Chapter VI: The Southern Mongols (1)

South Mongol Domain--Tibet, the Mongol Cradle-land--Stone Age in
Tibet--The Primitive Mongol Type--The Balti and Ladakhi--Balti Type
and Origins--The Tibetans Proper--Type--The Bhotiyas--Prehistoric
Expansion of the Tibetan Race--Sub-Himalayan Groups: the
Gurkhas--Mental Qualities of the Tibetans--Lamaism--The Horsoks--
The Tanguts--Polyandry--The Bonbo Religion--Buddhist and Christian
Ritualism--The Prayer-Wheel--Language and Letters--Diverse
Linguistic Types--Lepcha--Angami-Naga and Kuki-Lushai Speech--Naga
Tribes--General Ethnic Relations in Indo-China--Aboriginal and
Cultured Peoples--The Talaings--The Manipuri--Religion--The Game
of Polo--The Khel System--The Chins--Mental and Physical
Qualities--Gods, Nats, and the After-Life--The Kakhyens--Caucasic
Elements--The Karens--Type--Temperament--Christian Missions--The
Burmese--Type--Character--Buddhism--Position of Woman--Tattooing--
The Tai-Shan Peoples--The Ahom, Khamti and Chinese Shans--Shan
Cradle-land and Origins--Caucasic Contacts--Tai-Shan Toned
Speech--Shan, Lolo, and Mosso Writing Systems--Mosso Origins--
Aborigines of South China and Annam--Man-tse Origins and
Affinities--Caucasic Aborigines in South-East Asia--The Siamese
Shans--Origins and Early Records--Social System--Buddhism--The
Annamese--Origins--Physical and Mental Characters--Language and
Letters--Social Institutions--Religious Systems--The Chinese--
Origins--The Babylonian Theory--Persistence of Chinese Culture
and Social System--Letters and Early Records--Traditions of the
Stone and Metal Ages--Chinese Cradle and Early Migrations--
Absorption of the Aborigines--Survivals: Hok-lo, Hakka,
Pun-ti--Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism--Fung-shui and Ancestry
Worship--Islam and Christianity--The Mandarin Class.

CONSPECTUS.

#Present Range.# _Tibet; S. Himalayan slopes; Indo-China to the Isthmus of Kra; China; Formosa; Parts of Malaysia._

#Hair#, _uniformly black, lank, round in transverse section_; _sparse or no beard, moustache common_. #Colour#, _generally a dirty yellowish brown, shading off to olive and coppery brown in the south, and to lemon or whitish in N. China_. #Skull#, _normally brachy (80 to 84), but in parts of China sub-dolicho (77) and high_. #Jaws#, _slightly prognathous_. #Cheek-bones#, _very high and prominent laterally_. #Nose#, _very small, and concave, with widish nostrils (mesorrhine), but often large and straight amongst the upper classes_. #Eyes#, _small, black, and oblique (outer angle slightly elevated), vertical fold of skin over inner canthus_. #Stature#, _below the average, 1.62 m. (5 ft. 4 in.), but in N. China often tall, 1.77 m. to 1.82 m. (5 ft. 10 in. to 6 ft.)_. #Lips#, _rather thin, sometimes slightly protruding_. #Arms#, #legs#, _and_ #feet#, _of normal proportions, calves rather small_.

#Temperament.# _Somewhat sluggish, with little initiative, but great endurance; cunning rather than intelligent; generally thrifty and industrious, but mostly indolent in Siam and Burma; moral standard low, with slight sense of right and wrong._

#Speech.# _Mainly isolating and monosyllabic, due to phonetic decay; loss of formative elements compensated by tone; some (south Chinese, Annamese) highly tonic, but others (in Himalayas and North Burma) highly agglutinating and consequently toneless._

#Religion.# _Ancestry and spirit-worship, underlying various kinds of Buddhism; religious sentiment weak in Annam, strong in Tibet; thinly diffused in China._

#Culture.# _Ranges from sheer savagery (Indo-Chinese aborigines) to a low phase of civilisation; some mechanical arts (ceramics, metallurgy, weaving), and agriculture well developed; painting, sculpture, and architecture mostly in the barbaric stage; letters widespread, but true literature and science slightly developed; stagnation very general._

Main Divisions.

#Bod-pa.# _Tibetan; Tangut; Horsok; Si-fan; Balti; Ladakhi; Gurkha; Bhotiya; Miri; Mishmi; Abor._

#Burmese.# _Naga; Kuki-Lushai; Chin; Kakhyen; Manipuri; Karen; Talaing; Arakanese; Burmese proper._

#Tai-Shan.# _Ahom; Khamti; Ngiou; Lao; Siamese._

#Giao-Shi.# _Annamese; Cochin-Chinese._

#Chinese.# _Chinese proper; Hakka; Hok-lo; Pun-ti._

* * * * *

The Mongolian stock may be divided into two main branches[375]: the _Mongolo-Tatar_, of the western area, and the _Tibeto-Indo-Chinese_ of the eastern area, the latter extending into a secondary branch, _Oceanic Mongols_. These two, that is, the main and secondary branch, which jointly occupy the greater part of south-east Asia with most of Malaysia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Formosa, will form the subject of the present and following chapters. Allowing for encroachments and overlappings, especially in Manchuria and North Tibet, the northern "divide" towards the Mongolo-Tatar domain is roughly indicated by the Great Wall and the Kuen-lun range westwards to the Hindu-Kush, and towards the south-west by the Himalayas from the Hindu-Kush eastwards to Assam. The Continental section thus comprises the whole of China proper and Indo-China, together with a great part of Tibet with Little Tibet (Baltistan and Ladakh), and the Himalayan uplands including their southern slopes. This section is again separated from the Oceanic section by the Isthmus of Kra--the Malay Peninsula belonging ethnically to the insular Malay world. "I believe," writes Warington Smyth, "that the Malay never really extended further south than the Kra isthmus[376]."

