September 29, 1910] 



NATURE 



419 



racial element. It will also be necessary to push inquiry 

 beyond the bounds of the Indian Empire, and, like the 

 trigonometrical surveyor, to fix the base line as a datum in 

 India, and extend the triangulation through the border- 

 lands. It is in these regions that the ethnological problems 

 of India await their final solution. Many of these countries 

 are still beyond our reach. Until the survey of the routes 

 converging at Herat, Kabul, or Kandahar is complete, th^ 

 extent of the influence of the western races — Assyrian, 

 Babylonian, Iranian, .\rab, and Greek — cannot be deter- 

 mined. Recent surveys in Tibet have thrown much light 

 on that region, but it is still only very partially examined. 

 In Nepal the suspicious native Government still bars the 

 way to the Buddhist sites in the Tarai and the Nepal 

 valley, and thus a wide chapter in the extension of Hindu 

 influence beyond the mountain range remains incomplete. 



The second great problem is the origin and development 

 of caste. We have yet to seek a definition which will cover 

 the complex phases of this institution, and effect a reconcile- 

 ment between the views of Indian observers who trace it to 

 the clash of races or colours, and that of the sociologists, 

 who lay little stress on race or colour and rely more upon 

 the influence of environment, physical or moral. We must 

 abandon the insular method which treats it only in relation 

 to India, and ignores the analogous grouping of rank and 

 class which was prepotent in Western Europe and else- 

 where, and is now slowly losing ground in the face of 

 industrial development. It is by the study of tribes which 

 are on the borderland of Hinduism that we must look for a 

 solution of the problem. The conflict of the Aryan and 

 aboriginal culture, on which the religious and social 

 systems of Hinduism were based, is reproduced in the 

 contact between modern Hinduism and the forest tribes. 

 Since the Hindus are the only members of the Aryan stock 

 among whom we find endogamous groups with exogamous 

 sections, the suggestion of Prof. Frazer that they may have 

 borrowed it from the non-Aryans gains probability. The 

 Dravidians within the Indian totemic area have worked 

 out an elaborate system of their own, which is well 

 described in the recent survey of the Malayans by Mr. 

 F T. Richards. How far this is connected with their 

 preference for mother-right and their strong family 

 organisation, of a more archaic type than the joint family 

 of the Aryans, is a question which deserves examination. 

 The influence, again, of religion must be considered, and 

 this can be done with the most hopeful results in regions 

 like eastern Bengal, where a people who have only in a 

 very imperfect way adopted Hinduism are now being 

 converted wholesale to Muhammadanism. 



Again, when we speak of the tribe in India, we must 

 remember that it assumes at least seven racial types, 

 ranging from the elaborate exogamous groups of the 

 Rajputs to the more archaic form characteristic of the 

 Baloch and Pathdn tribes of the western frontier, attached 

 to which are alien sections affiliated by the obligation to 

 join in the common blood-feud, which in process of time 

 develops into a fiction of blood-brotherhood. Thus among 

 the Marri of Baluchistan we can trace the course of evolu- 

 tion : admission to participate in the common blood-feud, 

 admission to participation in a share of the tribal land, and 

 finally admission to kinship in the tribe. 



This elasticity of structure has permitted not only the 

 admission of non-.Aryan tribes into the Rajput body in 

 modern times, but prepares us to understand how the 

 majority of the Rajputs were created by a similar process 

 of fusion, the new-comers being known as the Gurjaras, 

 who entered India in the train of the Huns in the fifth or 

 sixth centuries of our era. The recognition of this fact, bv 

 far the most important contribution made in recent times 

 to the ethnology of India, is due 'to a group of Bombay 

 scholars, the late Mr. -A. M. T. Jackson, whose untimely 

 death at the hand of an assassin we deeply regret, and R. G. 

 and D. R. Bhandarkar. Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar has recently 

 proved that a group of these Gurjara Huns, possibly the 

 tribal priests or genealogists, were admitted first to the 

 rank of Brahmans, and then, by a change of function, of 

 which analogies are found in the older Sanskrit literature, 

 becoming Rajputs, are now fepresented by the Guhilots, one 

 of the proudest septs. This opens up a new view of tribal 

 and caste development. Now that we can certainly trace 

 the blood of the Huns among the Rajput, Jat, and Gujar 



NO. 2135. VOL. 84] 



tribes, a fresh impulse will be given for the quest of sur- 

 vivals in belief and custom connecting them with their 

 Central Asian kinsfolk. 



