252 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I 



language, and speak Portuguese. 1 It is, undoubtedly, an 

 exaggeration that one million of the aborigines of America 

 have exchanged their native for an European, language. 2 The 

 natives of unmixed blood have scarcely done so in a single 

 instance ; only mixed populations, in a state of slavery, have 

 allowed the language of the rulers to be forced on them. 



Thus we often see small tribes absorbed by stronger ones ; 

 by ceasing to exist as a people, they adopt the language of the 

 more powerful tribe. Ancient Rome, which had absorbed so 

 many foreign elements, presents a striking example. It has 

 already been mentioned, that many American Indian nations 

 have absorbed a number of minor tribes. It occurs, however, 

 occasionally that a people absorbed by another may still pre- 

 serve its language, like the Yuchi, incorporated by the Creeks ; 

 perhaps the circumstance that the women of the Caribs possess 

 a different language than the men, may result from a similar 

 event. In such cases, much depends on the will of the con- 

 queror, and the tenacity with which the conquered keep to the 

 peculiarities of their race, a quality which different tribes 

 possess in a different degree. The caste of the serfs among 

 the Bracknas, in the north of Senegal, are the Zenaghas, a 

 Berber tribe which, by its masters the Assani, had the Arabian 

 language forced upon them, 8 like several Kabyle tribes of the 

 province Constantine, who have adopted this language. 4 Thus, 

 many scattered Yindjha peoples in the East Indies have ex- 

 changed their language for a filial language of the Sanscrit. 

 On the other hand, that the conquerors lose sometimes their 

 language to the conquered, is instanced by the Normans in 

 the tenth century, and the Longobards. 



In all these cases, in which a people has lost its language, it 

 has by intermixture ceased to exist as a people ; and neither 

 the consideration of physical types, nor philology, can give any 

 clear indication of its existence, unless supported by special his- 

 torical documents. It must be an extremely rare case in which, 



1 Von Eschwege, " Journal v. Brasil," ii, p. 16. 



2 Humboldt und Bonpland, v, p. 774. 



3 Leo Afrieaiius, "Bossi e Negri delle Nigrizia occ. Torino," i, p. 112, 1838. 



4 M. Wagner, " Eoise in Algier," ii, p. 11, 1S41. 



