ETHNOLOGY (Gr. ἔθνος, nation, and λόγος, discourse), the science which treats of man as a member of a tribe or nation, and of his culture, morals, and language. It is closely allied to anthropology, which treats of man zoölogically, and of his physical condition and inherent faculties. Ethnology and ethnography are sometimes used indiscriminately, but the former term is more usual. The terms linguistic and descriptive ethnology have recently been introduced to designate the two main branches of ethnological research. The separation of anthropology from ethnology has also been made recently; but in this article they will be considered together. It was formerly required that an ethnologist should not only be a naturalist, but should be familiar with philology or the science of language, archæology or the study of human monuments and remains, and physical geography as far as it relates to climatic and kindred influences on the races. From the difficulties inherent in the subject, the science of ethnology long remained in a very unsatisfactory condition. Now, however, it is considered an entirely distinct science, and anatomy, comparative anatomy, mental and moral philosophy, physiology, psychology, philology, climatology, archæology, and kindred studies form separate divisions of scientific research. Ethnologists and anthropologists confine themselves now to systematizing the results obtained in all and each of these sciences; the latter striving to establish the relation existing between the various types of man for a classification of the human species into races; the former trying to analyze the natural and artificial forms of man in his social relations, in order to detect the forces which cause divergences and analogies among them, and to build thereon a classification of the human race into tribes and nations.—The ancient writers contributed very little to ethnology. Among the Greeks, Herodotus and Xenophon give a faint idea of the ancient populations; among the Latins, Sallust, Cæsar, and especially Tacitus, supply fuller information; yet it is only in comparatively modern times, since the discovery of America, the circumnavigation of the globe, the explorations of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific islands, and the revival of physical and physiological studies, that ethnology can be said to have begun to accumulate the materials necessary for a natural classification of the human races. The most important of the classifications proposed during the last two centuries are the following, most of which, it will be observed, are purely anthropological. Linnæus, in the first edition of his Systema Naturæ, makes four divisions of the genus homo, founded upon the color of the skin, viz.: 1, European, whitish; 2, American, coppery; 3, Asiatic, tawny; and 4, African, black. The divisions proposed by Buffon were five: the Hyperborean (including the inhabitants of the polar regions and of eastern and central Asia, or Laplanders and Tartars), Southern Asiatic, European, Ethiopian, and American. Blumenbach adopted these, changing the names of some of the divisions, and more accurately defining their geographical distribution. He divided mankind into the five classes of Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malay, founded on the combined characters of the complexion, hair, and skull. Before Blumenbach, Camper, a Dutch anatomist, attempted to classify the races by the shape of the skull and the size of the facial angle. Cuvier compares the areas of the cranium and face sawed vertically on the median line from before backward; according to this measurement, the area of the former in the highest races is four times that of the face, in the negro the area of the face being one fifth larger. The norma verticalis of Blumenbach measures the breadth of the skull and the projection of the face, and consists in viewing skulls from behind and above, the eye being fixed on the vertex of each. The comparisons of skulls made by Dr. Morton in his ethnological works are based on the cubic contents of each cranium, measured by noting the quantity which they will hold of any small granular substance. Cuvier divides mankind into three stocks: 1, Caucasian, with the branches Armenian, Indian, and Scythian or Tartar; 2, Mongol or Altaic, with the branches Calmucks, Kalkas, Mantchoos, Japanese, and Siberians; 3, Negro or Ethiopian. He adopts the ill-chosen term “Caucasian” from Blumenbach. It originated from the prevalent belief at that time that the white races had their cradle in the mountains of Caucasus; as there is no foundation for such a belief, the name has been given up by many modern writers. Fischer, in his Synopsis Mammalium, divides man into homo Japeticus, with the branches Caucasicus, Arabicus, and Indicus; H. Neptunianus, with the branches Occidentalis and Papuensis (the Malay race); H. Scythicus (Calmucks and Mongols), with the branches Sinicus and Hyperboreus; H. Americanus (South American indigenes), with the branch Patagonus; H. Columbicus, the indigenes of North America, eastern Mexico, the Antilles, &c.; H. Æthiopicus, with the branches Caffer, Melanoides (Papuans, Feejeeans, &c.), and Hottentottus; and H. Polynesius, the Alfooroos, Australians, &c. Lesson, in his Mammalogie, divides the races, according to complexion, into the white or Caucasian, the yellow or Mongol, and the black or negro stocks. His later arrangement in his Species des mammiferes is the following: 1, the white race; 2, the bistre black or dusky race, including Hindoos, Caffres, Papuans, and Australians; 3, the orange-colored or Malay race; 4, the yellow race, including the Mongolians and Oceanic and South American