Man and His Migrations

by R. G. Latham

Depart from it and comparisons suggest themselves. If the lips thicken and the skin blackens, we think of the Negro; if the cheek-bones stand out and if the eye—as it sometimes does—become oblique, the Mongol comes into our thoughts.

The original Indian creeds are best characterized by negatives. They are neither Brahminic nor [Buddhist].

The language, for the present, is best brought under the same description. No man living considers it to be Indo-European.

In proportion as any particular Indian population is characterized by these three marks, its origin, purity, and indigenous nature become clearer—and vice versâ. Hence, they may be taken in the order of their outward and visible signs of aboriginality.

First come—as already stated—the Southrons of the Continent[35]; and first amongst these the mountaineers. In the Eastern Ghauts we have the Chenchwars, between the Kistna and the Pennar; in the Western the Cohatars, Tudas, Curumbars, Erulars, and numerous other hill-tribes; all agreeing in being either imperfect Brahminists or Pagans, and in speaking and languages akin to the Tamul of the coast of Coromandel; a language which gives its name to the class, and introduces the important philological term Tamulian. The physical appearance of these is by no means so characteristic as their speech and creed. The mountain habitats favour a lightness of complexion. On the other, it favours the Mongol prominence of the cheek-bones. Many, however, of the Tudas have all the regularity of the Persian countenance—yet they are the pure amongst the pure of the native Tamulian Indians.

In the plains the language is Tamulian, but the creed Brahminic; a state of evidence which reaches as far north as the parts about Chicacole east, and Goa west.

In the South, then, are the chief samples of the true Tamulian aborigines of Indian; the characteristics of whom have been preserved by the simple effect of distance from the point of disturbance. Distance, however, alone has been but a weak preservative. The combination of a mountain-stronghold has added to its efficiency.

In Central India one of these safeguards is impaired. We are nearer to Persia; and it is only in the mountains that the foreign elements are sufficiently inconsiderable to make the Tamulian character of the population undoubted and undeniable. In the Mahratta country and in Gondwana, the Ghonds, in Orissa the Kols, Khonds, and Súrs, and in Bengal the Rajmahali mountaineers are Tamulian in tongue and Pagan in creed—or, if not Pagan, but imperfectly Brahminic. But, then, they are all mountaineers. In the more level country around them the language is Mahratta, Udiya, or Bengali.

Now the Mahratta, Udiya[36] and Bengali are not unequivocally and undeniably Tamulian. They are so far from it, that they explain what was meant by the negative statement as to the Tamulian tongues not being considered Indo-European. This is just what the tongues in question have been considered. Whether rightly or wrongly is not very important at present. If rightly, we have a difference of language as primâ facie—but not as conclusive—evidence of a difference of stock. If wrongly, we have, in the very existence of an opinion which common courtesy should induce us to consider reasonable, a practical exponent of some considerable difference of some sort or other—of a change from the proper Tamulian characteristics to something else so great in its degree as to look like a difference in kind. With the Bengali—and to a certain extent with the other two populations—the foreign element approaches its maximum, or (changing the expression) the evidence of Tamulianism is at its minimum. Yet it is not annihilated. The physical appearance of the Mahratta, at least, is that of the true South Indian. Even if the language be other than Tamulian, the Hindús of northern India may still be of the same stock with those of Mysore and Malabar, in the same way that a Cornishman is a Welshman—i. e. a Briton who has changed his mother-tongue for the English.