44 



TROPICAL RACES 



stimuli to the already rapidly evolving brain of man, but this 

 evolution does not appear to have gone on equally all over the world ; 

 in fact, it is in the so-called Culture Zone, situate between 25° and 

 50° north latitude, that brain development began to be highly 

 specialized. In the eastern part of this region arose the Accadians, 

 the Egyptians, and the early Cretans, from whom all the culture 

 of Europe, Asia, and Africa evolved; and separately in the west 

 the Mexicans, Peruvians, Columbians, and inhabitants of Yucatan, 

 whose advance was ended once for all by the Spanish conquests, 

 leaving only the culture of Accadian, Egyptian, and Cretan origin to 

 supply the world with knowledge. 



In other regions man has lagged far behind; indeed, in New 

 Guinea and in other places we have the native peoples just emerging 

 from a contemporary Stone Age side by side with the newly migrated 

 and highly cultured Caucasic. 



The tropical regions of to-day have therefore a most curious and 

 most complex congeries of mankind. First, the indigenous in- 

 habitants or natives of the land in question, together with the 

 descendants of peoples arising from the intermingling of the original 

 native race with other races brought thither by migrations of long 

 ago; secondly, peoples whose native habitat is a temperate or cold 

 climate, and who are derived from the quite recent and still con- 

 tinuing Caucasic migration; and, thirdly, the half-castes, derived 

 from the intermingling of these Caucasic races and the native races 



From the above it will be comprehended that the study of the 

 ethnology of man in the tropics is indeed complex, but some ele- 

 mentary knowledge of the origin and relationships of the people 

 among whom he is to work may be of use to the practitioner in 

 the tropics, and therefore we give the following brief classification, 

 leaving anyone interested in this subject an opportunity of further 

 study by means of the works mentioned in the references at the 

 end of the chapter. 



Classification. — All classifications are more or less artificial, and 

 based upon the generally accepted knowledge of the day, and are 

 therefore ephemeral, and the various classifications, suggested by 

 Bernier in 1684, Linnaeus in 1735, 1740, and 1758, Blumenbach 

 in 1775, Virey in 1801, Des Moulins in 1825-26, Bory de Saint- 

 Vincent in 1827, Agassiz in 1850 and 1853, Isidore Geoffroy Saint- 

 Hilaire in 1858, Pruner Bey in 1863, Haeckel in 1873, Broca and 

 Topinard in 1885, Flower in 1885, Deniker in 1889, and, finally, 

 Keane in 1895, form no exception to this rule. 



The most useful classification is that of Keane, in which the 

 human species is divided into four divisions — viz. : — 



The Caucasic Division. 



The Ethiopic or Negroid Division. 



The Mongolic Division. 



The Amerind Division. 



We will now briefly consider these divisions. 



