General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

EARLY CULTURE OF THE ARYANS.—One of the most fascinating studies of recent growth is that which reveals to us the customs, beliefs, and mode of life of the early Aryans, while they were yet living together as a single household. Upon comparing the myths, legends, and ballads of the different Aryan peoples, we discover the curious fact that, under various disguises, they are the same. Thus our nursery tales are found to be identical with those with which the Hindu children are amused. But the discovery should not surprise us. We and the Hindus are kinsmen, children of the same home; so now, when after a long separation we meet, the tales we tell are the same, for they are the stories that were told around the common hearth-fire of our Aryan forefathers.

And when we compare certain words in different Aryan languages, we often find them alike in form and meaning. Thus, take the word father. This word occurs with but little change of form in several of the Aryan tongues. [Footnote: Sanscrit, pitri; Persian, padar; Greek, pater; Latin, pater; German, vater.] From this we infer that the remote ancestors of the now widely separated Aryan peoples once lived together and had a common speech.

Our knowledge of the prehistoric culture of the Aryans, gained through the sciences of comparative philology and mythology, may be summed up as follows: They personified and worshipped the various forces and parts of the physical universe, such as the Sun, the Dawn, Fire, the Winds, the Clouds. The all-embracing sky they worshipped as the Heaven-Father (Dyaus-Pitar, whence Jupiter). They were herdsmen and at least occasional farmers. They introduced the sheep, as well as the horse, into Europe: the Turanian people whom they displaced had neither of these domestic animals. In social life they had advanced to that stage where the family is the unit of society. The father was the priest and absolute lord of his house. The families were united to form village-communities ruled by a chief, or patriarch, who was assisted by a council of elders.

IMPORTANCE OF ARYAN STUDIES.—This picture of life in the early Aryan home, the elements of which are gathered in so novel a way, is of the very greatest historical value and interest. In these customs and beliefs of the early Aryans, we discover the germs of many of the institutions of the classical Greeks and Romans, and of the nations of modern Europe. Thus, in the council of elders around the village patriarch, political historians trace the beginnings of the senates of Greece and Rome and the national parliaments of later times.

Just as the teachings of the parental roof mould the life and character of the children that go out from under its discipline, so have the influences of that early Aryan home shaped the habits, institutions, and character of those peoples and families that, as its children, went out to establish new homes in their "appointed habitations."

RACES OF MANKIND, WITH CHIEF FAMILIES AND PEOPLES.

BLACK RACE (Ethiopian, or Negro).
Tribes of Central and Southern Africa, the Papuans and the Australians.
(This group includes two great divisions, the Negroid and Australoid.)

YELLOW RACE (Turanian, or Mongolian). (1) The Chinese, Burmese, Japanese, and other kindred peoples of Eastern Asia; (2) the Malays of Southeastern Asia, and the inhabitants of many of the Pacific islands; (3) the nomads (Tartars, Mongols, etc.) of Northern and Central Asia and of Eastern Russia; (4) the Turks, the Magyars, or Hungarians, the Finns and Lapps, and the Basques, in Europe; (5) the Esquimaux and the American Indians. Languages of these peoples are monosyllabic or agglutinative. (Note that the Malays and American Indians were formerly classified as distinct races.)

WHITE RACE (Caucasian).
Hamitic Family
Egyptians,
Libyans,
Cushites.
Semitic Family
Chaldæans (partly Turanian)
Assyrians,
Babylonians,
Canaanites (chiefly Semitic),
Phoenicians,
Hebrews,
Arabs.
Aryan, or Indo-European Family
Indo-Iranic Branch
Hindus,
Medes,
Persians.
Græco-Italic Branch
Greeks,
Romans.
Celtic Branch
Gauls,
Britons,
Scots (Irish),
Picts.
Teutonic Branch
High Germans,
Low Germans,
Scandinavians.
Slavonic Branch
Russians,
Poles, etc.

The peoples of modern Germany are the descendants of various Germanic tribes. The Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes represent the Scandinavian branch of the Teutonic family. The Irish, the Welsh, the Scotch Highlanders, and the Bretons of Brittany (anciently Armorica), in France, are the present representatives of the ancient Celts. The French, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians have sprung, in the main, from a blending of the Celts, the ancient Romans, and the Germanic tribes that thrust themselves within the limits of the Roman Empire in the West. The English are the descendants of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (Teutonic tribes), slightly modified by interminglings with the Danes and Normans (also of Teutonic origin). (See Mediæval and Modern History, pp. 169- 178.)