From the considerations advanced in _Ethnology_, Chap. XII., it seems a reasonable assumption that the lacustrine Tibetan tableland with its Himalayan escarpments, all standing in pleistocene times at a considerably lower level than at present, was the cradle of the Mongol division of mankind. Here were found all the natural conditions favourable to the development of a new variety of the species moving from the tropics northwards--ample space such as all areas of marked specialisation seem to require; a different and cooler climate than that of the equatorial region, though, thanks to its then lower elevation, warmer than that of the bleak and now barely inhabitable Tibetan plateau; extensive plains, nowhere perhaps too densely wooded, intersected by ridges of moderate height, and diversified by a lacustrine system far more extensive than that revealed by the exploration of modern travellers[377].

Under these circumstances, which are not matter of mere speculation, but to be directly inferred from the observations of intelligent explorers and of trained Anglo-Indian surveyors, it would seem not only probable but inevitable that the pleistocene Indo-Malayan should become modified and improved in his new and more favourable Central Asiatic environment.

Later, with the gradual upheaval of the land to a mean altitude of some 14,000 feet above sea-level, the climate deteriorated, and the present somewhat rude and rugged inhabitants of Tibet are to be regarded as the outcome of slow adaptation to their slowly changing surroundings since the occupation of the country by the Indo-Malayan pleistocene precursor. To this precursor Tibet was accessible either from India or from Indo-China, and although few of his implements have yet been reported from the plateau, it is certain that Tibet has passed through the Stone as well as the Metal Ages. In Bogle's time "thunder-stones" were still used for tonsuring the lamas, and even now stone cooking-pots are found amongst the shepherds of the uplands, although they are acquainted both with copper and iron. In India also and Indo-China palaeoliths of rude type occur at various points--Arcot, the Narbada gravels, Mirzapur[378], the Irawadi valley and the Shan territory--as if to indicate the routes followed by early man in his migrations from Indo-Malaysia northwards.

Thus, where man is silent the stones speak, and so old are these links of past and present that amongst the Shans, as in ancient Greece, their origin being entirely forgotten, they are often mounted as jewellery and worn as charms against mishaps.

Usually the Mongols proper, that is, the steppe nomads who have more than once overrun half the eastern hemisphere, are taken as the typical and original stem of the Mongolian stock. But if Ch. de Ujfalvy's views can be accepted this honour will now have to be transferred to the Tibetans, who still occupy the supposed cradle of the race. This veteran student of the Central Asiatic peoples describes two Mongol types, a northern round-headed and a southern long-headed, and thinks that the latter, which includes "the Ladakhi, the Champas and Tibetans proper," was "the primitive Mongol type[379]."

Owing to the political seclusion of Tibet, the race has hitherto been studied chiefly in outlying provinces beyond the frontiers, such as Ladakh, Baltistan, and Sikkim[380], that is, in districts where mixture with other races may be suspected. Indeed de Ujfalvy, who has made a careful survey of Baltistan and Ladakh, assures us that, while the Ladakhi represent two varieties of Asiatic man with ceph. index 77, the Balti are not Tibetans or Mongols at all, but descendants of the historical Sacae, although now of Tibetan speech and Moslem faith[381]. They are of the mean height or slightly above it, with rather low brow, very prominent superciliary arches, deep depression at nasal root, thick curved eyebrows, long, straight or arched nose, thick lips, oval chin, small cheek-bones, small flat ears, straight eyes, very black and abundant ringletty (_boucle_) hair, full beard, usually black and silky, robust hairy body, small hands and feet, and long head (index 72). In such characters it is impossible to recognise the Mongol, and the contrast is most striking with the neighbouring Ladakhi, true Mongols, as shown by their slightly raised superciliary arches, square and scarcely curved eyebrows, slant eyes, large prominent cheek-bones, lank and coarse hair, yellowish and nearly hairless body.

Doubtless there has been a considerable intermingling of Balti and Ladakhi, and in recent times still more of Balti and Dards (Hindu-Kush "Aryans"), whence Leitner's view that the Balti are Dards at a remote period conquered by the Bhots (Tibetans), losing their speech with their independence. But of all these peoples the Balti were in former times the most civilised, as shown by the remarkable rock-carvings still found in the country, and attributed by the present inhabitants to a long vanished race. Some of these carvings represent warriors mounted and on foot, the resemblance being often very striking between them and the persons figured on the coins of the Sacae kings both in their physical appearance, attitudes, arms, and accoutrements. The Balti are still famous horsemen, and with them is said to have originated the game of polo, which has thence spread to the surrounding peoples as far as Chitral and Irania.

From all these considerations it is inferred that the Balti are the direct descendants of the Sacae, who invaded India about 90 B.C., not from the west (the Kabul valley) as generally stated, but from the north over the Karakorum Passes leading directly to Baltistan[382]. Thus lives again a name renowned in antiquity, and another of those links is established between the past and the present, which it is the province of the historical ethnologist to rescue from oblivion.

In Tibet proper the ethnical relations have been confused by the loose way tribal and even national names are referred to by Prjevalsky and some other modern explorers. It should therefore be explained that three somewhat distinct branches of the race have to be carefully distinguished: 1. The _Bod-pa_[383], "Bodmen," the settled and more or less civilised section, who occupy most of the southern and more fertile provinces of which Lhasa is the capital, who till the land, live in towns, and have passed from the tribal to the civic state. 2. The _Dru-pa_[384], peaceful though semi-nomadic pastoral tribes, who live in tents on the northern plateaux, over 15,000 feet above sea-level. 3. The _Tanguts_[385], restless, predatory tribes, who hover about the north-eastern borderland between Koko-nor and Kansu.

All these are true Tibetans, speak the Tibetan language, and profess one or other of the two national religions, _Bonbo_ and Lamaism (the Tibetan form of Buddhism). But the original type is best preserved, not amongst the cultured Bod-pa, who in many places betray a considerable admixture both of Chinese and Hindu elements, but amongst the Dru-pa, who on their bleak upland steppes have for ages had little contact with the surrounding Mongolo-Turki populations. They are described by W. W. Rockhill from personal observation as about five feet five inches high, and round-headed, with wavy hair, clear-brown and even hazel eye, cheek-bone less high than the Mongol, thick nose, depressed at the root, but also prominent and even aquiline and narrow but with broad nostrils, large-lobed ears standing out to a less degree than the Mongol, broad mouth, long black hair, thin beard, generally hairless body, broad shoulders, very small calves, large foot, coarse hand, skin coarse and greasy and of light brown colour, though "frequently nearly white, but when exposed to the weather a dark brown, nearly the colour of our American Indians. Rosy cheeks are quite common amongst the younger women[386]."