branches; 5, the red, the North American and Carib races; 6, the black race, including the African and Asiatic negroes, Nigritians, Tasmanians. Hottentots, and Bushmen. The divisions of Duméril are: the Caucasian or Arab-European, Hyperborean, Mongolian, American, Malay, and Ethiopian. Virey makes two species of the genus homo: the first with a facial angle of 85° to 90°, including the white Caucasian race, the yellow Mongolian, and the copper-colored American; the second with a facial angle of 75° to 82°, including the dark brown Malay, the black or negro race, and the blackish Hottentots and Papuans. The sections of Desmoulins are: Celto-Scyth-Arabs, Mongols, Ethiopians, Euro-Africans, Austro-Africans, Malays or Oceanians, Papous, negro Oceanians, Australasians, Columbians, and Americans. Bory de Saint-Vincent amplifies considerably the divisions of Des- moulins, making 15 stocks in three classes, as follows: I. Races with smooth straight hair, peculiar to the old world, including: 1, the Japetic stock (named from Japetus, whom the ancients regarded as the progenitor of the race inhabiting the West, audax Japeti genus, the original seat of which is the mountain chains nearly parallel to lat. 45° N.), the Caucasian, Pelasgic, Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic races; 2, the Arabian stock, including the ancient Egyptians, North Africans, and Adamic or Syrian races; 3, the Hindoo stock; 4, the Scythic stock, or Tartars; 5, the Chinese stock; 6, the Hyperborean stock (Laplanders, &c.); 7, the Neptunian stock, including the Malays and Oceanic and Papuan races; 8, the Australasian stock. II. Races of the new world, with straight hair, including: 9, the Columbian stock, the North American races; 10, the American stock, the South American races; 11, the Patagonian stock. III. Crisp-haired or negro races, including: 12, the Ethiopian stock, or black races of central Africa; 13, the Caffre stock; 14, the Melanian stock, or races of Madagascar, Papua, Feejee islands, Tasmania, &c.; and 15, the Hottentot stock. Kant divides man into four varieties, white, black, copper, and olive, corresponding to the Caucasian, Negro, American, and Mongolian. Dr. Prichard, in his “Researches into the Physical History of Mankind” (1826-'47), refers mankind to seven stocks or classes of nations, the principal mark of distinction being the peculiar form of the skull; these are: 1, the Iranian (the Caucasian of previous writers), in the form of the skull and in physical traits resembling Europeans, including some Asiatic and African nations; 2, the Turanian or Mongolian; 3, the American, including the Esquimaux and kindred nations; 4, the Hottentot and Bushman; 5, the Negro; 6, the Papuan or woolly-haired Polynesians; and 7, the Australian and Alfooroo nations. Taking the color of the hair as a principal character, Prichard makes three great varieties: 1, the melanic, with very dark or black hair; 2, the xanthous, with yellow, red, or light brown hair, blue or light eyes, and fair skin; and 3, the leucous, or albinos, with white or pale yellow hair, very soft, fair, and delicate skin, and a red hue to the choroid of the eye. According to this author, examples of these varieties are found in all the races. Martin, in his “Natural History of Man and Monkeys” (1841), divides the human race into the following five stocks: 1, the Japetic, including the European branch, or the Celtic, Pelasgic, Teutonic, and Slavic nations; the Asiatic branch, or the Tartaric, Caucasic, Semitic, and Sanskritic nations; and the African branch, or the Mizraimic nations (ancient Egyptians, Ethiopians, Abyssinians, Berbers, and Guanches); 2, the Neptunian, including the Malays and Polynesians; 3, the Mongol, including also the Hyperborean; 4, the prognathous (a term adopted from Prichard), including the Negro, Hottentot, Papuan, and Alfooroo branches; 5, the occidental, including the indigenes of North and South America. Dr. Latham, in his “Natural History of the Varieties of Man” (1850), separates the human family into three primary divisions, the Mongolidæ, Atlantidæ, and Japetidæ. The Mongolidæ inhabit Asia, Polynesia, and America, and are subdivided into: a, Altaic Mongolidæ, including the Seriform (Chinese, &c.) and Turanian (Mongol) stocks; b, Dioscurian Mongolidæ (the Caucasian races of earlier writers); c, oceanic Mongolidæ, including Malays, Polynesians, Papuans, and Australians; d, hyperborean Mongolidæ, Samoyeds and similar nations; e, peninsular Mongolidæ, Coreans, Japanese, and the nations of the islands and peninsulas of N. E. Asia; f, American Mongolidæ, the Esquimaux and American Indians; g, Indian Mongolidæ, in Hindostan, Cashmere, Ceylon, &c. The Atlantidæ inhabit Africa and S. W. Asia, and are subdivided into: a, negro Atlantidæ, occupying the central negro area of the continent; b, the Caffre Atlantidæ; c, the Hottentot Atlantidæ; d, the Nilotic Atlantidæ; e, the Amazirgh Atlantidæ, or Berbers; f, the Egyptian Atlantidæ; g, the Semitic Atlantidæ, or Copts, Abyssinians, Arabians, Syrians, Hebrews, &c. The Japetidæ inhabit Europe, and embrace: a, the occidental Japetidæ, the Celts and their branches; b, the Indo-Germanic Japetidæ, the European and Iranian Indo-Germans. Dr. Pickering, in the “Races of Man, and their Geographical Distribution” (1848), enumerates eleven races, divided into four groups, according to complexion, as follows: a. White, including: 1, Arabian, with nose prominent, lips thin, beard abundant, and hair straight and flowing; 2, Abyssinian, with complexion hardly becoming florid, nose prominent, and hair crisped. b. Brown, including: 3, Mongolian, beardless, with perfectly straight and very long hair; 