i8o 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



The new-comers from the north prided 

 themselves on their fair complexion. Their 

 earliest poets, three or perhaps four thousand 

 years ago, praised in the Rig-Veda their 

 gods, who " subjected the black-skin to the 

 Aryan man," and speak of those who, " slaying 

 the Dasyus, protected the Aryan colour." 

 The Aryan with his finely formed features 

 loathed the ugly and perhaps somewhat 

 Negroid faces of the aborigines. Vedic hymns 

 abound in scornful epithets for the primitive 

 tribes, such as "disturbers of sacrifices," 

 "lawless," "without rites," "without gods." 

 Having been driven back into the forests, 

 they were painted in still more hideous 

 shapes, until they became the "monsters" 

 and " demons " of the Aryan poets. Their 

 name " enemy " thus came to mean " devil." 

 Our friend Mr. William Crooke, a well- 

 known ethnologist, has formed a different 

 idea of the so-called Aryan invasion. He 

 thinks " it was never apparently an invasion 

 in the common sense of the word, an inroad 

 of a fully organised nation, overwhelming 

 and enslaving the indigenous races, such as 

 was, for instance, that of the Turkish tribes 

 into Europe. The colonisation of Central 

 Asia by the Mongol races probably took place 

 through the Indian Peninsula, and this was 

 followed by a continuous southward movement 

 of the Aryans which was only part of that great series of emigrations which went on continuously 

 during prehistoric times. Their incoming may have been gradual and spread over vast eras of 

 time; it may have taken the shape of successive waves of colonists, never very numerous, and 

 establishing their superiority more by the influence of their higher culture -than by actual brute 

 force. In some places they may have become real over-lords of the races which they found in 

 the country; in the other parts the conquered may have absorbed their conquerors. This theory 

 would in a measure account for some of the most difficult problems in the ethnology of 'Upper 

 India." He goes on to point out that the Aryans did not, as has previously been supposed, 

 occupy the fertile plains and rich alluvial valleys, because they were covered with impenetrable 

 forests, swarming with dangerous beasts, and full of malaria. Rather they took the course of 

 the lower hills that flank the river valleys. His view is not that the Dravidians were driven 

 into the mountains by the Aryans, but that the former were always living among the 

 mountains where we find them. 



Photo by J/. Pierre Prill] [Pirns. 



A TAMIL MAN OF CEYLON (MIXED TYPE). 



HINDU CASTES. 



THE dark aborigines of India, Kolarians and Dravidians, were undoubtedly far more numerous 

 than their fair Aryan conquerors, and the latter would certainly have been absorbed by them 

 had not the system of caste been invented. Accordingly, by the laws of Manu, marriage with 

 the dark races was strictly forbidden, and a definite rank was assigned to each shade of colour 

 which had been already developed. Caste therefore originally meant colour, and by its means 

 the intruding Aryans maintained their supremacy. But already a certain amount of fusion 



