Chapter X: Races and Peoples of Asia (1)

/Ancient Inhabitants of Asia/.--Prehistoric
times--_Pithecanthropus erectus_ (Dub.)--Ages of stone and
metals.--/Present Inhabitants of Asia/.--Races of Asia--I.
_Peoples of Northern Asia_--Yeniseian, Palæasiatic and Tunguse
groups.--II. _Peoples of Central Asia_--Turkish, Mongolian, and
Thibetan groups--Peoples of the south-west of Thibet and of
South China (Lolo, Miao-tsé, Lu-tsé, etc.).--III. _Peoples of
Eastern Asia_--Chinese, Coreans, and Japanese.--IV. _Peoples of
Indo-China_--Aborigines, Mois, Kuis, Siam, Naga, etc.--More recent
mixed populations: Annamese, Cambodians, Thai, etc.--V. _Peoples
of India_--Castes--Dravidians and Kolarians--Indo-Aryans and
unclassified populations--VI. _Peoples of Anterior Asia_--Iranians
and Semites.

ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF ASIA.

_Prehistoric Times._--It is a common practice to call Asia, or at least certain regions of Asia, “the cradle of mankind,” the “officina gentium.” The migrations and invasions of the Asiatic peoples into Europe, which took place from the most remote times, gave birth, naturally enough, to this idea among the western peoples (p. 317 _et seq._). However, no serious data authorise us to say that the first man was born rather in Asia than Europe. Nowhere do we find there any traces of tertiary man.[393] Eugène Dubois discovered, it is true, quite close to the Asiatic continent in the very uppermost tertiary beds (upper pliocene) of the Island of Java, the bones of a being which he considers as intermediate between man and the anthropoid apes, and which he has called _Pithecanthropus erectus_ (Figs. 112 and 113). But Java belongs to-day as much to the Oceanian world as to Asia, and the Pithecanthropus is not altogether a man, either according to his discoverer or many other authorities. Some regard this being simply as a gigantic gibbon, while others (myself among the number) hold that he is a being more closely related to man than to the anthropoid apes, or even a man of a race inferior to all existing ones. If this last hypothesis be correct we must admit the existence of tertiary man in Asia, since it is highly probable that even at the end of the tertiary period the islands of Sumatra and Java were connected with the great continent by the Malay peninsula.[394]

(_Phot. Dubois._)]

As to quaternary man, if no bones have yet been found, tools absolutely similar to those of Europe have been noted almost everywhere in Asia; in Siberia, around Lake Baikal (Tchersky and Poliakof), and near to Tomsk in the loess, beside a dismembered and calcined skeleton of a mammoth, the remains of a pantagruelic repast of quaternary Siberians (Kuznétzof); in Japan, in the ancient province of Jenchiou, now Osaka, the Ivate and Miaghi province, northern Nippon (S. Fuse), western Nippon (Vidal) in the country of Rikuzen, now in the province of Etzigo or Teshigo (Inuzuka); then in anterior Asia, in the grottos at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb, near Beirut (Lortet); at Hannauch to the east of Tyre (Lortet and Pelagaud), in Galilee (Cazalis of Fondouce and Moretain), in Phœnicia (Zumoffen), etc.[395] In India, attention has been drawn to several palæolithic stations in the midst of the ancient alluvia of the rivers Nerbadda, Krishna, and Godaveri (Wynn); in certain places there quartzite implements were associated with the bones of extinct animals (_Equus nomadicus_, _Hippopotamus palæindicus_) or animals which have since emigrated into other regions (_Bos palæindicus_, etc.). Single tools have been found in the beds of laterite near Madras, in Scinde, at Banda, in the central provinces (Rivett-Carnac), in the south-east of Bengal.[396]

Monuments and objects of the _polished stone_ and _bronze_ periods, often confounded in Asia, have been found almost everywhere. They are connected with peoples who presented at that remote date great differences in their civilisation and probably in their physical type. The excavations of Schliemann at Hissarlik (Asia Minor) have brought to light a civilisation which appears to correspond with the end of the stone age and the beginning of the bronze epoch (2,500 years /B.C./?). Prehistoric objects in polished stone and bronze have been found at other points of Asia Minor (A. Martin), in Lycaonia (Spiegelthal), in the Sinai peninsula (Bauermann and Richard), on the shores of Lake Issik-koul (Russian Turkestan). Southern Siberia, the Kirghiz steppes, north and north-western Mongolia are covered with stone circles (_Kereksur_), barrows, tumuli, menhirs (_Kishachilo_) of every form, with burial-places in which are found objects in wood, bone, bronze, copper, iron (Radloff, Potanin, Klementz). The skulls which have been taken from some of these burial-places, in the upper valley of the Yenisei, are dolichocephalic; the plaster mortuary masks found in the same region by Adrianof present a type somewhat European.[397]

It must not be forgotten that many of these monuments date from the historic epoch and belong, as proved by the runiform inscriptions of Mongolia discovered by Yadrintsef and deciphered by Thomson, to the seventh and eighth centuries of the Christian era.[398]

The kitchen-middens of Omori, near Tokio, and of several other localities in Japan examined by Morse, Milne, and Tsuboi, afford evidence of the existence in this country of a fairly civilised race which was acquainted with pottery, but employed only bone and partly polished stone implements. The excavations of ancient underground dwellings in the islands of Yezo (Morse, Tsuboi) and Saghalien (Poliakoff) lead us to believe that this race extended much farther to the north. It is possible that it was related to the men whose polished flint implements have been found in Siberia in the valley of the Tunka, in that of the Patcha, one of the tributaries of the river Amur (Uvarof), and in the shell-heaps of the Pacific coast near Vladivostok (Margaritof).[399] Polished stone hatchets have been found in the north-east of China in the vicinity of tumuli resembling the American “mounds” (Williamson); others have been picked up in the Yunnan (Sladen), and in Burma (Theobald); Moura, Jammes, and Morel exhumed in Cambodia, between Lake Tonlé-Sap and the Mekong, side by side with objects of bronze, several polished stone implements of a peculiar type (Fig. 114), a kind of square-tongued axe (shouldered celt), which has since been found again in several other places in Indo-China as far as the upper Laos (Lefèvre-Pontalis) and Burma.[400] In the district of Somron-Sen (Cambodia), previously explored by Jammes, as well as in the neighbourhood of Saigon, Corre discovered similar implements close to shell-heaps containing, besides pottery and stone tools, human bones, but no skulls.