4, Hottentot, with negro features, close woolly hair, and diminutive stature; 5, Malay, with features not prominent in profile, darker complexion, and straight and flowing hair. c. Blackish brown, including: 6, Papuan, with features as in 5, abundant beard, harsh skin, and crisped or frizzled hair; 7, Negrillo, apparently beardless, with diminutive stature, negro features, and woolly hair; 8, Indian or Telingan, with Arabian features, and straight and flowing hair; 9, Ethiopian, with features intermediate between the last and the negro, and crisped hair. d. Black, including: 10, Australian, with negro features, but straight or flowing hair; and 11, Negro, with close woolly hair, flattened nose, and very thick lips. Prof. Agassiz, in the “Types of Mankind,” by Messrs. Nott and Gliddon(1854), asserts “that what are called human races, down to their specialization as nations, are distinct primordial forms of the types of man.” He makes the following realms: I. Arctic, inhabited by Hyperboreans; II. Asiatic, by Mongols; III. European, by white men; IV. American, by American Indians; V. African, by Nubians, Abyssinians, Foolahs, Negroes, Hottentots, and Bushmen; VI. East Indian or Malayan, by Telingans, Malays, and Negrillos; VII. Australian, by Papuans and Australians; and VIII. Polynesian, by South sea islanders. In a subsequent work (“Indigenous Races of the Earth,” 1857) Nott and Gliddon give an ethnographic tableau in which the races are divided zoölogically according to the eight realms of Prof. Agassiz; they are also grouped physiologically (after Desmoulins, Achille Comte and O. d'Halloy) into 65 families. The same realms have also their corresponding classes arranged linguistically, after Maury, Crawfurd Logan, &c., as follows: realm 1, with the Finno-Ugrian, containing 6 groups; realm 2, with the Tartarian, Sinic, North and South Dravidian, containing 5, 6, 4, and 6 groups respectively; realm 3, with the Ugrian, Iberian, Indo-Germanic or Japetic, Semitic, and Hamitic, containing respectively 3, 1, 6, 9, and 4 groups; realm 4, with the northern, central, and southern, containing 6, 4, and 4 groups; realm 5, with the Atlantic, Mandingo, upper Guinean, upper Soodanian, delta of the Niger, basin of the Tchad, central Africa, Senegambian, Guinean, Congo, Madagascar, and Hottentot, containing 4, 9, 3, 4, 3, 1, 2, 4, 3, 8, 1, and 3 groups; realm 6, with the polyglot class, containing 13 groups; realm 7, with the polyglot class, containing 2 groups; and realm 8, with the monoglot and polyglot classes, containing 4 and a single group.—Among the difficulties encountered in ethnology, the first is the important question of the descent of man. Huxley, Wallace, Darwin, Haeckel, and many others have advocated the hypothesis that man is a descendant of an ape-like animal. It is, however, acknowledged that no one of the now living genera of apes was the immediate ancestor of man. The orang has the closest resemblance to man in the convolutions of the brain; the chimpanzee, in the form of the skull; the gorilla, in the development of the hands and feet; and the gibbon, in the construction of the chest. On a voyage around the world with the recent Austrian scientific expedition (1868) Scherzer and Schwarz took numerous careful measurements of the bodies of individuals belonging to different races, and the conclusion arrived at, as given by Weissbach, was that the resemblance between man and apes is not restricted to any particular people, but is traceable in some portion of the body in all nations; that an heirloom of the relationship is owned by every one, and that even Europeans cannot claim exemption from it. (See Evolution.) The question of the unity or diversity of origin of the different races can also be answered only hypothetically. Many believe still in the blood relationship of all human beings, while others are of opinion that each race originated independently. Not all who accept the doctrine of evolution are monogenists; and the polygenists, or those who believe in the plurality of origin of the human race, base their belief on the fact that the languages do not seem to have come from one and the same source. In order to overcome this evidence, it is necessary to accept the doctrine that primitive man was speechless. (See Language.) The difficulties in the way of classifying the numerous races or types of man are as great as in the case of animals and plants. All varieties are connected by numberless forms of transition, and it is impossible to settle beyond all dispute what is genus, and what species; what race, and what variety. Blumenbach's classification, given above, dividing mankind into five races, has been abandoned, because the difference between them is too great. Queinstedt remarks: “If negroes and Caucasians were snails instead of human beings, all zoölogists would agree in classifying them as two different species.” The races are generally distinguished either according to the character of the hair, the color of the skin, the form of the skull, or the convolutions of the brain. The latest results arrived at through the measurements and weighings of the brain will be found in the works of Fritsch, Hitzig, and Meynert. It is believed that in the development of the brain, especially of the frontal lobe, may be retraced the history of man, and that skulls of primitive man furnish a clue to the intellectual spirit of primitive ages. This subject is fully treated in Schaafhausen's Ueber die Urform des menschlichen Schädels (Bonn, 1868). The form of the skulls of the first inhabitants of Europe is ably discussed by Virchow, in his work Die altnordischen Schädel zu Copenhagen (1871). Mankind is divided after