Some of these characters--wavy hair, aquiline nose, hazel eye, rosy cheeks--are not Mongolic, and despite W. W. Rockhill's certificate of racial purity, one is led to suspect a Caucasic strain, perhaps through the neighbouring Salars. These are no doubt sometimes called Kara-Tangutans, "Black Tangutans," from the colour of their tents, but we learn from Potanin, who visited them in 1885[387], that they are Muhammadans of Turki stock and speech, and we already know[388] that from a remote period the Turki people were in close contact with Caucasians. The Salars pitch their tents on the banks of the Khitai and other Yang-tse-Kiang headstreams.

That the national name Bod-pa must be of considerable antiquity is evident from the Sanskrit expression _Bhotiya_, derived from it, and long applied by the Hindus collectively to all southern Tibetans, but especially to those of the Himalayan slopes, such as the Rongs (Lepchas) of Sikkim and the _Lho-pa_ dominant in Bhutan, properly _Bhot-ant_, that is, "Land's End"--the extremity of Tibet. Eastwards also the Tibetan race stretches far beyond the political frontiers into the Koko-nor region (Tanguts), and the Chinese province of Se-chuan, where they are grouped with all the other Si-fan aborigines. Towards the south-east are the kindred _Tawangs_, _Mishmi_, _Miri_, _Abor_[389], _Daflas_, and many others about the Assam borderlands, all of whom may be regarded as true Bhotiyas in the wild state.

Through these the primitive Tibetan race extends into Burma, where however it has become greatly modified and again civilised under different climatic and cultural influences. Thus we see how, in the course of ages, the Bod-pa have widened their domain, radiating in all directions from the central cradle-land about the Upper Brahmaputra (San-po) valley westwards into Kashmir, eastwards into China, southwards down the Himalayan slopes to the Gangetic plains, south-eastwards to Indo-China. In some places they have come into contact with other races and disappeared either by total extinction or by absorption (India, Hindu-Kush), or else preserved their type while accepting the speech, religion, and culture of later intruders. Such are the _Garhwali_, and many groups in Nepal, especially the dominant _Gurkhas_ (_Khas_[390]), of whom there are twelve branches, all Aryanised and since the twelfth century speaking the _Parbattia Bhasha_, a Prakrit or vulgar Sanskrit tongue current amongst an extremely mixed population of about 2,000,000.

In other directions the migrations took place in remote prehistoric times, the primitive proto-Tibetan groups becoming more and more specialised as they receded farther and farther from the cradle-land into Mongolia, Siberia, China, Farther India, and Malaysia. This is at least how I understand the peopling of a great part of the eastern hemisphere by an original nucleus of Mongolic type first differentiated from a pleistocene precursor on the Tibetan tableland.

Strangely contradictory estimates have been formed of the temperament and mental characters of the Bod-pa, some, such as that of Turner[391], no doubt too favourable, while others err perhaps in the opposite direction. Thus Desgodins, who nevertheless knew them well, describes the cultured Tibetan of the south as "a slave towards the great, a despot towards the weak, knavish or treacherous according to circumstances, always on the look-out to defraud, and lying impudently to attain his end," and much more to the same effect[392].

W. W. Rockhill, who is less severe, thinks that "the Tibetan's character is not as black as Horace della Penna and Desgodins have painted it. Intercourse with these people extending over six years leads me to believe that the Tibetan is kindhearted, affectionate, and law-abiding[393]." He concludes, however, with a not very flattering native estimate deduced from the curious national legend that "the earliest inhabitants of Tibet descended from a king of monkeys and a female hobgoblin, and the character of the race perhaps from those of its first parents. From the king of monkeys [he was an incarnate god] they have religious faith and kindheartedness, intelligence and application, devotion to religion and to religious debate; from the hobgoblin they get cruelty, fondness for trade and money-making, great bodily strength, lustfulness, fondness for gossip, and carnivorous instinct[394]."

While they are cheerful under a depressing priestly regime, all allow that they are vindictive, superstitious, and cringing in the presence of the lamas, who are at heart more dreaded than revered. In fact the whole religious world is one vast organised system of hypocrisy, and above the old pagan beliefs common to all primitive peoples there is merely a veneer of Buddhism, above which follows another and most pernicious veneer of lamaism (priestcraft), under the yoke of which the natural development of the people has been almost completely arrested for several centuries. The burden is borne with surprising endurance, and would be intolerable but for the relief found in secret and occasionally even open revolt against the more oppressive ordinances of the ecclesiastical rule. Thus, despite the prescriptions regarding a strict vegetarian diet expressed in the formula "eat animal flesh eat thy brother," not only laymen but most of the lamas themselves supplement their frugal diet of milk, butter, barley-meal, and fruits with game, yak, and mutton--this last pronounced by Turner the best in the world. The public conscience, however, is saved by a few extra turns of the prayer-wheel at such repasts, and by the general contempt in which is held the hereditary caste of butchers, who like the Jews in medieval times are still confined to a "ghetto" of their own in all the large towns.

These remarks apply more particularly to the settled southern communities living in districts where a little agriculture is possible. Elsewhere the religious cloak is worn very loosely, and the nomad _Horsoks_ of the northern steppes, although all nominal Buddhists, pay but scant respect to the decrees supposed to emanate from the Dalai Lama enshrined in Lhasa. Horsok is an almost unique ethnical term[395], being a curious compound of the two names applied by the Tibetans to the _Hor-pa_ and the _Sok-pa_ who divide the steppe between them. The Hor-pa, who occupy the western parts, are of Turki stock, and are the only group of that race known to me who profess Buddhism[396], all the rest being Muhammadans with some Shamanists (Yakuts) in the Lena basin. The Sok-pa, who roam the eastern plains and valleys, although commonly called Mongols, are true Tibetans or more strictly speaking Tanguts, of whom there are here two branches, the _Goliki_ and the _Yegrai_, all, like the Hor-pa, of Tibetan speech. The Yegrai, as described by Prjevalsky, closely resemble the other North Tibetan tribes, with their long, matted locks falling on their shoulders, their scanty whiskers and beard, angular head, dark complexion and dirty garb[397].