Lastly, in India, the “cromlechs,” “mounds,” and finds of stone objects similar to those which are found in Europe, may be counted in hundreds. It is certain that the stone “circles” of the central provinces and the “Kouroumbarings” of Southern India date from a period anterior to the Aryan immigration. As in Europe, so in Asia the age of metals borders very closely on the historic period of which the Chinese annals have preserved for us a record. The monuments of Chaldea, Assyria, Asia Minor, India, and Cambodia, also reveal ethnographical facts of great interest (see, for instance, note 2, p. 419).

PRESENT INHABITANTS AND RACES OF ASIA.

It is impossible in the present state of our knowledge to draw up a complete table of the _migrations_ which have taken place on the Asiatic continent in _historic_ times. I shall mention those in connection with some peoples whose history is partially known (Chinese, Turks, Mongols, Thai).

So also, in the present state of anthropological knowledge, we can only discern in the midst of the numerous Asiatic populations, in a quite general way, the elements furnished by the following eleven races:--Five races peculiar to Asia (_Dravidian_, _Assyroid_, _Indo-Afghan_, _Ainu_, _Mongolian_), and six races which are also met with in other parts of the world: _Negrito_, _Indonesian_, _Arab_, _Ugrian_, _Turkish_, and _Eskimo_ (leaving out of account the Assyroid and Indo-Afghan races, which are found again among the Jews and the European Gypsies). I have already given (p. 285 _et seq._) the principal characters of these races; it only remains to say a few words as to their geographical distribution in Asia.

The _Eskimo_ race is quartered in the north-east of the continent; that of the _Ainus_ in Saghalien, Yezo, and perhaps in northern Japan; while the _Ugrian_ race is represented by its _Yeniseian_ variant. The _Mongolian_ race (with its two secondary races, _northern_ and _southern_) is found almost all over Asia. The _Turkish_ race is limited more particularly to the inland regions of Central Asia. The _Indonesians_ are numerous in Indo-China, and in the islands from Japan to the Asiatic Archipelago, while the _Dravidians_ and _Indo-Afghans_ abound in India. The latter are also met with in anterior Asia, side by side with the _Assyroids_ and _Arabs_. Some representatives of the _Negrito_ race inhabit the Malay peninsula and the Andaman Islands; the elements of this race are also found among the inhabitants of Indo-China and perhaps India.

As to existing populations of the Asiatic continent, I shall rapidly pass them in review, grouping them, according to geographical region, under six heads: peoples of Northern Asia; of Central Asia; of Eastern Asia; of Indo-China; of India; and lastly, of Anterior or Western Asia.

I. /Northern Asia/, consisting almost exclusively of Siberia, a cold country covered with dense virgin forests (_taïga_) or marshy, frozen plains (_tundra_), harbours, in addition to Russian or Chinese colonists, only a few somewhat wretched tribes, mainly hunters, but depending partly on fishing and hoe-culture.

We may group them thus:--(1) tribes of Western Siberia, having some affinities with the Samoyeds and the eastern Finns, which I shall call _Yeniseians_ or _Tubas_; (2) peoples of the extreme north-east of the Asiatic continent, whom Schrenck[401] describes as _Palæasiatics_; (3) the Tunguses of Eastern Siberia and Manchuria.

1. _Yeniseians_ or _Tubas_.--Besides the _Samoyeds of Asia_, who differ from their kinsfolk in Europe only by their more Mongoloid features, the _Yeniseians_ comprise two distinct groups of populations. In the first place the so-called _Ostiaks of the Yenisei_, on the right bank of this river (between Yeniseisk and Touroukhansk), probable descendants of the _Kien-Kouen_ and the _Ting-ling_ of the Chinese annals. It is a tribe in process of extinction, whose language differs from the Samoyed tongue and the Finnish dialects properly so called (Castren). Then come the tribes who formerly formed the Tuba nation, mentioned until the seventh century /A.D./ by the name of _Tupo_ by the Chinese annalists; they inhabited the basin of the upper Yenisei, the Altai region, and north-western Mongolia, and bore the local names of _Matores_, _Arines_, _Kottes_, _Assan_, _Tuba_, etc.

These peoples have disappeared as linguistic units,[402] but their physical type, some of their characteristic manners, as well as a few words of their language, are preserved among certain populations speaking a Turkish dialect. The Russians call these populations “Tatars”; they might more suitably be called by the name of _Altaians_. This ethnic group, whose physical type has been altered by intermixtures with peoples of Turkish or Mongolian race, comprises the “_Tatars_” of _Abakan_, that is to say, _Katchines_, _Koibals_ (eight hundred individuals), _Sagai_, and _Kizils_; the “_Tatars_” of _Altai_ and those of _Chulim_, among whom must be noted the “Tatars of the black forests” (_Chernievyié Tatary_ in Russian), called “Tubas” by their neighbours. The latter are mesocephalic, of medium height; they have abandoned little by little the hunting state, and become primitive cultivators of the soil; they break up the ground with the hoe, which was used by them until not very long ago to dig up edible roots, and they cut their corn with hunting-knives.[403] The Soiots or Soyons of North-western Mongolia, who call themselves _Tubas_, are probably the descendants of the ancient Uigurs (Turkish nation) commingled with aboriginal Yeniseians of this country and partly Mongolised about the seventeenth century.

(_Phot. Shimkiévich._)]

2. The _Palæasiatic_ group should comprise, according to Schrenck, all the ancient peoples of Asia driven back at the present day towards the north-eastern extremity of the Continent. The more important of these peoples are the following:--The _Chuchi_ (or _Chukchi_), numbering about 8000, are the most typical representatives of the group; they inhabit the north-east of Siberia, and the occupation of some is the breeding of reindeer, and fishing of others; however, the distinction between the nomadic and fishing Chukchi is both of an economic and ethnic order.[404] The _Koriaks_ dwell to the south of the Chukchi, as far as Kamtchatka; they bear a close resemblance to them and speak the same language. The _Eskimo of Asia, Namuollo_, or _Yu-Ite_ formerly occupied the coast of the Chukchi country, as shown by their ancient habitations excavated by Wrangel and Nordenskiold. At the present day they are not found except in isolated camps on the coast and in the islands of the Behring Sea. They differ but very little from the Eskimo of Alaska; their ornaments, however, recall rather those of the Aleuts. The _Kamtchadals_ of the centre and west of Kamtchatka differ from the peoples just mentioned. They number 4,250 at the present day, and are becoming Russianised very rapidly. They have completely given up their language, which has no relation to any linguistic family now known, and they speak a very corrupt form of Russian. Nominally orthodox Christians, they are at bottom animists, and the anthropomorphic element, often under obscene forms, occupies a large place in their myths and legends. They are fishers and hunters.