the shape of the skull into long-headed (dolicocephali) and short-headed (brachycephali); the negroes and Australians are the strongest types of the former, and the Mongolians of the latter. Between these two extremes are placed the medium-headed (mesocephali), as the Americans. In each of these three divisions are further distinguished the prognathi, or those having oblique teeth on account of the projection of the jaws; and the orthognathi, or those having straight teeth because their jaws project but little. It seems, however, that the labors of the last ten years in measuring and investigating the forms of skulls have not been sufficiently rewarded. A more satisfactory classification is obtained from the character of the hair of the head, which seems to be strictly preserved in each race. The classification made on this basis, combined with the latest results of linguistic research, is given as follows:
| CHARACTER OF HAIR. |
Species. | Race. | Habitat. | Came from the |
Present number in millions. |
Origin of language. |
State of development. | ||||||
| Ulotriches (wooly). | |||||||||||||
| Lophocomi (in tufts). | |||||||||||||
|
1. Negritos | Malacca, Philippines | West |
|
Single | Retrograde. | |||||||
| 2. Papuans | Papua | West | |||||||||||
| 3. Melanese | Melanesia | Northwest | |||||||||||
| 4. Tasmanians | Tasmania | Northeast | |||||||||||
|
5. Hottentots | Capeland | Northeast |
|
Single | Retrograde. | |||||||
| 6. Bushmen | Capeland | Northeast | |||||||||||
| Eriocomi (fleecy). | |||||||||||||
|
7. Zooloo Caffres | East South Africa | North |
|
Single | Progressive. | |||||||
| 8. Bechuanas | Central South Africa | Northeast | |||||||||||
| 9. Congo Caffres | West South Africa | East | |||||||||||
|
10. Tibboo negroes | Tibboo | Southeast |
|
Plural | Progressive. | |||||||
| 11. Soodan negroes | Soodan | East | |||||||||||
| 12. Senegambians | Senegambia | East | |||||||||||
| 13. Nigritians | Nigritia | East | |||||||||||
| Lissotriches (smooth). | |||||||||||||
| Euthycomi (straight). | |||||||||||||
|
14. North Australians | North Australia | North |
|
Single | Retrograde. | |||||||
| 15. South Australians | South Australia | North | |||||||||||
|
16. Sundanese | Sunda Archipelago | West |
|
Single | Stationary. | |||||||
| 17. Polynesians | Pacific Archipelago | West | |||||||||||
| 18. Madagascans | Madagascar | East | |||||||||||
|
19. Indo-Chinese | Thibet, China | South |
|
Single? | Progressive. | |||||||
| 20. Coreo-Japanese | Corea, Japan | Southwest | |||||||||||
| 21. Altaians | Central Asia, N'th Asia | South | |||||||||||
| 22. Uralians | N. W. Asia, N. Europe, Hungary |
Southeast | |||||||||||
|
23. Hyperboreans | N. N. E. Asia | Southwest |
|
Plural? | Stationary. | |||||||
| 24. Esquimaux | N. N. E. America | West | |||||||||||
|
25. North Americans | North America | Northwest |
|
Single? | Retrograde. | |||||||
| 26. Central Americans | Central America | North | |||||||||||
| 27. South Americans | South America | North | |||||||||||
| 28. Patagonians | Patagonia | North | |||||||||||
| Euplocomi (curly). | |||||||||||||
|
29. Deccanese | India | East? |
|
Single | Stationary. | |||||||
| 30. Singalese | Ceylon | North? | |||||||||||
|
31. Shangallas |
|
East |
|
Single? | Stationary. | |||||||
| 32. Dongolese | |||||||||||||
| 33. Foolahs | Foolah | East | |||||||||||
|
34. Caucasians | Caucasus | Southeast |
|
Plural | Progressive. | |||||||
| 35. Basques | N. N. E. Spain | South? | |||||||||||
| 36. Semites | Arabia, N'th Africa, &c. | East | |||||||||||
| 37. Indo-Europeans | S. W. Asia, Europe, &c. | Southeast | |||||||||||
| Half Breeds | Everywhere; principally America and Asia |
11 | Plural | Progressive. | |||||||||
—In order to gain a clear view of the geographical distribution of mankind, it is necessary to go back three or four centuries to the time of the discovery of America and of the Indian archipelago, when the present extensive mingling of species, and especially the general invasion of the Indo-European races, were not so far advanced. In the following rapid survey of the human races copious references have been made to the latest works of travel. Our space does not permit us to give in detail the customs and morals of each; we confine ourselves instead to a succinct enumeration of the physical characteristics, the languages, and the habitats. Beginning with the lowest types of man, we must consider first the Ulotriches or woolly-haired men, among whom the Papuans probably resemble very closely the primitive species. They inhabit at present the island of Papua and the Melanesian archipelago. A few are found in Malacca and on the Philippines. The recently extinct race of Tasmanians belonged also to this species. The Malays supplanted the Papuans in the S. E. portion of Asia, and drove them further east. The skin of the Papuans is black, with a slightly brown and occasionally blue tinge. The crisp hair grows in tufts, is wound spirally, and often more than a foot long, forming a tall woolly peruke. The forehead is narrow and flattened, the nose turned up and large, and the lips thick and broad. The Papuans differ greatly from their neighbors the Malays and Australians, for which reason they are generally classified now as a distinct species. Their dwellings resemble the lake dwellings recently discovered in central Europe. (See Semper, Die Philippinen und ihre Bewohner, Würzburg, 1868). The Hottentots are closely related to the Papuans, having like them hair in tufts. The females of both species are very fat around the loins. The skin of the Hottentots is yellowish brown; the face is exceedingly flat; the forehead and the nose are very small; the nostrils