222 



NATURE 



\yan. 6, i88r 



above the brute. The man could make twine, the 

 woman a rush basket" {op. cit., p. lo). 



Cannibalism has also been prevalent, assuming amongst 

 some tribes a very revolting form. 



Unfortunately not many of the Aborigines are left to 

 benefit by the enlightened and humane system of treat- 

 ment tardily introduced by the local administrations. 

 There are probably not 30,000 left in all Australia ; even 

 those of Victoria, who are best cared for, are dying out 

 except in a few favoured stations, and " Lalla Rookh," 

 the last of the pure blood Tasmanian women, died in 

 June, 1876. The Tasmanians differed in many important 

 respects from the Australians. They were of darker 

 colour and considerably less dolichocephalous, with 

 decidedly frizzly hair, this latter feature bringing them 

 into close connection with the Melanesians. In point of 

 culture they stood almost on the lowest level, possessing 

 no fixed abodes, wearing no clothes, never cultivating the 

 land, unacquainted with the rudest arts, possessing neither 

 domestic animals, pottery, nor the boomerang or bows 

 and arrows of the .Au>tralians. They were divided into a 

 great number of tribes, speaking as many as nine quite 

 distinct languages, but so little developed that the sense 

 was largely eked out with the aid of gesture and signs. 

 Yet their cranial capacity seems to have been slightly 

 greater than that of their neighbours (index So as com- 

 pared with 78), while they were nearly as orthognathous 

 as Europeans. These contradictions constitute the Tas- 

 manian a type sui generis, allied partly to the Australian, 

 partly to the Melanesian and Polynesian, with some 

 special features which may perhaps be due to their long 

 isolation from other races. 



B— CAUCASIAN TYPE 

 IV. Continental Branch : Khmer or Cambojan 



Group 

 In Further India, with one exception, all the settled 

 peoples forming recognised nationalities, that is, the 

 Burmese, Thai or Siainese and Annamese, are physically 

 of Mongolian stock, and all speak languages of the 

 monosyllabic or isolating class. The same is largely true 

 of the Mishmis, Khasias, Kuki^, Nagas, Khyengs, Karens, 

 and other wild tribes in the west and north-west, as well 

 as of the Shans, Mou-tz', and many Miau-tz' tribes in the 

 north. Hence the universal assumption that, excluding 

 Malacca, all the inhabitants of the peninsula constitute 

 one ethnical and linguistic group allied to the Chinese in 

 the north and to the Tibeto-Himalayan races of the north- 

 west, and with them forming collectively the great South- 

 Eastern division of the Mongolian family. This comfort- 

 able theory was first shaken by the revelations of the 

 fainous French expedition of 1866-8 up the Me-Khong 

 River, since when the writings of Dr. Thorel, Francis 

 Gamier, E. Aymonnier, C. E. Bouillevaux, Dr. Har- 

 mand, and other French naturalists have made it abun- 

 dantly evident that there is in this region an important 

 non-Mongolian element, which must henceforth be taken 

 into account. Yet so slowly does scientific truth make 

 its way against long-e>tablished error, that the fact has 

 scarcely yet been recognised in any comprehensive trea- 

 tise on ethnology or linguistics. In a paper prepared 

 for the meeting of the ISritish Association in Sheffield 

 in 1879, and since published in separate form,' I en- 

 deavoured to determine the true nature of this non- 

 Mongolian element, and to point out its essential impor- 

 tance in connection with the classification of all the 

 Indo-Chinese and Oceanic races. It was there shown 

 that the Khmer or Cambojan nation, the exception above 

 referred to, together with a large number of kindred 

 peoples inhabiting the Lower IVIekhong basin and the 

 region between that river and the Coast range running 

 from Cape St. James northwards to the Chinese frontier, 



' "Onthe R.htions of ihe Indo-Chinese and Inler-Oceanic Races and 

 Languages." (Krubner, iS?o.) 



form a distinct racial and linguistic group, of the same 

 physical type as the Mediterranean or Caucasian races 

 of the west, and closely akin to the brown Oceanic races 

 of Malaysia and the Pacific. 



