THE ETHNOLOGY OF THE INDIAN A RCIUP HLAOO. 37 



that Urns. The antiquity of mankind and the advance that ha* 

 already been made in ethnology, warrant the conclusion that in 

 every considerable region there has been a great succession of 

 foreign ethnic importations, physical* linguistic, artistic ice We 

 cannot my positively or even conjecture how far back the human 

 history of any particular regiou reachea. The historic time al«o by 

 its far greater civilisation* amplitude in known events, and bright- 

 ness of colon ring, not only tends to bide the past, but, by its 

 occupation of the mind, indisposes it to a tree and earnest enquiry 

 into the archaic era. 



There is no region of which we can say that its present raoe, or 

 any known previous one, is its earliest. In most regions there are 

 remains or traditions of older races whom the present occupants 

 consider to hare been different from their own. This is the case 

 in Europe, India, Siberia, Madagascar, America, : In tha 

 remotest Polynesian Island such remains are found- In our own 

 vicinity many illustrative phenomena are observable now. If the 

 present influx of the It.iwa from Sumatra into the interior of the 

 Malay Peninsula is not checked, the Binua will be destroyed and 

 absorbed, and all the south of the Peninsula present only Sumotran 

 tribes. In all rnde nations the past rapidly becomes dim, confused, 

 exaggerated or wholly obliterated. To attempt therefore to prove 

 that any tribe is the first that ever occupied a given region scemi 

 hone less. 



The difficulties attending ethnic research mto the past are chiefly 

 owing to the impossibility of confining ourselves to the particular 

 district or region whose history wo are exploring, and the necessity 

 of carrying with us, at every step of the ascent, a knowledge of the 

 contemporaneous condition of the prevailing races and civilisations 

 in the rest of the world, or a large part of it. In this consists the 

 extreme complexity uW laboriousness of the subject. When we 

 arrive at a period when new ideas or habits appear to have been 

 introduced into the dUtriot, or when, li n in^ reached the limit of 

 onr explorations, we seek to determine the connections of the most 

 archaic period to which wc can go hack, we have two sources of 

 difficulty. Some indigenous development, of which the foreijrn 

 germ was slight, may have kpontaneouslv produced characteristics 

 analogous to what have elsewhere originated from similar inde- 

 pendent causes. If we satisfy ourselves that they have too specific 

 a resemblance to foreign customs to admit of Us being accidental, 

 we must often find the same customs prevailing in several foreign 

 countries with which intercourse was possible* at the period. Again, 

 the tribe which immediately bestowed the new aoo^uisition may 

 have since changed its seat, becmne greatly modified itself, or 

 been obliterated. The movements of trib^ tend constantly to 

 •iter the ethnic aspect of the influencing regions. A people at 

 one tiiue in do-e relation with the district, either by proximity or 

 commercial intercourse, may, in the lapse of a few centuries, be 