large; the mouth very broad, with thick lips; chin small and pointed. It is believed that the Hottentots occupied for some time the whole of S. E. Africa; they inhabit now only the most southern portion. The species is rapidly decreasing, and of the Hottentots proper only two tribes still exist, the Korana and the Namaqua. The Bushmen, who belong to the same species, live in the mountain regions of the interior of Capeland. The language is very peculiar, especially on account of the clicking. (See Schmarda, Reise um die Erde, 3 vols., Brunswick, 1861.) The Caffres have also crisp hair, not in tufts, but fleecy, and the skin runs through all tinges from yellow-brown to brown-black. They differ from the negroes in language and in the form of the skull. The face is thin and long, the forehead high and vaulted, the nose often aquiline, the chin pointed, and the lips are not very thick. The various languages of the Caffre races are retraced to the Bantu language, now dead, of the Hamitic group. This species inhabits equatorial Africa from lat. 20° S. to 4° N. The principal tribes are the Zooloo, Zambesi, Bechuanas or Sechuanas, Herreros, and Congos. They are said to have come from the northeast.—The genuine negro is now carefully distinguished from the Caffres, Hottentots, and Nubians. Only the tribes in the eastern portion of the Sahara, the Soodanese in the south of the great desert, and the population of the west African coast lands, from the Senegal in the north to below the mouth of the Niger in the south, belong to this species. All the negro races seem to have come from the east. The color of the skin is more or less deep black; the skin itself is velvety, and generally emits a bad odor. The hair resembles that of the Caffres, but the face has a different shape. The forehead is exceedingly flat and low; the nose broad, thick, and little protruding; the lips are puffy and turned up very high; and the chin is very short. The genuine negro has always very thin calves and very long arms. This species separated probably very early into numerous tribes, inasmuch as the many totally different languages spoken by them cannot be retraced to the original tongue. The migrations of the African races so far noticed are due in part to the slavery practised among them, compelling the weaker tribes to move if possible beyond the reach of the stronger. They lived undoubtedly much further north at a very remote time; but the immigration of the Mediterraneans (Caucasians), and especially of the Karaites, across the isthmus of Suez, compelled them to cede their original habitation to the superior foreigners. Bearing in mind the age of the Egyptian empire, and the time previously needed for its establishment, it is considered probable that the Hamitic invasion took place about 6000 B. C. (See Africa, Languages of; Barth's “Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa,” 1855-'8; Bleek's “Grammar of South African Languages,” London, 1869; Duveyrier, Exploration du Sahara, Paris, 1864 et seq.).—Among the eight species of the branch of smooth-haired men, the Australians or Australian negroes occupy the lowest rank, and seem to inhabit only the large island of Australia. They resemble the negroes in having a black or brown-black skin, a flat and retreating forehead, a thick nose, and puffy lips, and in the almost total want of calves. Their hair is either quite straight or somewhat curly. It is possible that they are related to the Dravidas. They are grouped into North and South Australians in accordance with the latest linguistic researches. (See Australia; Christmann's Australien, Oeschichte der Entdeckungsreisen und der Kolonisation, Leipsic, 1870.) The Malays are ethnologically of great importance, though not very numerous. High authorities consider it certain that the forefathers of the Malays, called Pro-Malays, were the ancestors of most of the nations of Asia, Europe, and America. The modern Malays comprise three races far distant from each other. The Sundanese inhabit Malacca, the Sunda archipelago, and the Philippines; a branch of them is found on the island of Madagascar, and another is scattered over the Polynesian archipelago. The Malays are very fond of navigation, which explains the great territorial extent of the species. Their early habitat was probably the S. E. portion of the Asiatic continent, whence they advanced toward the east and south, pushing the Papuans before them. They are physically very similar to the Mongolians and Mediterraneans. The head is generally short, though sometimes of considerable length. The hair is smooth and straight, but occasionally curly. The skin is brown, but frequently with a yellow, and also with a ruddy tinge. The face is broad, the nose well developed, and the lips are thick; but the eyes are not quite as small and oblique as those of the Mongolians. Wallace measured several crania of the species so far noticed, and, as the following table shows, the difference between the Malays and Polynesians is not very great, while it is quite large among the others:
| NUMBER OF CRANIA. | Capacity. | Proportion of width to length. |
Proportion of height to length. |
| 83 Malays (66 male) | 60 to 91 | .70 to .92 | .72 to .90 |
| 28 Papuans (23 male) | 66 to 80 | .65 to .85 | .71 to .85 |
| 156 Polynesians (90 male) | 62 to 91 | .69 to .90 | .68 to .88 |
| 23 Australians (16 male) | 59 to 86 | .57 to .80 | .64 to .80 |
| 72 Negroes (38 male) | 66 to 87 | .64 to .83 | .65 to .81 |