The arguments brought forward in support of this view 

 need not here be formally repeated, and it will be suffi- 

 cient to vindicate the use of the term " Caucasian " as 

 thus extended to the remotest Polynesian islands. It 

 has been objected that there are no Aryan languages 

 in the far east, and that the Eastern Polynesians are a 

 brown race, consequently that the word Caucasian cannot 

 here apply. But those who so argue seem scarcely to 

 realise the nature of the problem. Caucasian is not a 

 linguistic, but an ethnical expression ; hence although 

 the Aryan, Basque, Semitic, and many languages of the 

 Caucasus have no conceivable relationship with each 

 other, we do not hesitate to regard those who speak these 

 languages as of one stock because their physical type is 

 substantially the same. This type we conventionally call 

 Caucasian or Mediterranean, which terms must be held 

 to applv wherever the physical features implied by them 

 are found, irrespective altogether of the language ques- 

 tion. Why speech and type should not correspond is 

 another problem, which admits of an obvious solution, 

 but which cannot here detain us. 



The objection based on colour, though more to the 

 point, is scarcely more forcible. The brown Polynesians 

 are not supposed to spring directly from the fair Euro- 

 peans, but to have gradually spread from Indo-China 

 through Malaysia to their present homes ; and it will be 

 presently seen that there are peoples in Indo-China brown 

 enough to suit the Polynesian taste, and fair enough to 

 claim kinship with the western nations. Besides, the 

 question of colour must anthropologically be regarded as 

 altogether of secondary importance. There are black 

 Caucasians in Abyssinia, deep brown Caucasians in the 

 Ganges Valley, dusky or swarthy Hamites and Semites, 

 also Caucasians, in North Africa and Arabia ; and why may 

 there not be brown Caucasians in Polynesia? Surely the 

 evolutionist, who does not hesitate to accept the develop- 

 ment of the genns homo from some anthropoid ape, need 

 not scruple about the relationship of the human species 

 because of such a secondary matter as colour. Schwein- 

 furth tells us that albinism is common amongst the 

 negroes of the Nile basin, and there is at the present 

 moment a clear case of melanosis in London. If these 

 be regarded as morbid symptom?, they are often here- 

 ditary, and it has not yet been shown that they may not 

 be cases of atavism, such as the reappearance of the bars 

 on the pigeon's wing, however far removed from the 

 original blue-rock type. Nimiiim lie crede colori, wisely 

 said Linnffius, speaking of plants, and the remark is 

 equally applicable to the animal kingdom. Observing 

 that the black pigment does not make its appearance on 

 the Negroes of Loango, West Coast of .Africa, until after 

 birth, the Berlin anthropologist Falkenstein suggests 

 that it may be due to the action of the solar rays. If so, 

 what becomes of colour as a fundamental characteristic 

 at all ? 



Besides the civilised Khmers, forming the bulk of the 

 present kingdom of Camboja and neighbouring Siamese 

 provinces of Ongkar and Battambang, the chief Cauca- 

 sian peoples of Indo-China are the Chams, Charays, 

 Bolovens, Sticngs, Sue, Xong, Cedangs, Rhoedeh?, Ban- 

 hars, Samre, Lemets, and Kuys, the last of whom are 

 looked on by the Cambojans as the primitive Khmer 

 stock ; hence are called by them Khmer dom, or " origi- 

 nal Khmers." In the paper above referred to the physical 

 characteristics of these tribes are thus summed up mainly 

 from Thorel ;— " A fine, vigorous race, with symmetrical 

 and well-set frames ; statuie rather above the middle size, 

 straight profile, oval face, dolichocephalous head, high 

 forehead, retreating very slightly, black hair, often inclin- 

 ing to brown, straight or wavy and elliptical in section. 



