Burmese, or Burmans. A short-statured, thick-set and flat-featured people, approaching the Chinese type, the principal race of the Indo-Chinese stock of the Southern Mongolic family. They inhabit Burma—now a British possession—and are excitable, turbulent, and given to dacoity, or highway robbery. They make good farmers and shopkeepers, but are not warlike or methodical.
Burus. See [INDONESIANS].
Bushmen. A nomadic Negro race of South Africa, who stand at the lowest stage of human culture. They are probably the aborigines of South Africa, where they have been dispossessed by Hottentots and Bantus from the north. They are thin and wiry, of small stature, not unlike the Hottentots in colour and features. They live by hunting, and possess a curious mythology. Their artistic powers, comparable to those of Palæolithic Man, are shown in the remarkable rock-drawings on the walls of their caves.
Calchaquis. South American Indians, in Plate River district.
Cambojans. Natives of Cambodia, Mongoloid approaching Caucasic type.
Canaanites. One of the main branches of the great Semitic family, inhabiting Palestine and the Mauritanian sea-coast in ancient times, including [Jews], [Phœnicians], [Carthaginians], [Moabites], [Amorites], [Idumæans] and [Philistines] (q.v.). A fierce and warlike people, with a remarkable genius for religion, which has greatly influenced the modern world.
Canadians. White natives of Canada, of mixed French and Anglo-Saxon descent.
Caribs. South American Indians, formerly occupying the West Indian Islands, and now the shores of the Caribbean Sea, including Macusi, Bakairi, Akawai, Arecuna, and Rucuyenne tribes. They are strongly built, warlike and fierce, but honourable. The term cannibal is supposed to be a corruption of their name based on their habits.
Carthaginians. Natives of one of the great empires of the ancient world, which was founded at Carthage, near the modern Bizerta, by Phœnician colonists in the ninth century B.C., and was destroyed by Rome in 146 B.C. Carthage was the great rival of Rome as a Mediterranean power. Its inhabitants belonged to the Canaanite stock of the Semitic family, and were a nation of traders, cruel and gloomy in temperament, worshippers of Moloch with human sacrifices. Though in Hannibal they produced one of the greatest of generals, they were not warlike, and trusted chiefly to mercenaries, wherefore they fell.
Catalans. Natives of North-east Spain, mostly of Gothic descent, and still distinct from other Spaniards in language and costume. Honest and enterprising, turbulent, and intensely devoted to liberty.