(_Phot. Shimkiévich._)]

The _Yukaghirs_ are the last remnants of a somewhat powerful people who formerly occupied all that part of Siberia situated to the east of the Lena, and who were composed of several tribes: _Omoks_, _Anauls_, _Cheliags_, etc.[405] It was believed until the last few years that even the Yukaghirs had disappeared, but quite recently Iokhelson[406] ascertained that there are at least 700 individuals, and that their language, which has no affinities with any of the Uralo-Altaic dialects, is spoken by a certain number of Tunguse-Lamuts (see p. 373), their neighbours. On the other hand, the Yukaghirs of Verkhoiansk, have adopted the Lamut dialect, and those of the banks of the Iana the Yakut tongue. By several peculiar manners and customs (classificatory system of relationship, pictography, etc.) they approach very closely certain North American Indians. Physically they resemble the Tunguse-Lamuts, though more brachycephalic and somewhat less dark-haired as a rule.

(_Phot. lent by Collignon._)]

The Ainus (Figs. 49 and 117), who are classed among the Palæasiatics, inhabit the north and east parts of the island of Yezo, the south of Saghalien, and the three most southern islands of the Kuriles. They form a group by themselves, different from all the other peoples of Asia. Their elongated heads (ceph. index on the liv. sub. 77.8), their prominent supraciliary ridges, the development of the pilous system, the form of the nose, give to them some resemblance to the Russians, the Todas, and the Australians; but other characters (coloration of the skin, prominent cheek-bones, short stature, frequent occurrence of the _os japonicum_, etc.) distinguish them from these peoples and afford grounds for classing them as a separate race (see Chap. VIII.). According to Japanese historians, the Ainus or _Asuma Yebissu_ occupied the whole of Nippon from the seventh century /B.C./ until the second century of the Christian era. In the seventh century /A.D./ they still occupied all that portion of this island situated to the north of the 38th degree of north latitude, and even in the ninth century the chronicles speak of the incursions of these “barbarians.” Thus the Ainu element enters very largely into the composition of one of the types of the Japanese people, not only at Yezo but in the north of Nippon (province of Aomori), where several Ainu words still survive in current speech. In the Kurile islands the Ainus are intermixed with the Kamtchadals and the Aleuts introduced by the Russo-American Company about the middle of the present century.

It is calculated that there are about 18,500 Ainus (of whom 1,300 are in the island of Saghalien) at the present time; their number at Yezo has remained stationary for several years. The dress of the Ainus is a sort of greatcoat with broad sleeves, fastened with a girdle so that the right lappel covers the left lappel as among Turkish peoples, and contrary to the way it is done among the Chinese and Mongols. The chief occupation of the Ainus is hunting and fishing; they engage but little in agriculture. Their religion is pure animism; the word _Kamui_, which means spirit (like the _Kami_ of the Japanese Shintoists), also serves to indicate everything incomprehensible, in the same way as the word “shif,” the literal meaning of which is “animal” (may this be a word corresponding to totem?).

The Ainus, like most Asiatic peoples, such as the Giliaks, Tunguses, etc., have a special veneration for the bear; they organise festivals in its honour, during which a bear is killed, after having received the homage of many _inaou_ (staffs decorated with shavings).

The Ainu language is agglutinative, and has no analogy with any known language.[407]

The Giliaks, who inhabit the north of Saghalien, and the mainland to the north of the mouth of the Amur, suggest by their traits sometimes the Ainus, sometimes the Tunguses, but they are brachycephalic. They are a people of fishers, living on the banks of rivers and the sea, in the winter in huts half buried in the ground, in the summer in little houses on piles. The Giliaks are readily disposed to trade, and are distinguished by their taste for ornaments. Their number hardly exceeds 5000 individuals.[408]

The _Tunguses_, while speaking a particular language, exhibit the Mongol type, softened by intermixtures with the primitive inhabitants (Palæasiatics?) of their territory, which extends from the Arctic Ocean to the 40th degree of north latitude, and from the Yenisei to the Pacific Ocean. Their number can hardly exceed 50,000 individuals over this immense stretch of country. They are divided into _southern_ and _northern_ Tunguses and _maritime_ Tunguses or _Lamuts_. The river Amur forms the approximate boundary between the first two sections of Tunguses. The _Lamuts_ occupy the shores of the sea of Okhotsk, the north-west of Kamtchatka, and extend more to the west to the river Iana. The _Northern Tunguses_ are split up into several tribes, of which the following are the principal, going from east to west:--The _Olchas_ or _Mangoon_, at the mouth of the Amur; their congeners the _Oroks_, in the north of the island of Saghalien; the _Orochons_, of a very pure Tunguse type; the _Manegres_ (Fig. 43), and the “Olennyié” _Tunguses_, or the _Tunguses with reindeer_ (Figs. 115 and 116). As to the _southern Tunguses_, they comprise the _Goldes_ of the lower Amur and Ussuri, of a very pure type, and having a fairly well developed ornamental art; the _Oroches_ of the coast; and lastly the _Solon-Daurs_, very much intermixed with the Mongols, of which colonies exist in the Kuldja.

The _Manchus_, reduced to a small number, belong by their dialect as well as by their physical type to the Tunguse group. They are being absorbed more and more by the Chinese, and hardly form a tenth part of the population of the country which bears their name (Pozdniéef). It is probable that the _Niu-chi_ or _Yu-chi_ of Shan-alin and Sien-pi on the northern border of Corea, mentioned in the Chinese annals, were Tunguse tribes.