(See Wallace, “The Malay Archipelago,” London, 1869; Bleek, “Handbook of African, Australian, and Polynesian Philology,” 3 vols., London and Cape Town, 1858-'63; Friedmann, Die Ost-Asiatische Inselwelt, Leipsic, 1868.)—Mongolians are all the inhabitants of the Asiatic continent, with the exception of the Hyperboreans in the north, a few Malays in the southeast, the Dravidas in Further India, and the Mediterraneans in the southwest. The species is represented in Europe by the Finns and Lapps in the north, the Osmanlis in Turkey, and the Magyars in Hungary. The color of the skin is yellow, with either a white or a brown tinge; the hair is straight and black; the head is either short or medium in size, long heads being rare; the face is round; the eyes are small, and often oblique; the cheek bones protrude; the nose is broad, and the lips are thick. The languages of the Mongolians can be retraced to one primitive tongue, which separated at a very remote time into two main branches: the monosyllabic languages of the Indo-Chinese, and the polysyllabic languages of the other Mongolian races. The Thibetan, Burmese, Siamese, and Chinese belong to the former. The polysyllabic Mongolians are divided into three races: the Coreo-Japanese, comprising the Coreans and the Japanese; the Altaians, including Tartars, Kirghiz, Calmucks, and Tungusians; and the Uralians, with the Samoyeds and Finns. Kindred to the last named are the Magyars of Hungary. The Arctics or polar races also seem to descend from the Mongolians. They include the inhabitants of the arctic regions of both hemispheres: the Esquimaux proper and Greenlanders in North America, and the Hyperboreans in N. E. Asia. Acclimation transformed these races so peculiarly as to render it natural to classify them as a separate species. They are low in stature; their heads are medium-sized, and occasionally long; their eyes are small and somewhat oblique; their cheek bones protrude; their mouths are large; their hair is straight and black. The color of the skin is more or less brown, sometimes with a white or a yellow tinge, like the Mongolians, and sometimes with a ruddy tinge, like the Americans. Their languages differ from the American and Mongolian. The Americans or redskins were the only inhabitants of America at the time of its discovery. The two preceding species are the nearest related to them. The head is generally medium-sized, rarely short or long; the forehead is broad and low; the nose large, protruding, and often aquiline; the cheek bones are prominent, and the lips rather thin; the hair is straight and black; the color of the skin is ruddy, becoming sometimes copper-colored, sometimes whitish, sometimes yellow-brown, and sometimes olive-brown. The numerous languages differ from each other considerably, but are essentially uniform in structure. (See American Indians, and American Indians, Languages of.) It is probable that America was first peopled by Mongolians, who entered over the N. N. E. point of Asia, and from whom also the Arctics probably descend. It is not unlikely that Polynesians also entered America from the west.—The three species still to be noticed, Dravidas, Nubians, and Mediterraneans, have many characteristics in common, which separate them entirely from the others. The most noticeable feature is the development of a strong beard, which is either entirely wanting or but little developed in the other species. The hair is not quite as straight and smooth, but always more or less curly. The oldest of the three species are undoubtedly the Dravidas, who seem to have occupied the whole of India from Cape Comorin to the source of the Ganges, and to have spread as far as Beloochistan. Pushed by the Aryans or Indo-Europeans, they retired further south; they inhabit at present only the southern portion of the Indian peninsula and the island of Ceylon. The Dravidas resemble in some points the Australians, Malays, and Mongolians, as well as the Mediterraneans. The color of the skin is shaded from light brown to dark brown; the hair is neither straight nor woolly, but more or less curly, and the beard is well developed; the face is oval, the forehead high, the nose prominent and thin, and the lips are not thick. Their language is now strongly intermixed with Indo-European elements, but seems to descend from a peculiar primitive tongue. (See Caldwell, “Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Family of Languages,” London, 1856; Schlagintweit-Sakünlünski, Reisen in Indien und Hoch-Asien, 3 vols., Jena, 1869-'73 et seq.).—The Nubians include not only the Shangallas and Dongolese, but also the Foolahs must be counted as such. The Nubians proper inhabit the regions of the upper Nile: Dongola, Shangalla, Barabra, and Kordofan; the Foolahs moved further west, and inhabit now a broad district south of the western Sahara, between the Soodanese in the north and the Nigritians in the south. The Nubians and Foolahs are generally classified either with the negroes or with the Hamitic races, and accordingly as Mediterraneans; but their peculiarities are great enough to constitute them a distinct species. The color of the skin is a yellow-brown or red-brown, and but seldom dark brown or black. The hair is not woolly, but generally curly, though frequently quite smooth; it is either dark brown or black. The growth of the beard is much fuller than with the negroes. The oval face gives them a Mediterranean type. The forehead is high and broad; the nose prominent and not flat; the lips are not puffy; and the languages spoken by the Nubian races have no connection with the tongues of the negroes proper. (See Arnaud d'Abbadie, De l'Afrique centrale, ou voyage de S. A. Mohammed Said Pacha dans les provinces du Soudan, Paris, 1857; and Antoine d'Abbadie, Géodésie d'Éthiopie, Paris, 1860-'63, which contains a number of Nubian vocabularies.)