Afars. A nomadic Turki tribe of Persia. See also [DANAKILS].
Afghans. A race of Iranian stock, belonging to the great Aryan family, who form about half the population of Afghanistan. They are divided into various tribes, of which the Duranis are the dominant one, the Ghilzais the most warlike, and the Yusufzais the most turbulent. There are also large tribes known as Pathans, who are of the same stock as the Afghans, but are classed separately. The Afghans are a handsome and athletic race, inured to war from their childhood, lawless and treacherous, but sober and hardy. Throughout the nineteenth century they were a constant source of trouble to British India, but a new era seems to have opened under the present Amir. For non-Afghan inhabitants of Afghanistan, see [HAZARAS], [KIZIL-BASHIS], and [TAJIKS].
Afridis. A warlike and turbulent Pathan race, occupying the neighbourhood of the Khyber Pass, and often at war with the English.
Afrikanders. Persons of European descent born and living in South Africa.
Agaos. An indigenous Hamitic race of Northern Abyssinia.
Ahoms. Primitive inhabitants of Assam, belonging to the Indo-Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family.
Ainus. An aberrant family of Caucasic Man in the Far East. They were probably the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan, but are now few in number, and confined to Yezo, the Kurile Islands, and part of Sakhalin. They have regular and often handsome features of Caucasic type, but are of low stature, and characteristically marked by an abundance of coarse, black, wavy or crisp hair on head, face, and body, whence they are commonly called the “Hairy Ainus.”
Akawais. See [CARIBS].
Akkas. A pygmy Negrito race of the Welle district in Central Africa, akin to the [Achuas] (q.v.), who are specially interesting because they are represented on Egyptian monuments of 3400 B.C., with their existing racial characters.
Akkads, or Akkadians. An extinct Mesopotamian race, founders of the oldest known civilisation in Babylonia, who belonged to the Northern Mongolic family, and probably to the Turki or Finno-Ugrian stock. They invented the cuneiform alphabet, which was adopted by their Semitic successors—see [BABYLONIANS]—and it is thought that they may have been the ancestors of the Chinese.