Besides stock-breeding and predatory warfare, all these groups follow the hunt, armed with darts, bows, and matchlock guns; the musk-deer is ensnared, and the only animal spared is the stag, "Buddha's horse." The taste of these rude nomads for liquid blood is insatiable, and the surveyor, Nain Singh, often saw them fall prone on the ground to lick up the blood flowing from a wounded beast. As soon as weaned, the very children and even the horses are fed on a diet of cheese, butter, and blood, kneaded together in a horrible mess, which is greedily devoured when the taste is acquired. On the other hand alcoholic drinks are little consumed, the national beverage being coarse Chinese tea imported in the form of bricks and prepared with _tsampa_ (barley-meal) and butter, and thus becoming a food as well as a drink. The lamas have a monopoly of this tea-trade, which could not stand the competition of the Indian growers; hence arises the chief objection to removing the barriers of seclusion.

Tibet is one of the few regions where polyandrous customs, intimately associated with the matriarchal state, still persist almost in their pristine vigour. The husbands are usually but not necessarily all brothers, and the bride is always obtained by purchase. Unless otherwise arranged, the oldest husband is the putative "father," all the others being considered as "uncles." An inevitable result of the institution is to give woman a dominant position in society; hence the "queens" of certain tribes, referred to with so much astonishment by the early Chinese chroniclers. Survivors of this "petticoat government" have been noticed by travellers amongst the Lolos, Mossos, and other indigenous communities about the Indo-Chinese frontiers. But it does not follow that polyandry and a matriarchal state always and necessarily preceded polygyny and a patriarchal state. On the contrary, it would appear that polyandry never could have been universal; possibly it arose from special conditions in particular regions, where the struggle for existence is severe, and the necessity of imposing limits to the increase of population more urgent than elsewhere[398]. Hence to me it seems as great a mistake to assume a matriarchate as it is to assume promiscuity as the universal antecedent of all later family relations. In Tibet itself polygyny exists side by side with polyandry amongst the wealthy classes, while monogamy is the rule amongst the poor pastoral nomads of the northern steppe.

Great ethnical importance has been attached by some distinguished anthropologists to the treatment of the dead. But, as in the New Stone and Metal Ages in Europe cremation and burial were practised side by side[399], so in Tibet the dead are now simultaneously disposed of in diverse ways. It is a question not so much of race as of caste or social classes, or of the lama's pleasure, who, when the head has been shaved to facilitate the transmigration of the soul, may order the body to be burnt, buried, cast into the river, or even thrown to carrion birds or beasts of prey. Strange to say, the last method, carried out with certain formalities, is one of the most honourable, although the lamas are generally buried in a seated posture, and high officials burnt, and (in Ladakh) the ashes, mixed with a little clay, kneaded into much venerated effigies--doubtless a survival of ancestry worship.

Reference was above made to the primitive Shamanistic ideas which still survive beneath the Buddhist and the later lamaistic systems. In the central and eastern provinces of Ui and Tsang this pre-Buddhist religion has again struggled to the surface, or rather persisted under the name of _Bonbo_ (_Boa-ho_) side by side with the national creed, from which it has even borrowed many of its present rites. From the colour of the robes usually worn by its priests, it is known as the sect of the "Blacks," in contradistinction to the orthodox "Yellow" and dissenting "Red" lamaists, and as now constituted, its origin is attributed to Shen-rab (Gsen-rabs), who flourished about the fifth century before the new era, and is venerated as the equal of Buddha himself. His followers, who were powerful enough to drive Buddhism from Tibet in the tenth century, worship 18 chief deities, the best known being the red and black demons, the snake devil, and especially the fiery tiger-god, father of all the secondary members of this truly "diabolical pantheon." It is curious to note that the sacred symbol of the Bonbo sect is the ubiquitous svastika, only with the hooks of the cross reversed, [Symbol] instead of [Symbol]. This change, which appears to have escaped the diligent research of Thomas Wilson[400], was caused by the practice of turning the prayer-wheel from right to left as the red lamas do, instead of from left to right as is the orthodox way. The common Buddhist formula of six syllables--_om-ma-ni-pad-me-hum_--is also replaced by one of seven syllables--_ma-tri-mon-tre-sa-ta-dzun_[401].

Buddhism itself, introduced by Hindu missionaries, is more recent than is commonly supposed. Few conversions were made before the fifth century of our era, and the first temple dates only from the year 698. Reference is often made to the points of contact or "coincidences" which have been observed between this system and that of the Oriental and Latin Christian Churches. There is no question of a common dogma, and the numerous resemblances are concerned only with ritualistic details, such as the cross, the mitre, dalmatica, and other distinctive vestments, choir singing, exorcisms, the thurible, benedictions with outstretched hand, celibacy, the rosary, fasts, processions, litanies, spiritual retreats, holy water, scapulars or other charms, prayer addressed to the saints, relics, pilgrimages, music and bells at the service, monasticism; this last being developed to a far greater extent in Tibet than at any time in any Christian land, Egypt not excepted. The lamas, representing the regular clergy of the Roman Church, hold a monopoly of all "science," letters, and arts. The block printing-presses are all kept in the huge monasteries which cover the land, and from them are consequently issued only orthodox works and treatises on magic. Religion itself is little better than a system of magic, and the sole aim of all worship, reduced to a mere mechanical system of routine, is to baffle the machinations of the demons who at every turn beset the path of the wayfarer through this "vale of tears."