The type which predominates among the Tunguses represents the secondary race called North Mongolian and characterised by mesocephaly or a slight sub-dolichocephaly, and by a rather elongated face. The stature varies; the Orochons are of average stature and the Manchus very tall, etc.[409]

II. /Peoples of Central Asia/.--The immense central Asiatic region, whose waters have no outlet towards the sea, is formed principally of denuded table-lands (Thibet) or of plains, sometimes grassy, sometimes desert (Mongolia, Turkestan). It is inhabited for the most part by populations which may be grouped from the linguistic point of view under three heads, Turks, Mongols, Thibetans.[410]

The peoples speaking the different _Turkish_ dialects who are called _Turco-Tatars_ or _Turanians_ are scattered over an immense area comprising half of Asia and a large portion of Eastern Europe, from the Arctic Ocean (Yakuts) to Kuen-lun (Polus) and Ispahan (Turkomans of Persia), from the banks of the Kolima and the Hoang-ho (Yegurs) to Central Russia (Tatars of Kasimov) and Macedonia (Osmanli Turks). All these peoples may be gathered together into three great groups: eastern, central, and western.[411]

The _eastern group_ comprises the Yakuts, who have preserved in its purity the ancient Turco-Uigurian language, but who in type, manners, and customs show the influence of contiguity with the Palæasiatics; then the various tribes of non-Yeniseian “Tatars” (see p. 366) of Siberia, like the Altaians (called _Kalmuks of Altai_, although they have nothing in common with the true Kalmuks), nomads who have recently adopted settled habits, like the _Teleuts_ (or _Kara-Kalmuks_), likewise nomads, or the _Tatars of Siberia_, divided, according to their habitat, into _Tatars of the Baraba steppes_, _Tatars of Irtish_, of _Tobol_, etc.[412]

To this group must be added the _Taranchi_ and other “Turks” of East Turkestan, as well as the Polus of the northern slope of the Kuen-lun, more or less mingled with Indo-Afghan elements; the _Yegurs_ of the province of Kan-su in China, etc.[413]

The _central group_ comprises, in the first place, the _Kirghiz-Kazak_ of the plains between the Irtish and the Caspian, with the _Kara-Kirghiz_ of the Tian-chan mountains, typical nomads who under a Mussulman veneer have preserved many ancient Turkish animist customs;[414] then the _Uzbegs_ and _Sartes_, villagers or citizens, more or less mingled with Iranian elements, of Russian Turkestan; and finally the _Tatars of the Volga_, or _of European Russia_. Among these last, the so-called _Kazan Tatars_, descendants of the Kipchaks, must be specially mentioned. Arriving on the banks of the Volga in the thirteenth century, they intermingled there with the Bulgarians. They differ from the _Astrakhan Tatars_ (Figs. 107 and 108), descendants of the Turco-Mongols of the Gold horde, mixed with the Khazars, as well as from the Nogai of the Crimea,[415] representatives of whom we find also in the Caucasus, near Astrakhan, and in Lithuania, where, while remaining Mussulmans, they have adopted the language and the garb of Poles. With this group we must connect the _Bashkir-Mesthcheriaks_, a tribe intermixed with Turkish, Mongol, and Ugrian elements; and their congeners the _Shuvashes_, as well as the _Kumyks_, the _Karachai_, the _Kabards_, or _Tatars of the Caucasus mountains_, distinct from the true _Kabards_.

The _western group_ is composed of _Turkomans_ of Persia (_Khojars_, _Afshars_) and Russian (_Turkmen_) or Afghan Turkestan (_Jemshids_, etc.), of _Aderbaijani_, Turkish-speaking Iranians of the Caucasus and Persia, and lastly the _Osmanli Turks_. Included under this name are subjects of the Sultan speaking the Turkish language and professing Islamism. We must distinguish among them the settled Osmanli, much intermixed, and the nomadic tribes (_Turkomans_, _Yuruks_, etc.), who exhibit several characteristics of the Turkish race.

The _Turkish race_, so far as can be gathered from recent anthropological works, is preserved in a comparatively pure state among the Turks of the central group, but in the eastern group it has been profoundly modified in consequence of intermixtures with the Mongolian, Tunguse, and Ugrian races; as also in the western group, in which we have to take into account elements of the Assyroid, Indo-Afghan, and Arab races, and certain European races (Adriatic chiefly). The Turkish race may be thus described: Stature, above the average (1 m. 67-1 m. 68); head, hyper-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub., 85 to 87), elongated oval face, non-Mongoloid eyes, but often with the external fold of eyelid (p. 78); the pilous system moderately developed; broad cheek-bones, thick lips; straight, somewhat prominent nose; tendency to obesity.[416]

The Turks are essentially nomadic, and when they change their mode of life it is rather towards the chase, commerce, or trade that their efforts are directed; the true cultivators of the soil (Taranchi, Sartes, Osmanli, Volga Tatars) are Turks already powerfully affected by intermixtures. The Turkish tent is the most highly finished of transportable habitations (p. 164-166). Meat and milk products form the staple foods, as they do among all nomads. With the exception of the Christian Chuvashes and the Shaman Yakuts, all the Turks are Mussulmans; but often they are only nominally such, at bottom remaining Shamans. The veneer of Islamism becomes thinner and thinner among the Turkish peoples as we go from west to east. The Osmanlis, the most fanatical of all the Turks, are the most mixed as regards type, language, manners, and customs. It is perhaps to this mixed origin that they owe the relative stability of the state which they have founded, for no nomadic Turkish tribe has been able to create a political organism of long duration, and the vast empires of the Hiungnu, the Uigurs, the Kipchaks, have had only an ephemeral existence.

2. The _Mongols_[417] form an ethnic group more homogeneous as regards manners and customs and physical type than the Turks. Their name is chiefly known on account of the great empire founded by Genghis Khan, but it must be observed that the nomadic hordes united into a single body, and led to victory by this conqueror, were only very partially composed of Mongols, other nomadic peoples, and especially Turks, formed more than half of them. Hence the practice among Europeans, as among the Chinese,--a practice which is kept up to the present time,--of giving the name of one of the Turkish tribes, Ta-ta or Tatar, transformed into _Tartar_, to the Mongols, and extending it to many of the Mongoloid peoples, like the Tunguses for example.

Three principal divisions are recognised in this group: Western Mongols or Kalmuks, the Eastern Mongols, and the Buriats.[418] The _Western Mongols_, who style themselves _Eleuts_, and whom the neighbouring peoples call _Kalmuks_, are scattered, owing to wars and migrations, over the immense tract lying between Siberia and Lassa, from the banks of the Hoang-ho to those of the Manich (a tributary of the Don). The more compact groups are found in European Russia (Kalmuks of Astrakhan, Figs. 20 and 44, and the Caucasus); in Dzungaria (the _Torgoots_) and north-western Mongolia, between Altai and Thian-Shan; lastly, in Alashan and farther to the west in the Chinese province of Kuku-Nor and northern Thibet. They number about a million.