—The Mediterraneans have always been considered the best developed and most cultivated species. They were formerly classified as Caucasians, but the term was abandoned on account of the insignificance of the proper Caucasian branch, and Mediterranean was substituted because the most important races of this species flourished first on the shores of that sea. The Mediterraneans are now scattered over the whole world, and as a species they have no equal physically and mentally. The skin is as a rule of a light color, but appears in all tinges from a pure white or a ruddy white, through yellow and yellow brown, to dark and even black brown. The hair is generally rich in growth, and more or less curly, and the beard is fuller than with any other species. The skull is rather broad, and medium-sized heads are more common than others. No other species has an equally symmetrical development of the body. The languages of the Mediterranean races have not yet been retraced to a single primitive tongue; and at the present stage of philology four distinct languages are accepted as the earliest known antecedents of the languages now spoken. In harmony with this result, it is still necessary to divide the Mediterranean species into four races, which are only connected by the roots. Two of these races, the Basques and the Caucasians, are represented by only very small remnants. The Basques formerly inhabited the whole of Spain and the south of France, but are now reduced to about 800,000, dwelling near the northern coast of Spain, at the foot of the bay of Biscay, and a few on the French frontier. (See Basques.) The remnants of the Caucasian race are now confined to the Caucasian highlands. Their language, as well as that of the Basques, has no similarity with either the Aryan or the Semitic tongues. (Consult Cuno, Forschungen im Gebiete der alten Völkerkunde, Berlin 1871 et seq.). It has been attempted to prove that the Semitic and Aryan languages come from one common stock, as by Delitzsch in his Studien über indo-germanisch-semitische Wurzelverwandschaft (Leipsic, 1873); but the evidence is not quite sufficient. The two races must have separated at a very remote period. The Semitic race divided very early into the Egyptian and the Arabian branch. The Egyptians or Africans, also called Dyssemites, are by some entirely separated from the Semites, with the designation of Hamites. They embrace the ancient population of Egypt; the large group of Berbers who now inhabit the whole of North Africa, and formerly inhabited also the Canary islands; and finally the group of Ethiopians, Bedshas, Gallas, Danakils, Somauli, and other tribes, who people the coastland of N. E. Africa as far as the equator. The Arabian or Asiatic branch, also called Eusemites, and sometimes designated as Semites proper, embraces the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula, and the highly cultivated group of Hebrews or Jews, and Arameans or Syrians and Chaldeans. The Himyarites, an offshot of the South Arabians, have peopled Abyssinia and pushed into the adjacent countries. (See Renan, Histoire comparée des langues sémitiques, 2d ed., Paris, 1858).—The Indo-European race has surpassed all other races in intellectual development, and separated like the Semites at a very early period into two branches: the Aryo-Romanic and the Slavo-Germanic. The former produced the Aryans in the narrower sense, or Hindoos and Iranians, and the Græco-Romans, comprising the Greeks and Itali, and according to many authorities the Albanese and Celts; the latter the Slavs and Letts, with the Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Serb, and Baltic stems, and the Germanic nations, comprising Scandinavians, Germans, Netherlanders, and Anglo-Saxons. (See Fr. Spiegel, Das Urland der Indogermanen, Leipsic, 1871, and Eranische Alterthumskunde: Geographie, Ethnographie und älteste Geschichte, Leipsic, 1871 et seq.).—On the accompanying ethnological chart are shown the supposititious migrations and distribution of the human race from a continent now sunk under the level of the Indian ocean, to which Sclater has given the name of Lemuria. The cradle of the race is not known, and all the locations assigned to it are only hypothetical. Those ethnologists who give a plural origin to mankind account for the present distribution of the races by tracing their migrations to several starting points or primitive homes. The majority of ethnologists adopt, however, the monophyletic hypothesis, and regard the southern part of Asia as the birthplace of man, placing it either in the highlands of the Himalayas, or near the sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes, or between the Euphrates and Tigris, or in the southern part of Arabia, or on the ancient continent of Lemuria. The chart traces the migrations of races from the last named region, as with a few small changes it can be made to answer all other hypotheses. Benfey, L. Geiger, and other students of the ancient Indo-European languages, have recently advanced the opinion that the original home of the Indo-European races must be sought in Europe, because their stock of words is rich in names of plants and animals, and contains names of seasons, that are not found in tropical countries or anywhere in Asia. But to establish where the Indo-European races were seated at any time, however remote, is not, as many believe, establishing the first home of the Semites, and much less of all mankind. The following table will show the relation which the most important living or historical races hold to each other, according to the more prevalent ethnological views:
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ARYANS OR INDO-EUROPEANS.
