438 SYSTEMS OF C X S A ^' G U I Is 1 T Y AND AFFIXTY 



CHAPTER IV. 



SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIP OF UNCLASSIFIED ASIATIC NATIONS. 



Burmese and Karens — Their System of Relationship classiflcatory — Whether an Independent or a Subordinate Form 

 of the Turanian uncertain. 1. Burmese — Not Ancient within their present Area — Their System of Relationship 

 — It possesses a number of Turanian Characteristics— Lineal Line — First Collateral Line — Second and other 

 Collateral Lines — Marriage Relationships — Recapitulation of its Radical Characteristics. 2. Karens — The People 

 without Nationality — Dialects of the Karen Language — Mr. Judson's Description of the Karens — Their System 

 closely allied to the Burmese — Three Schedules in the Table — Lineal and Collateral Lines — Marriage Relation- 

 ships — Bui-mese and Karen complete the Series of Asiatic Schedules — Concluding Observations. 



There are two other Asiatic nations represented in the Table, (Table III.) ■which 

 remain to be noticed, the Burmese and the Karen. They are left, for the present, 

 as unclassified, for the reason that their system of relationship, although it belongs 

 to the classificatory division, -does not affiliate decisively with any form hitherto, or 

 hereafter, to be presented. It approaches very closely to that of the people of 

 North India, but differs from it in some particulars which are material. There 

 were reasons for placing the Gaura form in the Turanian connection which do not 

 exist in the present case. The nomenclature of relationships in the Hindi, Bengali, 

 and other dialects of the Gaura language, as we have seen, has been so greatly 

 changed imder Sanskritic influence that it was a more reasonable supposition that 

 the system itself had been modified from a higher to a lower Turanian form, than 

 that it had remained unchanged under the pressure of the modifying causes which 

 had supplanted its aboriginal terms of relationship. From these considerations the 

 Gaura form was placed in the Turanian connection. There is no evidence, and 

 but little probabHity, that the system of consanguinity of the Burmese or of the 

 Karens has been influenced from without, and it has, without doubt, continued in 

 its present condition for a long period of time. It has also been stated that all 

 the systems of relationship of the human family fall under two general divisions, 

 the descriptive and the classificatory. Of the first there is no subordinate form, 

 that of the Aryan, the Semitic, and the Uralian families being identical ; but of 

 the second there are three which may be regarded as distinct, the Turanian, the 

 Malayan, and the Eskimo; and there maybe a fourth form, of which the Burmese 

 and the Karen are representatives, which may yet be found to be widely distributed 

 amongst Asiatic nations not represented in the Tables. Until after the forms 

 which prevail among these nations have been investigated, it is preferable to leave 

 unclassified the systems about to be presented. 



1. Burmese. The Burmese are not regarded by ethnologists as a very ancient 

 people within their present area. They first came into prominence as a nation 

 about the middle of the last century. The ethnic relations of the native popula- 