The _Eastern Mongols_ occupy almost the whole of the region known by the name of Mongolia properly so called. In the south of this country they are broken up into a multitude of tribes (_Tumets_, _Shakars_ or _Tsakhar_, etc.); while in the north they form a single nation, that of the _Khalkhas_, which has still preserved, in spite of its submission to China, some traces of its ancient political organisation. The Khalkhas number about 200,000, and the southern Mongols 500,000.

The _Buriats_ form a population sprung from the Khalkhas, intermixed at several points with various Siberian elements, Tunguse, Yakut, Russian; they occupy the steppes and forests of the province of Irkutsk, but their central seat is Transbaikal, whence they spread out even into Mongolia, into the valleys of the Orkhon and the Argun. They number about 250,000.

The type of the _Mongolian race_ is very strongly marked among most of the Kalmuks and Khalkhas; it is less distinct among the Buriats, etc. It may thus be described: Nearly average stature (1 m. 63-64); head, sub-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 83); black straight hair, pilous system little developed; the skin of a pale-yellow or brownish hue, prominent cheek-bones, thin straight flattened nose, Mongoloid eyes (p. 77), etc.

With the exception of some Buriat tribes the Mongols are typical nomadic shepherds. Their live-stock, camels, sheep, and horses supply them not only with food, the raw material for the manufacture of tents and garments, but also means of transport and fuel (camel excrement or dried dung). Unlike the nomadic Turks, who are fond of fighting, the Mongols of the present day are gentle and peaceable folk. Can this be the effect of the influence of Lama-Buddhism, which they all profess except a few small Buriat tribes, who have remained Shamans? We are inclined to believe this when we consider the important part which this religion plays in the daily life of the Mongols.

3. _Thibetans._[419]--We may include under this name the non-Mongolian populations of Thibet and the surrounding countries, known by the name of _Bod_, or _Thibetans properly so called_ in southern Thibet, by the name of _Tanguts_ in the Chinese province of Kuku-Nor, of _Si-fan_ in western Sechuen, by that of _Ladaki_ and _Champa_ in eastern Cashmere (province of Leh), of _Gurong_, _Limbu_, _Mangar_ and _Murmi_ in Nepal, of _Lepchas_ or _Rongs_ in Sikkin, of _Bhutani_ in Bhotan, etc. The _Abors_, _Mishmee_, etc., of the Himalayan country who dominate Assam are also included among the Thibetans, but they approach the Indonesians in type. It is the same with the _Garro_ and their neighbours on the east, the _Khasia_ or _Djainthia_, whose language, however, differs from the Thibetan.[420]

Most Thibetans are cultivators of the soil or shepherds, pillagers in case of need, and fervent votaries of numerous Lamaite-Buddhist sects, of which that of the Geluk-pa (yellow caps) represents the ruling church. Its chief, the Dalai-Lama, residing at Lassa, is at the same time the sovereign of Thibet.

From the somatological point of view the Thibetans exhibit certain sufficiently marked variations. The Bothia are below the average stature (1 m. 62 or 1 m. 63); the Lepchas are short (1 m. 57); and the Thibetans of Nepal vary as regards average stature from 1 m. 59 (Mangars) to 1 m. 67 (Murmis). The head is mesocephalic (ceph. ind. 80.7 on the liv. sub.), but sub-dolichocephalic or sub-brachycephalic forms are frequently met with. As a general rule, side by side with the Mongoloid type may be seen among the Thibetans, singly or united, the traits of another type, a somewhat slender figure, thin, prominent, often aquiline nose, straight eyes with undrooping eyelids, long and sometimes wavy hair, reminding one, in short, of the Gypsy type.[421] This type, moreover, is found beyond Thibet. The _Lo-lo_ or _Nésus_, as they call themselves, of western Sechuen and the north-east of Yunnan, with whom we must connect the _Kolo_ or _Golyk_ of the country of Amdo (east of Thibet), perhaps represent it in its purest form, if the portrait of them drawn by Thorel is correct. With slight figure, brownish complexion, they have a straight profile, oval face, high forehead, straight and arched nose, thick beard even on the sides of the face and always frizzy or wavy hair.[422] Their language, however, fixed by a hieroglyphic mode of writing, appears to belong to the Burmese family.[423] The Lo-lo not under Chinese rule are of a gay disposition; they love dancing and singing. Woman is held among them in great respect; there are some tribes even whose chiefs belong to the weaker sex.

We must connect with the Lo-lo a multitude of other tribes, less pure in type: the various _Miao-tsé_, mountaineers of the southern part of the province of Hunnan, of Kwei-chow, of the northern part of the Kwang-si, the north-west district of Kwang-tung, more or less intermixed with the Chinese; the _Lissus_ of the Lu-tse-Kiang (Upper Salwen) and the Lantsan-Kiang (Upper Mekong), near to the new boundary of China and British India; the _Mosso_ or _Nashis_ of the district of Li-Kiang to the east of the Lissus, related to the latter and having an iconomatic writing; lastly, the _Lu-tse_ or _Kew-tse_, who call themselves _Melams_ or _Anoogs_, to the west of the Lissus and separated by an inhabited tract from the _Mishmee_, the _Sarong_ and other Thibeto-Indonesian tribes. The language of the Lu-tse differs from that of any of the neighbouring peoples, and their physical type places them between the Lissus and the Indonesians, such as the Naga for example; they are short (1 m. 56 according to Roux), but strong and vigorous; their hair is frizzy.[424] The _Mu-tse_ mentioned by Terrien de Lacouperie, the _Lawa_ or _Does_ described by Holt Hallet, the _Muzours_ of T. de Lacouperie or the _Musos_ of Archer, the _Kas-Khuis_ of Garnier, scattered between the Mekong and the Salwen from the twentieth to the twenty-fifth degree of north latitude, are probably akin to the Lo-lo and the Mossos.[425]

III. /Populations of Eastern Asia/.--The far east of Asia is inhabited by three nations of mixed origin: Chinese, Coreans, Japanese.

1. The _Chinese_ form by themselves alone more than the third, if not the half of the population of Asia. They occupy in a solid mass the whole of China properly so called, and stretch in isolated groups far beyond the political limits of the “eighteen provinces.” Manchuria, Southern Mongolia, Dzungaria, a portion of Eastern Turkestan and Thibet have been invaded by Chinese colonists; and outside of the Empire it is estimated there are not less than three millions of “Celestials” who have emigrated to Indo-China, Malaysia, the two Americas, and even to the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Africa.

The Chinese people have sprung from manifold intermixtures, and indeed there are several types to discover in this nation, the anthropological study of which is scarcely more than outlined; as it is, however, according to historical data we may presume that five or six various elements enter into its composition.