I. Iranians. II. Indians. B. Græco-Romans. I. Old Thracians. a. Greeks. b. Albanese. II. Italo-Celts. a. Itali. 1. Latins. 2. Romans. b. Celts. 1. British. α. Gauls. β. Old Britons. 2. Gael. α. Irish. β. Old Scots. II. Slavo-Germans.
I. Slavs. a. Southeastern Slavs. 1. Russian. 2. Southern Slavs. b. Western Slavs. 1. Czechs. 2. Poles. 3. Serbs. II. Baltics. a. Old Prussians. b. Letts. c. Lithuanians. B. Old Germans or Teutons. I. Goths. II. Scandinavians. III. Germans. a. Low Germans. 1. Frisians. 2. Saxons. α. Old Saxons. Netherlanders. Low Germans. β. Anglo-Saxons. b. High Germans. |
SEMITES.
I. Assyrians. II. Babylonians. III. Ancient Phœnicians. B. Ancient Egyptians. I. Copts or Modern Egyptians II. Ethiopians. a. Bedshas. b. Danakils. 1. Somauli. 2. Gallas. III. Libyans. a. Berbers (Amazirghs). 1. Tuariks. 2. Kabyles. α. Tunese. β. Algerians. 3. Shellooks. 4. Guanches. II. Eusemites, or Semites proper.
I. Canaanites. a. Phœnicians. b. Jews (Hebrews). II. Arameans. a. Syrians. b. Chaldeans. B. Arabs or South Semites. I. South Arabs. a. Himyarites. b. Abyssinians. c. Amharas. 1. Harraras. 2. Tigri. II. Moors or Koranites. |
The prominent races are described in separate articles.—Another question of interest is to determine the period in which man made his first appearance upon earth. Modern geology and archæology have rendered valuable assistance toward its solution, and at the present stage of these sciences it seems most probable that the time of man's advent must be placed in the tertiary or in the beginning of the diluvial age. It is certain that human beings lived in central Europe as early as the latter period. (See Archæology, Bone Caves, Geology, and Lake Dwellings.) Concerning the prehistoric races too little is known for a satisfactory ethnological classification of them. Fergusson suggests in his recent work entitled “Rude Stone Monuments in all Countries” (London, 1872) an arrangement of these races into five groups, with subdivisions, according to the degree of art exhibited and the material employed in the construction of the primitive sepultures. They are designated accordingly as either tumulus, dolmen, circle, avenue, or menhir builders. The characteristics of these sepulchral remains are stated in the article Finds.—Besides the works already mentioned, the following are among the most important recent publications on the subject: Lyell, “The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man” (London, 1863); Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker (5 vols., Leipsic, 1860-'70, continued by Gerland); Hervey Saint-Denys, Collection ethnographique photographiée (Paris, 1864 et seq.); Carl Vogt, Vorlesungen über den Menschen, seine Stellung in der Schöpfung und in der Natur (2 vols., Giessen, 1864); Schleicher, Ueber die Bedeutung der Sprache für die Naturgeschichte des Menschen (Weimar, 1865); Bastian, Die Völker des östlichen Asiens (6 vols., Leipsic and Jena, 1866-'71), and Die Rechtsverhältnisse der verschiedenen Völker der Erde (Berlin, 1872); Lubbock, “Prehistoric Times” (London, 1867), and “The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man” (1870); Denison, “Antiquity of Man” (London, 1868); Haeckel, Ueber die Entstehung und den Stammbaum des Menschengeschlechts (Berlin, 1868); Friedrich Müller, Ethnographie: Reisen der Fregatte Novara, Anthropologischer Theil (Vienna, 1868), and Allgemeine Ethnographie (1873); Baldwin, “Prehistoric Nations” (New York, 1869); Mme. Clémence Royer, Origine de l'homme et des sociétés (Paris, 1870); Buchner, Die Stellung des Menschen in der Natur, in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft (Leipsic, 1870); J. G. Wood, “The Natural History of Man” (London, 1870); Charles Darwin, “The Descent of Man” (2 vols., London, 1871); Edward B. Tylor, “Primitive Culture: Researches in the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Culture” (2 vols., London, 1871); Bray, “Manual of Anthropology” (London, 1871); and the periodicals, the London “Journal of Ethnology,” “Journal of the Anthropological Institute of New York,” and Bastian's Zeitschrift für Ethnologie (Berlin.)
