VII.] THE OCEANIC MONGOLS. 263 



Oceanic stock language, and in the Gyarung and the non-Chinese 

 tongues of Eastern China 1 . Formosa thus presents a curious 

 ethnical and linguistic connecting link between the Continental 

 and Oceanic populations. 



In the Nicobar archipelago are distinguished two ethnical 

 groups, the coast people, i.e. the Nicobarese* proper, 



TVi e* 



and the Shorn Pen, aborigines of the less accessible Nicobarese 

 inland districts in Great Nicobar. But the dis- 

 tinction appears to be rather social than racial, and we may now 

 conclude with Mr E. H. Man that all the islanders belong 

 essentially to the Mongolic division, the inlanders representing 

 the pure type, the others being " descended from a mongrel 

 Malay stock, the crosses being probably in the majority of cases 

 with Burmese and occasionally with natives of the opposite coast 

 of Siam, and perchance also in remote times with such of the 

 Shorn Pen as may have settled in their midst 3 ." 



Among the numerous usages which point to an Indo-Chinese 

 and Oceanic connection are pile-dwellings ; the chewing of betel, 

 which appears to be here mixed with some earthy substance 

 causing a dental incrustation so thick as even to prevent the 

 closing of the lips; distention of the ear-lobe by wooden cylinders; 

 aversion from the use of milk ; and the couvade, as amongst some 

 Bornean Dyaks. The language, which has an extraordinarily rich 

 phonetic system (as many as 25 consonantal and 35 vowel 

 sounds), is polysyllabic and untoned, like the Malayo-Polynesian, 

 and the type also seems to resemble the Oceanic more than the 

 Continental Mongol subdivision. Mean height 5 ft. 3 in. (Shorn 

 Pen one inch less) ; nose wide and flat ; eyes rather obliquely 

 set ; cheek-bones prominent ; features flat, though less so than in 

 the normal Malayan ; complexion mostly a yellowish or reddish- 

 brown (Shorn Pen dull brown) ; hair a dark rusty brown, rarely 

 quite black, straight, though not seldom wavy and even ringletty, 

 but Shorn Pen generally quite straight. 



1 De Lacouperie, op. cit. p. 73. 



The natives of course know nothing of this word, and speak of their 

 island homes as Mattai, a vague term applied equally to land, country, village, 

 and even the whole world. 



:} The Nicobar Islanders, \\\Jour. Anthrop. last. 1889, p. 354 sq. 