We know from the books of Shu-King that the primitive country of the Chinese was the north of the present province of Kan-su. Thence the agricultural colonists moved (about the year 2200 /B.C./, according to a doubtful chronology) into the fertile valley of the Houng-ho and its tributary the Wei or Hwei. Little by little, the Chinese colonists spread along other valleys, but it took them centuries to conquer the aboriginal tribes (the _Djoong_, the _Man_, the _Pa_, the _Miao-tse_). Again in the seventh century /B.C./ (when exact chronology commences) the territory occupied by the Chinese scarcely extended beyond the valley of the lower Yang-tsi on the south and that of the Pei-ho on the north, and comprised within these limits several aboriginal tribes like the _Hoai_, of the valley of the same name, or the _Lai_ of the Shantung peninsula, who maintained their independence. However that may be, the Chinese succeeded, little by little, in driving back the first occupiers of the soil into the mountains of the west and south, where they are still found under the names of _Man-tse_, _Miao-tse_, _I-gen_, _Mans_, _Thos_, etc.[426]

(_Coll. Mus. Nat. Hist. Paris._)]

While this work of driving back was carried on in the south, the Turkish tribes, the Tunguses, the Mongols, the Manchus, invaded in turn the north of the country. Thence resulted a marked difference between the northern and the southern Chinese, while the Chinese of the central parts have perhaps best preserved the original type (Fig. 119). The Chinese of the south belong very largely to the southern Mongolian race (p. 293); they are short, sub-brachycephalic, except in Kwang-si, where mesocephaly predominates, in consequence, probably, of intermixtures with the aborigines of Indonesian race (H. Girard); while the Chinese of the north are on the contrary almost tall of stature; the head is sub-brachycephalic with a tendency towards mesocephaly in the north, towards brachycephaly in the south (Fig. 118). The skin is lighter among the former than among the latter, the face more elongated, etc. One of the peculiarities of the Chinese skull is the retreating forehead, and the contraction at the level of the temples.[427]

(_Coll. Mus. Nat. Hist. Paris._)]

The multiplicity of dialects is equally great. The Chinese of the various provinces would have long since ceased to understand one another had they not possessed as a medium of communication the common signs of the written language (p. 141), which the mandarins read in their own dialects and languages not only in China but also in Corea, in Japan, and Indo-China. We distinguish the _Mandarin_, or _northern, dialect_ (with which we connect the Hakka speech employed in Kwang-tung) and that of the _south_, then the dialects of Fu-Kian, of Che-Kiang, etc. The peculiarities of the Chinese character--filial love, attachment to the soil, aptitude for agriculture and commerce, peaceful disposition, love of routine, respect for letters, observance of form, etc.--are sufficiently known.[428] Most of them are the corollaries of ancestor-worship, of the very rigorous patriarchal régime and the constitution of the commune (p. 248), the basis of the whole social fabric of the Chinese Empire, which, let it be said by the way, exhibits less organic cohesion than is generally supposed. The frequent co-existence of belief in three religions, Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism or Foism, in one and the same individual is one of the remarkable facts of Chinese sociology. Another fact, not less interesting, is the administrative and political mechanism inspired theoretically by very wise and moral ideas, but leading in practice to peculation and carelessness on the part of public officials of which we find it difficult to form any idea in Europe.

2. The _Coreans_, who by their civilisation are connected with China, have in all probability sprung from the intermixture of Tunguse, Indonesian, and Japanese elements. The men are of tall stature,[429] strong, with sub-brachycephalic head (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 82.3, according to Elissiéef, Koganei, and Bogdanof). The women are more puny, and are not conspicuous for beauty; they have a yellowish complexion, small eyes, prominent brow, and very small feet, but not deformed like those of the Chinese (p. 175). The Corean values only one physical charm in woman, and that is her abundant head of hair and eyebrows, “fine as a thread” (Mme. Koïke). Besides, woman is of no account in Corean society; she is an instrument of pleasure or work; she is kept strictly apart from men, rarely leaves the house, and must veil her face.

The Corean language belongs to the Uralo-Altaic family, and is closely related to the Southern Tunguse dialects. Its mode of writing, called _wen-mun_, differs from the Chinese, and appears either to have been invented or derived from the Sanscrit by the Buddhist monks (M. Courant).

The Coreans have no state religion. Buddhism, introduced towards the close of the fourth century, has not taken root among them, and is more and more in danger of extinction. Most Coreans live in a sort of irreligion tempered with some animistic practices: sacrifices to the spirits of the forests and mountains, etc. The Corean civilisation was borrowed entire from China of the fifth or sixth century. The associative tendency, and regard for form and ceremony, are perhaps stronger in Corea than in China. Further, enslavement for debt, crime, etc., exists as a regular thing in the country.[430]

3. The _Japanese_ exhibit, like so many other peoples, a certain diversity in their physical type; the variations fluctuate between two principal forms. The _fine_ type (Figs. 16 and 120), which may chiefly be observed in the upper classes of society, is characterised by a tall, slim figure; a relative dolichocephaly, elongated face, straight eyes in the men, more or less oblique and Mongoloid in the women, thin, convex or straight nose, etc. The _coarse_ type, common to the mass of the people, is marked by the following characters: a thick-set body, rounded skull, broad face with prominent cheek-bones, slightly oblique eyes, flattish nose, wide mouth (Bälz).[431] These two types may have been the result of crossings between Mongol sub-races (northern and southern) and Indonesian or even Polynesian elements. The influence of the Ainu blood is shown only in Northern Nippon.[432]

(_Phot. lent by Collignon._)]

In a general way the Japanese are of short stature (1 m. 59 for men, 1 m. 47 for women), rather robust and well proportioned. The colour of the skin varies from pale yellow, almost white, to brownish yellow. The Japanese have no colour in their cheeks, even when their skin is almost white; at birth there is an accumulation of pigments on the median line of the belly and pigmental spots (see p. 51). The pilous system is scantily developed, except in cases where an admixture of Ainu blood may be suspected. The head is mesaticephalic as a rule (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 78.2), with a tendency to brachycephaly in the gross type, to dolichocephaly in the fine type. The skull, which is capacious, exhibits two peculiarities: the _os japonicum_ (p. 68) and the particular conformation of the upper jaw, which is very low and broad, without the canine fossa. With regard to Japanese writing, see p. 141.