In what I have said I have preferred to speculate on a 

 problem for work in the future rather than dwell upon the 

 progress which has been already made. In the sphere of 

 religion we have passed the stage when, as Prof. Max 

 MiJller said, " the best solvent of the old riddles of 

 mythology is to be found in the etymological analysis of 

 the names of gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines," or 

 when the " disease of language " theory was generally 

 accepted. The position, in fact, has completely changed 

 since Comparative Religion has adopted the methods of 

 Anthropology. The study of myths has given way to that 

 of cults, the former being often only naive attempts to 

 explain the latter. India offers wide fields for inquiry by 

 these new methods, because it supplies examples of cult 

 in its most varied and instructive phases. The examina- 

 tion of Hinduism, the last existing polytheism of the archaic 

 type, is likely to explain much hitherto obscure in the 

 development of other .pantheons. It is no longer possible 

 to refer the coinplex elements of this or any other group of 

 similar beliefs to a single class of physical concepts. The 

 sun, the dawn, the golden gates of sunset, or the dairy no 

 longer furnish the key which unlocks the secret. It is by 

 the study of the Animism, Shamanism, or Magic of the 

 lower tribes that Hinduism can be interpreted. This 

 analysis shows that behind the myths and legends which 

 shroud the forms of the sectarian gods the dim shape of a 

 Mother goddess appears, at once chthonic or malignant 

 because she gives shelter to the dead, and beneficent 

 because she nurtures the sons of men with the kindly fruits 

 of the earth. Beside her, though his embodiment is much 

 less clearly defined, stands a male deity, her consort, and 

 by a process of magic, mimetic, sympathetic, or homceo- 

 pathic, their union secures the fertility of the animal and 

 vegetable creation. 



Much, however, remains to be done before the prob- 

 lems of this complex polytheism can be fully solved. 

 The action of archaic religions, as has been well said, 

 " takes place in the mysterious twilight of sub-conscious- 

 ness " ; and the foreign observer is trammelled by the 

 elaborate system of tabu with which the Hindu veils the 

 performance of his religious rites. This feeling extends to 

 all classes, and the ceremonial of the jungle shrines is as 

 little open to examination as the penetralia of the greater 

 temples. The great army of mendicant friars jealously 

 conceals the secrets of its initiation, rites, and beliefs, and 

 this field of Indian religious life remains practically un- 

 worked. Much may be done by the training of a body of 

 native observers who are not subject to the tabu imposed 

 upon the foreigner. Here the difficulty lies in the con- 

 tempt displayed by the higher educated classes towards the 

 beliefs and usages of the lower tribes. There are some 

 indications that this feeling is passing away, and in recent 

 years m.uch useful ethnological work has been done by 

 native scholars. 



The problems of ethnology, so far as they are concerned 

 with the origin of prehistoric races and their relation to the 

 existing population, are more or less academic. Ethno- 

 graphy, which examines the religious, cultural, and in- 

 dustrial conditions of the people, has more practical uses. 

 At the present time it is incumbent upon us to preach, in 

 season and out of season, that the information which it is 

 competent to supply is the true basis of administrative and 

 social reform. If, for example, we were now in possession 

 of the facts which an anthropometrical survey of our home 

 population would supply, many of our social problems 

 would assume a clearer aspect. Such, for instance, are the 

 questions of degeneration due to slum life and malnutrition, 

 the influence of alcoholism on industrial efficiency, the 

 condition of dangerous and sweated industries, and that of 

 the aliens settled in our midst. It is characteristic of the 

 genius of the English people, that while we are not yet 

 prepared l^o admit the need of such a survey, the provision 

 of medical inspection and relief for children in elementary 

 si?hools will soon render it inevitable. 



This is more clearly the case in those regions where a 

 large native population is controlled by a small European 

 minority. The Negro question in America teaches us a 

 useful iosson, applicable to native races in most parts of 



