VII.] THE OCEANIC MONGOLS. 26 1 



a strain of Dutch blood dating from the iyth century. This 

 is confirmed by the old books and other curious documents 

 found amongst them, which have given rise to so much specula- 

 tion, and, it may be added, some mystification, regarding a 

 peculiar writing-system and a literature formerly current amongst 

 the Formosan aborigines 1 . 



3. The Chinhwans, " Green Barbarians " that is, utter 

 savages, the true independent aborigines, of whom there are an 

 unknown number of tribes, but regarding whom the Chinese 

 possess but little definite information. Not so their Japanese 

 successors, one of whom, Mr Kisak Tamai 2 , tells us that the 

 Chinhwans show a close resemblance to the Malays of the 

 Malay Peninsula and also to those of the Philippines, and in 

 some respects to the Japanese themselves. When dressed like 

 Japanese and mingling with Japanese women, they can hardly 

 be distinguished from them. The vendetta is still rife amongst 

 many of the ruder tribes, and such is their traditional hatred of 

 the Chinese intruders that no one can either be tattooed or 

 permitted to wear a bracelet until he has carried off a Celestial 

 head or two. In every household there is a frame or bracket on 

 which these heads are mounted, and some of their warriors can 

 proudly point to over seventy of such trophies. It is a relief to 

 hear that with their new Japanese masters they have sworn friend- 

 ship, these new rulers of the land being their " brothers and 

 sisters." The oath of eternal alliance is taken by digging a hole 

 in the ground, putting a stone in it, throwing earth at each other, 

 then covering the stone with the earth, all of which means that 

 " as the stone in the ground keeps sound, so do we keep our 

 word unbroken." 



It is interesting to note that this Japanese ethnologist's remarks 

 on the physical resemblances of the aborigines are 

 fully in accord with those of European observers. Affinities 

 Thus to Dr Hamy they recalled the Igorrotes of 



1 See facsimiles of bilingual and other MSS. from Formosa in T. de 

 Lacouperie's Formosa Notes on MSS., Languages, and Races, Hertford, 1887. 

 The whole question is here fully discussed, though the author seems unable to 

 arrive at any definite conclusion even as to the bona or mala fides of the noted 

 impostor George Psalmanazar. 



a Globus, 70, p. 93 sq. 



