; lastly, the Lu-tse or Kew-tse, who call themselves Melams or Anoogs, to the west of the Lissus and separated by an inhabited tract from the Mishmee, the Sarong and other Thibeto-Indonesian tribes. The language of the Lu-tse differs from that of any of the neighbouring peoples, and their physical type places them between the Lissus and the Indonesians, such as the Naga for example; they are short (1 m. 56 according to Roux), but strong and vigorous; their hair is frizzy.[424] The Mu-tse mentioned by Terrien de Lacouperie, the Lawa or Does described by Holt Hallet, the Muzours of T. de Lacouperie or the Musos of Archer, the Kas-Khuis of Garnier, scattered between the Mekong and the Salwen from the twentieth to the twenty-fifth degree of north latitude, are probably akin to the Lo-lo and the Mossos.[425]
III. POPULATIONS OF EASTERN ASIA.—The far east of Asia is inhabited by three nations of mixed origin: Chinese, Coreans, Japanese.
1. The Chinese form by themselves alone more than the third, if not the half of the population of Asia. They occupy in a solid mass the whole of China properly so called, and stretch in isolated groups far beyond the political limits of the “eighteen provinces.” Manchuria, Southern Mongolia, Dzungaria, a portion of Eastern Turkestan and Thibet have been invaded by Chinese colonists; and outside of the Empire it is estimated there are not less than three millions of “Celestials” who have emigrated to Indo-China, Malaysia, the two Americas, and even to the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Africa.
The Chinese people have sprung from manifold intermixtures, and indeed there are several types to discover in this nation, the anthropological study of which is scarcely more than outlined; as it is, however, according to historical data we may presume that five or six various elements enter into its composition.
We know from the books of Shu-King that the primitive country of the Chinese was the north of the present province of Kan-su. Thence the agricultural colonists moved (about the year 2200 B.C., according to a doubtful chronology) into the fertile valley of the Houng-ho and its tributary the Wei or Hwei. Little by little, the Chinese colonists spread along other valleys, but it took them centuries to conquer the aboriginal tribes (the Djoong, the Man, the Pa, the Miao-tse). Again in the seventh century B.C. (when exact chronology commences) the territory occupied by the Chinese scarcely extended beyond the valley of the lower Yang-tsi on the south and that of the Pei-ho on the north, and comprised within these limits several aboriginal tribes like the Hoai, of the valley of the same name, or the Lai of the Shantung peninsula, who maintained their independence. However that may be, the Chinese succeeded, little by little, in driving back the first occupiers of the soil into the mountains of the west and south, where they are still found under the names of Man-tse, Miao-tse, I-gen, Mans, Thos, etc.[426]
