proceedings: anthropological society 257 



of the Di\nsion of Far Eastern Affairs, Department of State, who 

 presented a paper on The origins of the Chinese. Mr. WilUams out- 

 lined four theories regarding the origin of the Chinese that deserve 

 examination. 



The first, advocated by Dr. L. Wieger, a missionary of the Society of 

 Jesus, is that they originated in the Indo-Chinese Peninsula. His 

 reasons for so beheving are, briefly, that 



1. The Chinese ideograms have existed since 3000 B.C. and the 

 most ancient represent tropical animals and plants, thus pointing to a 

 tropical country as the place of origin for the race. 



But the oldest Chinese ideograms known to the world are not older 

 than 1200 B.C., when the Chinese were already settled in the valley 

 of the Yellow River and in constant intercourse with their neighbors 

 to the south. These ancient ideograms, moreover, represent animals 

 and plants of the temperate zone rather than of the tropics. Those 

 for sheep and cattle are found, too, in many root words, indicating 

 that the early Chinese were shepherds and herdsmen, pursuits not found 

 in tropical countries. 



2. Other reasons given for a tropical origin are that the oldest form 

 of the Chinese language is found in southern China today. 



3. The Chinese language is purest in the south and grows more and 

 more corrupt as one approaches the north. 



4. The Chinese language is tonal, as are the languages of Indo- 

 China, and is therefore most nearly related to these. 



It is not necessary, however, to assume a southern origin for the race 

 to account for these facts, which are just as easily explained by the 

 arrival of the Chinese from the north in successive waves of migration, 

 the later comers crowding the earlier further and further towards the 

 south, so that the oldest and purest forms of Chinese would be found 

 just where they are The tonal languages of the Indo-Chinese Peninsula 

 in that case are to be regarded as the languages of the vanguard of the 

 migration. 



As a . matter of history it is now knovv^n that many tribes of Cambodia, 

 Siam, and Burma came from the north, the Tibeto-Burmans from a 

 region as far north as the Tien Shan. Some social or physical change 

 forced these tribes to migrate. The dominant element in the population 

 of Burma did not reach that land until about two or three thousand 

 years ago, while the tribes of Cambodia arrived in their present habitat 

 about 215 B.C. and the Shans, progenitors of the Siamese, ruled south- 

 ern China until the thirteenth century of the Christian era. The 

 movement of races therefore has been from north to south and not vice 

 versa. 



The second theory is that the Chinese originated on the Ame ican 

 continent. This theory does not require much attention. There 

 have been movements of population, it is true, from America to Siberia, 

 even in historical times, and there is cultural and physical similarity 

 if not identity of the peoples on the opposite shores of the northern 

 Pacific. But the tribes of which this is true lie to northeast of China 