For this purpose the prayer-wheels--an ingenious contrivance by which innumerable supplications, not less efficacious because vicarious, may be offered up night and day to the powers of darkness--are incessantly kept going all over the land, some being so cleverly arranged that the sacred formula may be repeated as many as 40,000 times at each revolution of the cylinder. These machines, which have also been introduced into Korea and Japan, have been at work for several centuries without any appreciable results, although fitted up in all the houses, by the river banks or on the hill-side, and kept in motion by the hand, wind, and water; while others of huge size, 30 to 40 feet high and 15 to 20 in diameter, stand in the temples, and at each turn repeat the contents of whole volumes of liturgical essays stowed away in their capacious receptacles. But despite all these everlasting revolutions, stagnation reigns supreme throughout the most priest-ridden land under the sun.

With its religion Tibet imported also its letters from India by the route of Nepal or Kashmir in the seventh century. Since then the language has undergone great changes, always, like other members of the Indo-Chinese family, in the direction from agglutination towards monosyllabism[402]. But the orthography, apart from a few feeble efforts at reform, has remained stationary, so that words are still written as they were pronounced 1200 years ago. The result is a far greater discrepancy between the spoken and written tongue than in any other language, English not excepted. Thus the province of Ui has been identified by Sir A. Cunningham with Ptolemy's _Debasae_ through its written form _Dbus_, though now always pronounced _U_[403]. This bears out de Lacouperie's view that all words were really uttered as originally spelt, although often beginning with as many as three consonants. Thus _spra_ (monkey) is now pronounced _deu_ in the Lhasa dialect, but still _streu-go_ in that of the province of Kham. The phonetic disintegration is still going on, so that, barring reform, the time must come when there will be no correspondence at all between sound and its graphic expression.

On the other hand it is a mistake to suppose that all languages in the Indo-Chinese linguistic zone have undergone this enormous extent of phonetic decay. The indefatigable B. H. Hodgson has made us acquainted with several, especially in Nepal, which are of a highly conservative character. Farther east the _Lepcha_ (properly _Rong_) of Sikkim presents the remarkable peculiarity of distinct agglutination of the Mongolo-Turki, or perhaps I should say of the Kuki-Lushai type, combined with numerous homophones and a total absence of tone. Thus _pano-sa_, of a king, _pano-sang_, kings, and _pano-sang-sa_, of kings, shows pure agglutination, while _mat_ yields no less than twenty-three distinct meanings[404], which should necessitate a series of discriminating tones, as in Chinese or Siamese. Their absence, however, is readily explained by the persistence of the agglutinative principle, which renders them unnecessary.

A somewhat similar feature is presented by the Angami Naga, the chief language of the Naga Hills, of which R. B. McCabe writes that it is "still in a very primitive stage of the agglutinating class," and "peculiarly rich in intonation," although "for one Naga who clearly marks these tonal distinctions twenty fail to do so[405]." It follows that it is mainly spoken without tones, and although said to be "distinctly monosyllabic" it really abounds in polysyllables, such as _merenama_, orphan, _kehutsaporimo_, nowhere, _dukriwache_, to kill, etc. There are also numerous verbal formative elements given by McCabe himself, so that Angami must clearly be included in the agglutinating order. To this order also belongs beyond all doubt the _Kuki-Lushai_ of the neighbouring North Kachar Hills and parts of Nagaland itself, the common speech in fact of the _Rangkhols_, _Jansens_, _Lushai_, _Roeys_ and other hill peoples, collectively called _Kuki_ by the lowlanders, and _Dzo_ by themselves[406]. The highly agglutinating character of this language is evident from the numerous conjugations given by Soppitt[407], for some of which he has no names, but which may be called _Acceleratives_, _Retardatives_, _Complementatives_, and so on. Thus with the root, _ahong_, come, and infix _jam_, slow, is formed the retardative _nang ahongjamrangmoh_, "will-you-come-slowly?" (_rang_, future, _moh_, interrogative particle)[408].

The Kuki, the Naga and the Manipuri, none of which claim to be the original occupants of the country, have a tradition of a common ancestor, who had three sons who became the progenitors of the tribes. The Kuki are found almost everywhere throughout Manipur. "We are like the birds of the air," said a Kuki to T. C. Hodson, "we make our nests here this year, and who knows where we shall build next year[409]?" The following description is given of the Naga tribes, _Tangkhuls_, _Mao_ and _Maram Nagas_ (_Angami Nagas_), _Kolya_, or _Mayang Khong_ group, _Kabuis_, _Quoirengs_, _Chirus_ and _Marrings_. "Differences of stature, dress, coiffure and weapons make it easy to distinguish between the members of these tribes. In colour they are all brown with but little variety, though some of the Tangkhuls who earn their living by salt making seem to be darker. Among them all, as among the Manipuris, there are persons who have a tinge of colour in their cheeks when still young. The nose also varies, for there are cases where it is almost straight, while in the majority of individuals it is flattened at the nostril. Here and there one may see noses which in profile are almost Roman. The eyes are usually brown, though black eyes are sometimes found to occur. The jaw is generally clean, not heavy, and the hair is of some variety, as there are many persons whose hair is decidedly curly, and in most there is a wave. Beards are very uncommon, and hair on the face is very rare, so much so that the few who possess a moustache are known as _khoi-hao-bas_ (Meithei words, meaning moustache grower). I am informed that the ladies do not like hirsute men, and that the men therefore pull out any stray hairs. The cheekbones are often prominent and the slope of the eye is not very marked[410]." The stature is moderate varying from the slender lightly built Marrings to the tall sturdy finely proportioned Maos. The women are all much shorter than the men, but strongly built with a muscular development of which the men would not be ashamed. The land is thickly peopled with local deities and at Maram the case is recorded of a Rain Deity who was once a man of the village specially cunning in rain making. Among the points of special interest in this region are the stone monuments still erected in honour of the dead, and the custom of head-hunting, connected with simple blood feud, with agrarian rites, with funerary rites and eschatological belief, and in some cases no more than a social duty[411].

