“They are, however, named simply the Ethiopian race, from the Ethiopians, who were the only black people known to the ancients in very remote times. A mixture of somewhat vague notions, partly connected with physical theories, and in part derived from history, or rather from mythology, has formed the groundwork of this scheme, which refers the origin of human races to high mountainous tracts. The tops of mountains first emerged above the surface of the primeval ocean, and, in the language of some philosophical theorists, first became the scene of the organizing life of nature. From different mountain tops, Wildenow, and other writers on the history of plants, derive the vegetable tribes; which they suppose to have descended from high places into the plains, and to have spread their colonies along the margins of mountain streams. High mountains thus came to be regarded as the birthplaces of living races.
“Geological theories give their part to render these notions popular; not only the late speculations of the Count de Buffon and the learned Bailly, but the opinions of ancient philosophers, who maintained, before the time of Justin and of Pliny, that the mountains of high Asia must have been the part of the world first inhabited by men, inasmuch as that region must have been first refrigerated in the gradual cooling of the surface of our planet, and first raised sufficiently above the level of the ocean. Moreover, the poetical traditions of the ancient world describe high mountains as the scenes of the first mythical adventures of gods and men—as the resting-places on which celestial or aërial beings alighted from their cloudy habitations, to take up their abode with men, and to become the patriarchs of the human race. Lofty mountains are the points in the geography of our globe on which the first dawn of historic light casts its early beams; hence the legends of the first ages begin their thread. In the cosmogony of the Hindoos, it was on the summit of the sacred mountain Maha-meru, which rises in the midst of the seven dwipas, or great peninsulas, like the stalk between the expanded petals of a lotus, that Brahma, the creator, sits enthroned on a pillar of gold and gems, adored by Rishis and Gandharbhas; while the regents of the four quarters of the universe hold their stations on the four faces of the mountain. Equally famed in the ancient mythology of Iran and of Zoroaster, is the sacred mountain Albordy, based upon the earth, but raising through all the spheres of heaven, to the region of supernal light, its lofty top, the seat of Ormuzd, whence the bridge Ishinevad conducts blessed spirits of pious men to Gorodman, the solid vault of heaven, the abode of Ferouers and Arnshaspands. Even the prosing disciples of Confucius had their sacred mountain of Kuen-lun, where, according to the legends of their forefathers, was the abode of the early patriarchs of their race. The Arabs and the Persian Moslemin had their poetical Kaf. The lofty hills of Phrygia and of Hellas—Ida, Olympus, Pindus—were, as every one knows, famous in Grecian story. Caucasus came in for a share of the reverence paid to the high places of the earth. Caucasus, however, was not the cradle of the human race, but the dwelling-place of Prometheus, the maker of men, and the teacher of astronomy.”
Abandoning this somewhat dreamy view, Dr Prichard regards, consistently with the Scriptural account, the birthplace of man as being on the banks of fertilizing rivers, and at a period when the world was, by its vegetable and animal productions, prepared for his reception, and adopts three divisions as being those of which we have the earliest records; 1st, the Semitic or Syro-Arabian, inhabiting countries between Egypt and the Ganges. 2dly, the Japetic, Indo-European, or Arian, spreading from the mouths of the Ganges over the greater part of Europe. And 3dly, the Egyptian or Hamitish,[B] who peopled the banks of the Nile, and of whom the African negroes are probably a degenerate offshoot. With regard to the knowledge of letters possessed by these three nations, our author gives two inconsistent statements. He says:—
“The three celebrated nations whose history we have surveyed, appear alone to have possessed in the earliest times the use of letters, and by written monuments to have transmitted to the last ages memorials of their existence. It seems improbable that each of these nations should have become, by a separate process, possessed of this important art: yet those eminent scholars who have laboured with so great success of late in elucidating the Oriental forms of writing, have not succeeded in tracing any connexion between the alphabetic systems of Egypt, of the Phœnicians, the Assyrians, and the Hindoos.”
And states afterwards:—
“It is plain that the use of letters was entirely unknown to the Arian nations, to those tribes at least of the race who passed into Europe: and that it was introduced among them in long after ages by the Phœnicians, who claim this most important invention, and certainly have the merit of having communicated it to the nations of the west.”
The words “those tribes at least,” are scarcely sufficient to remove the inconsistency.
A fourth division comprehends those various barbarous nations of unknown origin which occupied the territories surrounding the Indo-European race, and were for the most part subdued and expelled by the latter—to this fourth division he applies the term Allophyllian.
This glotto-historical division does not exactly correspond with the physical division as deduced from the form of the skull. The three nations first above mentioned, or the inhabitants of the central regions, from which they at least are supposed, according to this view, to have emanated, have all the oval skull; though, when we pass to the nomadic people of high Asia, we get the pyramidal, and, passing from Egypt to Africa, we get a gradually increasing tendency to the prognathous form.
It would carry us far beyond the usual bounds of an article in this Magazine, were we to give even a condensed abstract of the descriptions, individual and collective, of each of these leading divisions and their various subdivisions. We will observe generally that the central portion of the work, which contains a detailed account of the divisions physical, ethical, and ethnical, of all the most marked varieties of the human race, accompanied with illustrative pictures and woodcuts, evinces the most elaborate research, and, as a work of reference, will be doubtless found of great value. We will, therefore, pass to the fifth great division of the human race, which is discussed in a later portion of the work, and which is not very distinctly connected with the other four—viz. the American. The Sioux tribes, however, who occupy tracts of land on the Upper Mississippi, are supposed with great probability, from their physical character, language, and tradition, to be the descendants of a Tartar race, who have emigrated across the north-west straits of America.