(_Phot. Pr. Rd. Bonaparte._)]

The most striking traits of the Japanese character are politeness and aptness in concealing the emotions; it must not be inferred from this that their nature is bad; on the contrary, they are honest, hard-working, cheerful, kind, and courageous (Mohnike, Mechnikof).[433] European civilisation and the reforms introduced into Japan since 1868 have appreciably modified the manners and customs, but the essential traits of the national character remain unaltered, as they were previously unmodified by the introduction of the Chinese civilisation. The ancient chivalrous spirit of the aristocracy, holding trade in contempt, still survives at the present day, and partly explains the ardour with which persons of this class have flung themselves into political life, since Japan obtained a parliamentary administration (1889). The Japanese have two religions, _Shintoism_, or the national worship of the _Kami_ (native divinities), and Buddhism; but they are fundamentally very sceptical on the subject of religion.[434]

The _islanders_ of the _Liu-Kiu_ or _Loo-choo_ archipelago resemble the Japanese (Chamberlain), but they have a thicker beard and a darker complexion (Bälz); they are of short stature (1 m. 58, according to Dr. Furukawa), and Wirth has even noted among them a tribe of pigmies 1 m. 30 in height in the island of Okinava.

As to the _natives of Formosa_, the Chinese, who have colonised half of the island, divide them into _Pepo-hoan_ (“mellowed” or tamed savages) and _Sek-kuan_ or _Che-hoan_ (raw or uncivilised savages). The former are met with almost everywhere, but chiefly in the north and west of the island, the latter have been driven back into the mountains of the interior and to the south coast. The Che-hoan are split up into several tribes (_Atayal_, _Vonum_ in the north, _Pai-wan_, _Sarisen_, _Butan_ in the south, _Amia_ on the east coast, etc.), and remind us of the Indonesians by their type as well as by several customs (skull-hunting, tattooing, ear-ornaments, house in common or “Palankan”). Some of these “savages” are acquainted with agriculture, others live by the product of the chase. The languages of all these Formosans belong to the Malay family, especially approximating to the Tagal.[435]

IV. /Populations of Indo-China/.--We must distinguish in the transgangetic peninsula the probable _Aborigines_ and the peoples sprung from the interminglings of these aborigines with the invaders coming from the adjoining countries, and whose migrations are at least partly known to history. These mixed populations are the _Annamese_, the _Thais_, the _Khmers_ or _Cambodians_, the _Burmese_, and the _Malays_.

(1) _The Aborigines._--The numerous populations scattered almost all over Indo-China having a right to this name may be mustered into eight groups, of which I proceed to give a short account.

_a. The Mois._--We designate by this name the numerous so-called “savage tribes” dispersed over the table-lands and mountains between the Mekong and the Annamese coast, from the frontiers of Yun-nan to Cochin-China (district of Baria). In spite of the various names given to the Mois by the adjoining nations (they are called _Mois_ in Annam, _Peu-nongs_ in Cambodia, _Khas_ in Laos, etc.), and of the multitude of tribes into which they are divided (the _Mo_, the _Sas_, the _Bruns_, the _Bolovens_, the _Lové_, the _Bannars_, the _Rdé_, the _Laté_, the _Thioma_, the _Trao_, etc.), the Mois exhibit a remarkable uniformity in physical type and manners (Neïs). They are as a rule short (1 m. 57), and dolichocephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 77); their skin is tan-like white in colour, reddish; their hair is more or less wavy, they have straight eyes, etc. In short, they differ as much from the Annamese as the Thai, and in all probability belong for the most part to the Indonesian race. Hunters or primitive husbandmen (the crop is gathered by picking with the hand the rice from the stalk; the cooking of the rice is effected in bamboos, which roast on the fire, etc.), they go almost naked and use only primitive arms, spears, poisoned arrows, etc. They are of fairly peaceful habits.[436]

_b. The Kuis._--This name distinguishes two ethnic groups of Indo-China: one in the south-east of Siam and the north-west of Cambodia, the other in the country of Kieng-Tung or Xieng-Tong (Shan States, under British protection). The former appear to be aborigines like the Mois; the latter are simply a branch of the _Lo-lo_ or _Mosso_ (see p. 381). The Kuis of Cambodia are in stature under the average (1 m. 63), sub-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 82), and have a darker skin than the Laotians (Harmand). Nearly all of them can speak Cambodian and are forgetting their mother-tongue; they have the reputation of being skilful smiths.[437]

(_Coll. Ind. Mus., London._)]

_c._ The _Mons_ or _Talaing_ are the remnants of a population which formerly occupied the whole of lower Burma, and have been driven back into the unhealthy region of the deltas of the Irrawaddy, Sittong, and Salwen rivers; their territory has mostly been taken by a population sprung from the intermingling of the Mons with the Burmese.

The three groups of tribes which we have just enumerated speak monosyllabic dialects correlated as regards their vocabularies, at least so far as the words indicating numbers, the parts of the body, trades, etc., are concerned. These dialects further present analogies with the Khmer (p. 398) and Khasia languages (p. 380).[438]

_d._ The _Tziam_ or _Chiam_, on the other hand, are closely allied to the Malaysian linguistic family. Their language, fixed by writing of Indian origin, reminds us of the dialects of the Philippines. About 130,000 in number, they inhabit the province of Binh-Tuan and several other points of Southern Annam, as well as Cochin-China (province of Baria, etc.) and Cambodia. They represent all that remains of a once powerful people, the founders of the empire of _Champa_, which extended over the whole of Annam, as it now is, and the southern part of Tong King. A section of the Tziam are Mussulmans, but the majority are animist. The physical type is handsome; nose almost aquiline, eyes without the Mongoloid fold, wavy or frizzy hair, dark skin. Contrary to what exists among other peoples of Indo-China, among the Tziams it is the woman who asks the hand in marriage.[439]

_e._ The _Karens_, who inhabit the upper valley of the Me Ping and the mountainous districts of Arakan, Pegu, and Tenasserim, the country between the Sittong and the Salwen (_red Karens_), probably came into Burma at a later date than the Mons; they maintain that they came thither from Yunnan about the fifth century of the present era. In stature they are under the average (1 m. 64, according to Mason), and they exhibit traits intermediate between those of the Malays and the Thai (see below). Numbering about a million, they are speedily becoming civilised while striving at the same time to preserve their independence.[440]

The _Khyens_ or _Chin_ of the mountains of Arakan and the _Tung-tu_ of Tenasserim are Karens crossed with Burmese and Shans (p. 401). The _Lemets_, the _Does_, and the _Khmus_ of Fr. Garnier (_Kamu_ and _Kamet_ of MacLeod) who inhabit the east of Luang-Prabang (French Laos), and perhaps the _Lavas_ or _Does_ of H. Hallet, mountaineers of West Siam, are related to the Karens or Khyens.