Through these Naga and Kuki aborigines we pass without any break of continuity from the Bhotiya populations of the Himalayan slopes to those of Indo-China. Here also, as indeed in nearly all semi-civilised lands, peoples at various grades of culture are found dwelling for ages side by side--rude and savage groups on the uplands or in the more dense wooded tracts, settled communities with a large measure of political unity (in fact nations and peoples in the strict sense of those terms) on the lowlands, and especially along the rich alluvial riverine plains of this well watered region. The common theory is that the wild tribes represent the true aborigines driven to the hills and woodlands by civilised invaders from India and other lands, who are now represented by the settled communities.

Whether such movements and dislocations have elsewhere taken place we need not here stop to inquire; indeed their probability, and in some instances their certainty may be frankly admitted. But I cannot think that the theory expresses the true relations in most parts of Farther India. Here the civilised peoples, and _ex hypothesi_ the intruders, are the Manipuri, Burmese, Arakanese, and the nearly extinct or absorbed Talaings or Mons in the west; the Siamese, Shans or Laos, and Khamti in the centre; the Annamese (Tonkinese and Cochin-Chinese), Cambojans, and the almost extinct Champas in the east. Nearly all of these I hold to be quite as indigenous as the hillmen, the only difference being that, thanks to their more favourable environment, they emerged at an early date from the savage state and thus became more receptive to foreign civilising influences, mostly Hindu, but also Chinese (in Annam). All are either partly or mainly of Mongolic or Indonesian type, and all speak toned Indo-Chinese languages, except the Cambojans and Champas, whose linguistic relations are with the Oceanic peoples, who are not here in question. The cultivated languages are no doubt full of Sanskrit or Prakrit terms in the west and centre, and of Chinese in the east, and all, except Annamese, which uses a Chinese ideographic system, are written with alphabets derived through the square Pali characters from the Devanagari. It is also true that the vast monuments of Burma, Siam, and Camboja all betray Hindu influences, many of the temples being covered with Brahmanical or Buddhist sculptures and inscriptions. But precisely analogous phenomena are reproduced in Java, Sumatra, and other Malaysian lands, as well as in Japan and partly in China itself. Are we then to conclude that there have been Hindu invasions and settlements in all these regions, the most populous on the globe?

During the historic period a few Hinduized Dravidians, especially Telingas (Telugus) of the Coromandel coast, have from time to time emigrated to Indo-China (Pegu), where the name survives amongst the "Talaings," that is, the Mons, by whom they were absorbed, just as the Mons themselves are now being absorbed by the Burmese. Others of the same connection have gained a footing here and there in Malaysia, especially the Malacca coastlands, where they are called "Klings[412]," _i.e._ Telings, Telingas.

But beyond these partial movements, without any kind of influence on the general ethnical relations, I know of no Hindu (some have even used the term "Aryan," and have brought Aryans to Camboja) invasions except those of a moral order--the invasions of the zealous Hindu missionaries, both Brahman and Buddhist, which, however, amply suffice to account for all the above indicated points of contact between the Indian, the Indo-Chinese, and the Malayan populations.

That the civilised lowlanders and rude highlanders are generally of the same aboriginal stocks is well seen in the Manipur district with its fertile alluvial plains and encircling Naga and Lushai Hills on the north and south. The Hinduized Manipuri of the plains, that is, the politically dominant _Meithis_, as they call themselves, are considered by George Watt to be "a mixed race between the Kukies and the Nagas[413]." The Meithis are described as possessing in general the facial characteristics of Mongolian type, but with great diversity of feature. "It is not uncommon to meet with girls with brownish-black hair, brown eyes, fair complexions, straight noses and rosy cheeks[414]." In spite of the veneer of civilisation acquired by the Meithis, the old order of things has by no means passed away. "The _maiba_, the doctor and priest of the animistic system, still finds a livelihood despite the competition on the one hand of the Brahmin, and on the other of the hospital Assistant. Nevertheless the _maibas_ frequently adapt their methods to the altered circumstances in which they now find themselves, and realize that the combination of croton oil and a charm is more efficacious than the charm alone[415]."

"It is possible to discover at least four definite orders of spiritual beings who have crystallized out from the amorphous mass of animistic Deities. There are the _Lam Lai_, gods of the country-side who shade off into Nature Gods controlling the rain, the primal necessity of an agricultural community; the _Umang Lai_ or Deities of the Forest Jungle; the _Imung Lai_, the Household Deities, Lords of the lives, the births and the deaths of individuals, and there are Tribal Ancestors, the ritual of whose worship is a strange compound of magic and Nature-worship. Beyond these Divine beings, who possess in some sort a majesty of orderly decent behaviour, there are spirits of the mountain passes, spirits of the lakes and rivers, vampires and all the horrid legion of witchcraft.... It is difficult to estimate the precise effect of Hinduism on the civilisation of the people, for to the outward observer they seem to have adopted only the festivals, the outward ritual, the caste marks and the exclusiveness of Hinduism, while all unmindful of its spirit and inward essentials. Colonel McCulloch remarked nearly fifty years ago that 'In fact their observances are only for appearance sake, not the promptings of the heart[416].'"

It is noteworthy that the Manipuri are also devoted to the game of polo, which R. C. Temple tells us they play much in the same way as do the Balti and Ladakhi at the opposite extremity of the Himalayas. Another remarkable link with the "Far West" is the term _Khel_, which has travelled all the way from Persia or Parthia through Afghanistan to Nagaland, where it retains the same meaning of clan or section of a village, and produces the same disintegrating effects as amongst the Afghans. In Angamiland each village is split into two or more Khels, and "it is no unusual state of affairs to find Khel A of one village at war with Khel B of another, while not at war with Khel B of its own village. The Khels are often completely separated by great walls, the people on either side living within a few yards of each other, yet having no dealings whatever. Each Khel has its own headman, but little respect is paid to the chief: each Khel maybe described as a small republic[417]." There appears to be no trace even of a _jirga_, or council of elders, by which some measure of cohesion is imparted to the Afghan Khel system.

From the Kuki-Nagas the transition is unbroken to the large group of _Chins_ of the Chindwin valley, named from them, and thence northwards to the rude _Kakhyens_ (_Kachins_) about the Irawadi headstreams and southwards to the numerous _Karen_ tribes, who occupy the ethnical parting-line between Burma and Siam all the way down to Tenasserim.

