26 On the Mongolian Affinities of the Caucasians. [No. 1. 



On the Mongolian Affinities of the Caucasians. — By B. H. 

 Hodgson, Usq. 



All residents in the East who take an interest in the more general 

 topics of Ethnology must have been exceedingly struck by Dr. La- 

 tham's recent imposing exhibition of the vast ethnic domain of the 

 Mongolidse. Erom Easter island to Archangel, from Tasmania and 

 Madagascar to Kamskatka and the mouths of the Lena, all is Mongo- 

 lian ! Caucasus itself, the Arian Ararat, is Mongolian ! India, the 

 time-honoured Aryavartta, is Mongolian ! Granting that this re- 

 markable sketch* is in good part anticipatory with reference to 

 demonstrative proofs, it is yet, I believe, one which the progress of 

 research has already done, and is now doing much, and will do yet 

 more, to substantiate as a whole ; though I think the learned Author 

 might have facilitated the acceptance of his splendid paradoxes, if, 

 leaving the Osetif and the Brahmans in unquestioned possession of 

 their Arian honours, he had contented himself with maintaining that 

 the mass of Caucasian and Indian population is nevertheless of Tura- 

 nian, not Arian, blood and breed ; and if, instead of laying so much 

 stress upon a special Turanian type (the Seriform), he had been more 

 sensible that the technical diagnostics, which have been set upon the 

 several subdivisions of the Mongolidse, are hindrances, not helps, to 

 a ready perception of the common characteristics of the whole race. 



I do not propose on the present occasion to advert to what has 

 been lately done in India demonstrative of the facts, that the great 

 mass of the Indian population, whether now using the Tamulian or 

 the Prakritic tongues, whether now following or not following the 

 Hindu creed and customs, is essentially non- Arian as to origin and 

 race, but that this mass has been acted upon and altered to an amaz- 

 ing extent by an Arian element, numerically small, yet of wonder- 

 ful energy and of high antiquity. These are indubitable facts, the 

 validity of which I am prepared with a large body of evidence to 

 establish ; and they are facts which, so far from being inconsistent 



* Natural History of Man, London, 1850. 



f It will be seen in the sequel, that in the course of those investigations which 

 gave the " Comparative analysis" its present amplitude, I satisfied myself that the 

 Oseti are Mongolian. 



