Chapter VIII: The Northern Mongols (3)

[650] _Bul. du Museum d'Hist. Nat._ 1896, No. 4. All the skulls were brachy or sub-brachy, varying from 81 to 83.8 and 84.8. The author remarks generally that "photographes et cranes different, du tout au tout, des choses similaires venues jusqu'a present de Mongolie et de Chine, et font plutot penser au Japon, a Formose, et d'une maniere plus generale a ce vaste ensemble de peuples maritimes que Lesson designait jadis sous le nom de 'Mongols-pelasgiens,'" p. 3.

[651] On this juxtaposition of the yellow and blond types in Korea V. de Saint-Martin's language is highly significative: "Cette dualite de type, un type tout a fait caucasique a cote du type mongol, est un fait commun a toute la ceinture d'iles qui couvre les cotes orientales de l'Asie, depuis les Kouriles jusqu'a Formose, et meme jusqu'a la zone orientale de l'Indo-Chine" (_Art. Coree_, p. 800).

[652] From _Korai_, in Japanese _Kome_ (Chinese _Kaoli_), name of a petty state, which enjoyed political predominance in the peninsula for about 500 years (tenth to fourteenth century A.D.). An older designation still in official use is _Tsio-sien_, that is, the Chinese _Chao-sien_, "Bright Dawn" (Klaproth, _Asia Polyglotta_, p. 334 sq.).

[653] This stupendous work, on which about 1,000,000 hands are said to have been engaged for five years, possesses great ethnical as well as political importance. Running for over 1500 miles across hills, valleys, and rivers along the northern frontier of China proper, it long arrested the southern movements of the restless Mongolo-Turki hordes, and thus gave a westerly direction to their incursions many centuries before the great invasions of Jenghiz-Khan and his successors. It is strange to reflect that the ethnological relations were thus profoundly disturbed throughout the eastern hemisphere by the work of a ruthless despot who reigned only twelve years, and in that time waged war against all the best traditions of the empire, destroying the books of Confucius and the other sages, and burying alive 460 men of letters for their efforts to rescue those writings from total extinction.

[654] _Les Aryens au Nord et au Sud de l'Hindou-Kouch_, 1896, p. 25. This writer does not think that the Usuns should be identified with the tall race of horse-like face, large nose, and deep-set eyes mentioned in the early Chinese records, because no reference is made to "blue eyes," which would not have been omitted had they existed. But, if I remember, "green eyes" are spoken of, and we know that none of the early writers use colour terms with strict accuracy.

[655] I have not thought it desirable to touch on the interminable controversy respecting the ethnical relations of the Hiung-nu, regarding them, not as a distinct ethnical group, but like the Huns, their later western representatives, as a heterogeneous collection of Mongol, Tungus, Turki, and perhaps even Finnish hordes under a Mongol military caste. At the same time I have little doubt that Mongolo-Tungus elements greatly predominated in the eastern regions (Mongolia proper, Manchuria) both amongst the Hiung-nu and their Yuan-yuan (Sien-pi) successors, and that all the founders of the first great empires prior to that of the Turki Assena in the Altai region (sixth century A.D.) were full-blood Mongols, as indeed recognised by Jenghiz-Khan himself. For the migrations of these and neighbouring peoples, consult A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_, 1911, pp. 16 and 28.

[656] On the authority of the Wei-Shu documents contained in the Wei-Ch[=i], E. H. Parker gives (in the _China Review_ and _A Thousand Years of the Tartars_, Shanghai, 1895) the dates 386-556 A.D. as the period covered by the "Sien-pi Tartar dynasty of Wei." This is not to be confused with the Chinese dynasty of Wei (224-264, or according to Kwong Ki-Chiu 234-274 A.D.). The term "Tartar" (Ta-Ta), it may be explained, is used by Parker, as well as by the Chinese historians generally, in a somewhat wide sense, so as to include all the nomad populations north of the Great Wall, whether of Tungus (Manchu), Mongol, or even Turki stock. The original tribes bearing the name were Mongols, and Jenghiz-Khan himself was a Tata on his mother's side.

[657] Mrs Bishop, _Korea and Her Neighbours_, 1898.

[658] T. de Lacouperie says on "a Tibeto-Indian base" (_Beginnings of Writing in Central and Eastern Asia_, 1894, p. 148); and E. H. Parker: "It is demonstrable that the Korean letters are an adaptation from the Sanskrit," _i.e._ the Devanagari (_Academy_, Dec. 21, 1895, p. 550).

[659] See p. 261. Also Koganei, "Ueber die Urbewohner von Japan," _Mitt. d. Deutsch. Gesell. f. Natur- u. Voelkerkunde Ostasiens_, IX. 3, 1903, containing an exhaustive review of recent literature, and N. G. Munro, _Prehistoric Japan_, 1912.

[660] J. Deniker, _Races of Man_, 1900, pp. 371-2. See also J. Batchelor, _The Ainu of Japan_, 1892, and the article "Ainus" in _Ency. of Religion and Ethics_, 1908.

[661] G. Baudens, _Bul. Soc. Geogr._ X. p. 419.

[662] See especially E. Baelz, "Die koerperlichen Eigenschaften der Japaner," in _Mitt. der Deutsch. Gesell. f. Natur- u. Voelkerkunde Ostasiens_, 28 and 32.

[663] _Cruise of the Marchesa_, 1886, I. p. 36.

[664] _Geogr. Journ._ 1895, II. p. 318.

[665] _Geogr. Journ._ 1895, II. p. 460.

[666] _Journ. Anthrop. Soc._ 1897, p. 47 sq.

[667] _Ibid._ p. 58.

[668] Ripley and Dana, _Amer. Cyc._ IX. 538.

[669] _Shogun_ from _Sho_ = general, and _gun_ = army, hence Commander-in-chief; _Mikado_ from _mi_ = sublime, and _kado_ = gate, with which cf. the "Sublime Porte" (J. J. Rein, _Japan nach Reisen u. Studien,_ 1881, I. p. 245). But Mikado has become somewhat antiquated, being now generally replaced by the title _Kotei,_ "Emperor."

[670] Keane's _Asia_, I. p. 487.