For the first detailed account of the Chins we are indebted to S. Carey and H. N. Tuck[418], who accept B. Houghton's theory that these tribes, as well as the Kuki-Lushai, "originally lived in what we now know as Tibet, and are of one and the same stock; their form of government, method of cultivation, manners and customs, beliefs and traditions, all point to one origin." The term Chin, said to be a Burmese form of the Chinese _jin_, "men," is unknown to these aborigines, who call themselves _Yo_ in the north and _Lai_ in the south, while in Lower Burma they are _Shu_.

In truth there is no recognised collective name, and _Shendu_ (_Sindhu_) often so applied is proper only to the once formidable Chittagong and Arakan frontier tribes, _Klangklangs_ and _Hakas_, who with the _Sokte_, _Tashons_, _Siyirs_, and others are now reduced and administered from Falam. Each little group has its own tribal name, and often one or two others, descriptive, abusive and so on, given them by their neighbours. Thus the _Nwengals_ (_Nun_, river, _ngal_, across) are only that section of the Soktes now settled on the farther or right bank of the Manipur, while the Soktes themselves (_Sok_, to go down, _te_, men) are so called because they migrated from Chin Nwe (9 miles from Tiddim), cradle of the Chin race, down to Molbem, their earliest settlement, which is the Mobingyi of the Burmese. So with Siyin, the Burmese form of _Sheyante_ (_she_, alkali, _yan_, side, _te_, men), the group who settled by the alkali springs east of Chin Nwe, who are the _Taute_ ("stout" or "sturdy" people) of the Lushai and southern Chins. Let these few specimens suffice as a slight object-lesson in the involved tribal nomenclature which prevails, not only amongst the Chins, but everywhere in the Tibeto-Indo-Chinese domain, from the north-western Himalayas to Cape St James at the south-eastern extremity of Farther India. I have myself collected nearly a thousand such names of clans, septs, and fragmentary groups within this domain, and am well aware that the list neither is, nor ever can be, complete, the groups themselves often being unstable quantities in a constant state of fluctuation.

Most of the Chin groups have popular legends to explain either their origin or their present reduced state. Thus the Tawyans, a branch of the Tashons, claim to be Torrs, that is, the people of the Rawvan district, who were formerly very powerful, but were ruined by their insane efforts to capture the sun. Building a sort of Jacob's ladder, they mounted higher and higher; but growing tired, quarrelled among themselves, and one day, while half of them were clambering up the pole, the other half below cut it down just as they were about to seize the sun. So the Whenohs, another Tashon group, said to be Lushais left behind in a district now forming part of Chinland, tell a different tale. They say they came out of the rocks at Sepi, which they think was their original home. They share, however, this legend of their underground origin with the Soktes and several other Chin tribes.

Amid much diversity of speech and physique the Chins present some common mental qualities, such as "slow speech, serious manner, respect for birth and knowledge of pedigrees, the duty of revenge, the taste for a treacherous method of warfare, the curse of drink, the virtue of hospitality, the clannish feeling, the vice of avarice, the filthy state of the body, mutual distrust, impatience under control, the want of power of combination and of continued effort, arrogance in victory, speedy discouragement and panic in defeat[419]."

Physically they are a fine race, taller and stouter than the surrounding lowlanders, men 5 feet 10 or 11 inches being common enough among the independent southerners. There are some "perfectly proportioned giants with a magnificent development of muscle." Yet dwarfs are met with in some districts, and in others "the inhabitants are a wretched lot, much afflicted with goitre, amongst whom may be seen cretins who crawl about on all fours with the pigs in the gutter. At Dimlo, in the Sokte tract, leprosy has a firm hold on the inhabitants."

Although often described as devil-worshippers, the Chins really worship neither god nor devil. The northerners believe there is no Supreme Being, and although the southerners admit a "Kozin" or head god, to whom they sacrifice, they do not worship him, and never look to him for any grace or mercy, except that of withholding the plagues and misfortunes which he is capable of working on any in this world who offend him. Besides Kozin, there are _nats_ or spirits of the house, family, clan, fields; and others who dwell in particular places in the air, the streams, the jungle, and the hills. Kindly _nats_ are ignored; all others can and will do harm unless propitiated[420].

The departed go to _Mithikwa_, "Dead Man's Village," which is divided into _Pwethikwa_, the pleasant abode, and _Sathikwa_, the wretched abode of the _unavenged_. Good or bad deeds do not affect the future of man, who must go to Pwethikwa if he dies a natural or accidental death, and to Sathikwa if killed, and there bide till avenged by blood. Thus the vendetta receives a sort of religious sanction, strengthened by the belief that the slain becomes the slave of the slayer in the next world. "Should the slayer himself be slain, then the first slain is the slave of the second slain, who in turn is the slave of the man who killed him."

Whether a man has been honest or dishonest in this world is of no consequence in the next existence; but, if he has killed many people in this world, he has many slaves to serve him in his future existence; if he has killed many wild animals, then he will start well-supplied with food, for all that he kills on earth are his in the future existence. In the next existence hunting and drinking will certainly be practised, but whether fighting and raiding will be indulged in is unknown.

Cholera and small-pox are spirits, and when cholera broke out among the Chins who visited Rangoon in 1895 they carried their _dahs_ (knives) drawn to scare off the _nat_, and spent the day hiding under bushes, so that the spirit should not find them. Some even wanted to sacrifice a slave boy, but were talked over to substitute some pariah dogs. They firmly believe in the evil eye, and the Hakas think the Sujins and others are all wizards, whose single glance can bewitch them, and may cause lizards to enter the body and devour the entrails. A Chin once complained to Surgeon-Major Newland that a _nat_ had entered his stomach at the glance of a Yahow, and he went to hospital quite prepared to die. But an emetic brought him round, and he went off happy in the belief that he had vomited the _nat_.