_f._ The _Nagas_ of Manipur and the mountains extending to the north (Patkoi, Barai) of this country are Indonesians more or less pure both in physical type (Frontispiece and Fig. 17) and manners and customs. They may be sub-divided into _Angami_, _Kanpui_, etc., wearing the petticoat or apron, of the west; into _Lhota_, _Ho_, etc., wearing the plaid, of the centre; and into _Nangta_, or naked, of the east. Various ethnic peculiarities, skull-hunting and multicoloured hair or feather ornaments, long shields (Frontispiece), breast-plates, method of weaving, and houses in common (_Morong_), connect them with the Dyaks and other Indonesians. Tattooing prevails only among the tribes with a monarchical organisation (Klemm). The _Lushai_, who live at the south of Manipur, are Nagas mixed with Kyens and Burmese of Arakan. They may be sub-divided into several tribes: the _Kuki_, subject to the English, very short (medium height 1 m. 57); the _Lushai_ properly so called, partly in subjection (41,600 in Assam), somewhat slender (1 m. 63), with brown skin, flat nose, prominent cheek-bones, husbandmen;[441] the _Saks_, _Kamis_, and _Shendons_ or _Shaws_. West of the Lushai dwell the _Tippera_ and the _Mrows_, tribes of short stature (1 m. 59), still more pronouncedly intermingled with the Burmese.[442]

(_Phot. Lapicque._)]

_g._ The _Selungs_ are also regarded as Indonesians; numbering but a thousand in all, they live in their canoes in the _Mergui_ archipelago, wandering from island to island like veritable gypsies of the sea, after the manner of the _Orang-Sletar_ of the Straits of Singapore, now quite disappeared. In the same category we may also place the natives of the _Nicobar_ islands, though among the latter we must distinguish (1) the _Nicobarese_ of the small islands and the coasts of Great Nicobar who have intermixed with the Malays, and (2) the _Shom-Pen_ of the interior of the latter island, savages of a somewhat pure Indonesian type.[443]

_h._ We must also include in this long list of the aboriginal peoples of Indo-China the _Negritoes_,[444] belonging to a distinct race, chiefly characterised by short stature, black skin, and frizzy or woolly hair (see p. 288). As genuine representatives of this race, only three tribes are known: the _Aeta_, who inhabit the Philippine islands (p. 483); the _Sakai_ of the interior of the Malay peninsula; and the _Minkopis_ of the Andaman islands.

The _Minkopis_ or _Andamanese_ (Fig. 124), of very short stature (1 m. 49), sub-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. 82.6 average on the skull and on the liv. sub.), are in the lowest scale of civilisation. They live in “chongs”--small roofs on four stakes (p. 160), go naked, and procure the strict necessaries of life by hunting, making use of a peculiar kind of bow (p. 263). In number they scarcely exceed five thousand (E. Reclus).

_i._ The pure _Sakai_, _Semangs_ or _Menik_ (as for example those of Gunong-Inas, Fig. 123) are the same height as the Minkopis (1 m. 49), but their head is less round and their face more angular than those of the latter; they live likewise by hunting and by the gathering of honey, camphor, india-rubber, and other products of tropical forests, which they exchange with the Malays for tools, arms, etc. Several populations of the Malay peninsula, particularly the _Mintra_, the _Jakhuns_ of Jokol, are Sakai-Malay half-breeds, as is shown by the light colour of their skin, their stature, higher than that of the Sakai, but still very short (1 m. 54), their frizzy hair, etc.

2. Let us pass on to the _mixed populations_ of Indo-China, springing from the probable cross-breeds of the autochthones and the invaders.

(_Phot. Lapicque._)]

The _Cambodians_ or _Khmers_ have the first place by seniority. At the present day they inhabit Cambodia, the adjoining parts of Siam, and the south of Cochin-China, but they formerly extended much farther. Two centuries ago, before the arrival of the Annamese, they occupied the whole of Cochin-China, while to-day they are found in any considerable number only in the unhealthy and marshy regions of the Rach-gia, Soktrang, and Tra-Vinh districts, where their number equals or exceeds that of the Annamese. It may be conjectured that the Khmers have sprung from the intermixing of the Malays and Kuis, with an infusion of Hindu blood at least in the higher classes of society. The Cambodians are taller (1 m. 65) than the Annamese and the Thai, but almost as brachycephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub. 83.6); their eyes are rarely oblique, their hair is often wavy, etc. This population has preserved much of its primitive savagery in spite of the influence of several successive civilisations, of which remain the splendid monuments of Angkor-Vat, Angkor-Tom, etc.[445]

The population which chronologically succeeds the Cambodians is that of the _Annamese_ (Fig. 121), the inhabitants of the delta in Tong King, of the coast in Annam, and most of Cochin-China. Some Annamese colonies are also found in Cambodia, in Laos, and among the Mois. The Annamese people, fifteen to seventeen millions strong at the present time, is the outcome of numerous interminglings. Of western origin, according to its traditions, that is to say akin to the Thai peoples, it came at an early period into the country which it now occupies. It found already installed there the Mois, the Khmers, and the Malays, which it succeeded in assimilating or pushing back into the mountains and the unhealthy regions; but it has had to support in its turn the continual immigrations of the Chinese who brought their civilisation to it. In spite of these complex interminglings the Annamese type is very uniform (Harmand). The men are short in stature (1 m. 58), with slender limbs, brachycephalic head (ceph. ind. 82.8), of angular visage with prominent cheek-bones, and Mongoloid eyes.

The Annamese of Tong King are a little taller (1 m. 59) and darker than those of Cochin-China and Annam (height 1 m. 57); they have also a broader and flatter nose, the result perhaps of intermixture with the Thos mountaineers (p. 401) who live near them.[446] The social life of the Annamese is modelled on that of the Chinese; the village community and the patriarchal family form the base of it, in the same way as ancestor-worship is the religious foundation. Annamese Buddhism is only a colourless copy of Chinese Foism and has no great hold of the people. Very docile, the Annamese are intelligent, cheerful, and well gifted, without being exempt from certain defects of character, common to all Asiatics of the far East, such as dissimulation, hypocrisy, and perfidy.