THE RACES OF MANKIND. IN an earlier chapter we found that in any one race all the physical characters, such as the shape of the skull, the proportions of the limbs, and the colour of the skin, vary materially; that even the character of the hair must not be considered a persistently distinctive mark, and hence that, in the classification of the human species into groups or races, all the predominant characteristics must be taken into consideration. Though the limits of such groups are often easy, they are more often very difficult to define. We must not draw them where the common characteristics of one group merge by slight gradations into the common characteristics of another group, for on historical authority such gradations must be traced to intermarriage, and would be represented by hybrids. On this principle we shall be obliged to separate mankind into seven groups, races, sub-species, or species, whichever expression may be preferred. The first includes the inhabitants of Australia and Tasmania; the second, the Papuans of New Guinea and the adjacent islands; the third, the Mongoloid nations, among which we reckon not only the Asiatics of the Continent, but also the Malayo-Polynesians and the aborigines of America; the fourth, the Dravida of Western India of non-Aryan origin; the fifth, the Hottentots and Bushmen; the sixth, the Negroes; the last consists of the Mediterranean nations, answering to the Caucasians of Blumenbach. The vindication both of the separations and associations of this system of seven groups must be reserved for the chapters which treat of each respectively. Moreover, we hold it to be the duty of ethnology to estimate the social, moral, and Y intellectual development of the individual races. The maturity of the different social conditions of mankind does not, however, accurately correspond to the various endowments of races, but depends also on the advantageous or disadvantageous nature of the place of abode; so that the reaction of this on the history of the civilization of each group of mankind must be considered. I I. THE AUSTRALIANS. THE physical characters of the inhabitants of the continent of Australia, of the islands on the coast, and of Tasmania, separate these into a distinct group. With skulls of which the average index of breadth is 71, and the index of height is 73, they belong to the high dolichocephals; they are both prognathous and phanerozygmatic. The nose is narrow at the root, widening greatly below, but does not curve as does that of the Papuans. The mouth is wide and unshapely. The third upper molar tooth has usually three roots, a formation which is of rare occurrence among Europeans. The body is thickly covered with hair; the hairs, which are black, and in section are distinctly elliptical, stand out round the head, forming a shaggy crown; but being weaker than those of the Papuans, they are frizzly, and have a tendency to become matted. In the peninsula of Coburg straight hair and obliquely set eyes are also to be met with, but these characters are due to intermixture with the Malay trepang-fishers who visit that part. Many of the natives of that district even speak the Macassar language; 2 rock inscriptions in Buginese or Macasssar characters also prove the presence of Malays.3 The colour of the skin is always dark, sometimes black; sometimes, on the south and south-east coast, light copper red. In all these points the Tasmanians exactly resembled the Australians, except that the 1 Latham, Varieties of Man. 2 Earl, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. xvi. 1846. This explains the anomalous Australian institution of nobility mentioned in a former chapter. 3 Waitz (Gerland), Anthropologie, vol. vi. 4 + Ibid. Australians and Papuans. 323 growth of their hair was more Papuan in character, that is to say, more tufted.5 The few skulls that have been measured show a greater width as well as height, namely, 74 in both cases. The way in which they reached the island has puzzled many, for the Tasmanians are erroneously supposed to have had no boats. They had however raft-like canoes; 7 nor was any great skill required for a migration of Australians across Bass's Straits, which are studded with islands. The proof that such voyages were made is to be found in the circumstance that the Tasmanians bore scars on their skin of the same form as those of the Australians.8 Their island was colonized by Europeans in the year 1803. The last native died in 1869. The true history of their remorseless extermination has been told by an inhabitant of Tasmania.9 The nearest of kin to the Australians and Tasmanians are not the African negroes, and still less the aborigines of Western India, but the Papuans. Yet, in addition to physical differences, they are distinguished from them by the structure of their language, for the Australians employ no prefixes, defining the meaning of the root by suffixes. A few faint resemblances in the pronouns of the Australian and South Indian or Dravida languages, have induced Bleek, on very insufficient grounds, to infer a linguistic kinship between these peoples. In the Australian languages the words, which are polysyllabic, begin with a consonant and end with a vowel or semi-vowel. But, according to vocabulary, the Australian languages are separable into countless subdivisions. It is therefore more remarkable that the same family names are found in West and South Australia and in Carpentaria. 12 Although many Australian dialects are poor in numerical expressions, it is not the case that the natives were unable to distinguish larger numbers, for they use eighteen different terms for children, according to II 5 See some instructive copies from photographs in Mantegazza's Archivio per l'Antropologia. 1871. B. Davies, Thesaurus Craniorum, pp. 272, 358. 7 Waitz, Anthropologie, vol. vi. 9 James Bonwick, The Last of the Tasmanians. 10 Journal of the Anthropological Institute. 1872. 11 Fr. Müller, Allegemeine Ethnographie. 8 Ibid. 12 Grey, quoted by Eyre, Central Australia, vol. ii. p. 329. whether the child designated is the first to the ninth-born boy, or the first to the ninth-born daughter. 13 Before discussing their intellectual and social condition, it will be well to glance at their place of abode. Nowhere can the retarded development of mankind be more readily accounted for by the unfavourable configuration of the country than in Australia. Situated in a remote region of the globe, and too small to constitute a world of its own, Australia was so much undervalued that, until quite recently, no civilization had approached it. It was the last of all the continents to be discovered. Of all the discoveries it was the longest neglected, that is to say, for full two hundred years; and when it was first colonized by Europeans, it was thought only fit for a place of banishment for the outcasts of society. Its coast line is, with the exception of that of Africa, more circular than that of any other part of the world; in other words, its circumference bears the smallest proportion to its superficies. Its only two projections are the peninsula of Carpentaria, or Cape York, and the island of Tasmania, which, as we have stated elsewhere, is a partially submerged tongue of the continent, and very poorly represents the pointed projections of the other southern continents of South Africa and South America. Yet, however inadequate these projections may appear, one at least, Cape York, has exercised a great influence as the only path by which, till quite recently, Australia maintained any intercourse with higher civilizations. For Cape York is connected with New Guinea by a chain of lofty rocky islands; and as we must look upon Australia as originally uninhabited, and upon its present dusky population as the results of an immigration at a period immeasurably remote, the passage by Torres Straits must have been the most convenient route for tribes with little inclination for sea voyages. It is even possible that the Australians made their way from New Guinea to their present home on dry land; for along the chain of islands the depth of the sea in Torres Straits is nowhere more than ten fathoms (60 feet),14 and the bottom may easily have sunk as much as this since the appearance of man, for in Sardinia, sixty metres above 13 Journal of the Anthropological Institute. 1872. |