Ethnically connected with the Kuki-Naga groups are the _Kakhyens_ of the Irawadi headstreams, and the _Karens_, who form numerous village communities about the Burma-Siamese borderland. The Kakhyens, so called abusively by the Burmese, are the _Cacobees_ of the early writers[421], whose proper name is _Singpho_ (_Chingpaw_), i.e. "Men[422]," and whose curious semi-agglutinating speech, spoken in an ascending tone, each sentence ending in a long-drawn _i_ in a higher key (Bigandet), shows affinities rather with the Mishmi and other North Assamese tongues than with the cultured Burmese. They form a very widespread family, stretching from the Eastern Himalayas right into Yunnan, and presenting two somewhat marked physical types: (1) the true Chingpaws, with short round head, low forehead, prominent cheek-bones, slant eye, broad nose, thick protruding lips, very dark brown hair and eyes, dirty buff colour, mean height (about 5 ft. 5 or 6 in.) with disproportionately short legs; (2) a much finer race, with regular Caucasic features, long oval face, pointed chin, aquiline nose. One Kakhyen belle met with at Bhamo, "with large lustrous eyes and fair skin, might almost have passed for a European[423]."

It is important to note this Caucasic element, which we first meet here going eastwards from the Himalayas, but which is found either separate or interspersed amongst the Mongoloid populations all over the south-east Asiatic uplands from Tibet to Cochin-China, and passing thence into Oceanica[424].

The kinship of the Kakhyens with the still more numerous Karens is now generally accepted, and it is no longer found necessary to bring the latter all the way from Turkestan. They form a large section, perhaps one-sixth, of the whole population of Burma, and overflow into the west Siamese borderlands. Their subdivisions are endless, though all may be reduced to three main branches, _Sgaws_, _Pwos_ and _Bwais_, these last including the somewhat distinct group of _Karenni_, or "Red Karens." Although D. M. Smeaton calls the language "monosyllabic," it is evidently agglutinating, of the normal sub-Himalayan type[425].

The Karens are a short, sturdy race, with straight black and also brownish hair, black, and even hazel eyes, and light or yellowish brown complexion, so that here also a Caucasic strain may be suspected.

Despite the favourable pictures of the missionaries, whose propaganda has been singularly successful amongst these aborigines, the Karens are not an amiable or particularly friendly people, but rather shy, reticent and even surly, though trustworthy and loyal to those chiefs and guides who have once gained their confidence. In warfare they are treacherous rather than brave, and strangely cruel even to little children. Their belief in a divine Creator who has deserted them resembles that of the Kuki people, and to the _nats_ of the Kuki correspond the _la_ of the Karens, who are even more numerous, every mountain, stream, rapid, crest, peak or other conspicuous object having its proper indwelling _la_. There are also seven specially baneful spirits, who have to be appeased by family offerings. "On the whole their belief in a personal god, their tradition as to the former possession of a 'law,' and their expectation of a prophet have made them susceptible to Christianity to a degree that is almost unique. Of this splendid opportunity the American mission has taken full advantage, educating, civilising, welding together, and making a people out of the downtrodden Karen tribes, while Christianizing them[426]."

In the Burmese division proper are comprised several groups, presenting all grades of culture, from the sheer savagery of the Mros, Kheongs, and others of the Arakan Yoma range, and the agricultural Mugs of the Arakan plains, to the dominant historical Burmese nation of the Irawadi valley. Here also the terminology is perplexing, and it may be well to explain that _Yoma_, applied by Logan collectively to all the Arakan Hill tribes, has no ethnic value at all, simply meaning a mountain range in Burmese[427]. _Toung-gnu_, one of Mason's divisions of the Burmese family, was merely a petty state founded by a younger branch of the Royal House, and "has no more claim to rank as a separate tribe than any other Burman town[428]. "_Tavoyers_ are merely the people of the Tavoy district, Tenasserim, originally from Arakan, and now speaking a Burmese dialect largely affected by Siamese elements; _Tungthas_, like Yoma, means "Highlander," and is even of wider application; the Tipperahs, Mrungs, Kumi, Mros, Khemis, and Khyengs are all Tungthas of Burmese stock, and speak rude Burmese dialects.

The correlative of Tungthas is _Khyungthas_, "River People," that is, the Arakan Lowlanders comprising the more civilised peoples about the middle and lower course of the rivers, who are improperly called _Mugs_ (_Maghs_) by the Bengali, and whose real name is _Rakhaingtha_, _i.e._ people of Rakhaing (Arakan). They are undoubtedly of the same stock as the cultured Burmese, whose traditions point to Arakan as the cradle of the race, and in whose chronicles the Rakhaingtha are called _M'ranmakrih_, "Great M'ranmas," or "Elder Burmese." Both branches call themselves _M'ranma, M'rama_ (the correct form of _Barma, Burma_, but now usually pronounced Myamma), probably from a root _mro, myo_, "man," though connected by Burnouf with Brahma, the Brahmanical having preceded the Buddhist religion in this region. In any case the M'rama may claim a respectable antiquity, being already mentioned in the national records so early as the first century of the new era, when the land "was said to be overrun with fabulous monsters and other terrors, which are called to this day by the superstitious natives, the five enemies. These were a fierce tiger, an enormous boar, a flying dragon, a prodigious man-eating bird, and a huge creeping pumpkin, which threatened to entangle the whole country[429]."

The Burmese type has been not incorrectly described as intermediate between the Chinese and the Malay, more refined, or at least softer than either, of yellowish brown or olive complexion, often showing very dark shades, full black and lank hair, no beard, small but straight nose, weak extremities, pliant figure, and a mean height[430].

Most Europeans speak well of the Burmese people, whose bright genial temperament and extreme friendliness towards strangers more than outweigh a natural indolence which hurts nobody but themselves, and a little arrogance or vanity inspired by the still remembered glories of a nation that once ruled over a great part of Indo-China. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Burmese society is the almost democratic independence and equality of all classes developed under an exceptionally severe Asiatic autocracy. "They are perfectly republican in the freedom with which all ranks mingle together and talk with one another, without any marked distinction in regard to difference of rank or wealth[431]." Scott attributes this trait, I think rightly, to the great leveller, Buddhism, the true spirit of which has perhaps been better preserved in Burma than in any other land.