Page images
PDF
EPUB

The first of these types, the Australioid, he places in Australia, finding their affinities in the Hill Tribes of India, and in the ancient Egyptians, and he remarks upon the singular fact that no trace of the Australioid type has been found in any of the islands of the Malay Archipelago.

The Negroid type is found in Africa, between the Sahara and the Cape, and he regards the Bushman as a special modification of the Negroid type; whilst the Andaman Islanders and the dark oceanic races, including the Tasmanians, New Caledonians, and Papuans, he regards as another modification of the Negroid type, designated as Negritos.

The Xanthochroic type has reference to the white population of Central Europe, mixed on the south and west with the Melanochroi or "dark whites," and on the north and east with Mongoloids. This type is extended from Iceland and the Canary Islands to Africa north of the Sahara, to Syria, Northern Arabia, and Hindostan.

The Mongoloid type occupies an enormous area, extending over the whole of North and Central Asia and the two Americas, as well as the Malay Peninsula and many of the South Sea islands, although mixed in the latter with Negroids.

It will be observed that Huxley adds to the three well-known divisions of mankind-the white, the black, and the yellow-a fourth, which he denominates Australioid, at present occupying Australia and the Hill country of India, but formerly Egypt and a portion of Northern Africa. This classification has given rise to much controversy, and is still objected to by the greater number of ethnologists, but there are several interesting facts which go far to confirm Professor Huxley's theory, one of which is the discovery in ancient Egyptian tombs of true boomerangs such as are still used in Australia, and have generally been regarded as the peculiar invention of this barbarous people.

1

If we look upon the very ancient skulls discovered in

1 Several of these boomerangs may be seen among the Egyptian relics in the British Museum.

Europe as of Australioid type, and believe this race to have come from Africa, it seems not only probable, but almost a necessity, that they should have passed by way of Egypt, Arabia, and Persia, to India, and thence by chains of islands now submerged to their present abode, for it must be borne in mind that this race seems to have been always deficient in the art of navigation, as compared with other barbarous races; their canoes being merely pointed logs of wood, or bundles of rushes, although in some parts bark canoes or the ordinary dug-out are found. General Pitt-Rivers has called attention to the likeness subsisting between the rush-floats of Ancient Egypt, Australia, and the Ganges, as in a measure corroborative of Huxley's racial connection between the natives of these widely-separated countries, but he traces these vessels to Formosa also, and adds "Denon describes and figures a very primitive kind of float of this sort, consisting of a bundle of straw or stalks, pointed and turned up in front, and says that the inhabitants of the Upper Nile go up and down the river upon it astride, the legs serving for oars; they use also a short, double-bladed paddle. It is worthy of notice that the only other localities that I am aware of, in which this double paddle is used, are the Sooloo Archipelago and among the Esquimaux." 1

It is evident that a race so lowly organized must have taken an immense period of time in reaching their present habitat, during which, with the accompanying changes of climate, soil, and food, many modifications may have been possible, and the same may be said of the great Mongoloid race, which from Northern Asia seems to have slowly percolated through the double American continent, showing certainly many modifications of the original type.

1 Early Modes of Navigation, Col. Lane Fox (Pitt-Rivers); Journal of Anthropological Institute, April 1875.

CHAPTER VI.

MIGRATIONS.

Civilized Man alone capable of ranging from the Tropics to the Poles Barriers to Early Migrations-The Phoenicians and the Mammoth-Changes effected by Human Agency-Distribution of Mammals prior to the Advent of Man-Change of Habitat consequent upon Glacial Epoch-Did Man follow the Game?-Professor Boyd-Dawkins on the Eskimo-Early Art of the Reindeer Race-Its Importance-Wanderings of the River-drift Men-The Bushmen, and other Dwarf Races of Africa-Are they also Offshoots of Paleolithic Man ?-Neolithic Races-The Basques-Asiatic Migrations-Wanderings of the Malayo-Polynesians across the Pacific-Effects of Involuntary Migrations-Modern Instance-Migrations of the Aryans-Recent Theories.

It

IF we believe that man physically is similarly constituted to the lower animals, then the same influences which have caused variation and extinction of species among them, would likewise affect the human race. is, however, evident that man would be less affected than the lower animals, by change of environment, since he alone of all animals has the power of checking and controlling, by artificial means, the influences of climate, soil, and food, which have so powerful an effect upon animal and plant life. Nevertheless, that man is not exempt from these influences is certain, otherwise the present varieties of mankind would not exist.

But it is civilized man alone who possesses the power of ranging from the tropics to the poles unharmed. The savage races are almost as susceptible to external changes as wild animals, and are nearly as incapable of changing and extending their geographical area, since

even narrow seas present an insuperable barrier to migrations, and lakes, rivers, deserts, and mountain chains are to them formidable obstacles. We may be sure, therefore, that all the early migrations, made prior to the invention of the art of navigation, were very slow.

Migration was, as it were, involuntary and imperceptible, caused by necessity, a gradual retreat from cold or drought; or, as primæval man was pre-eminently a hunter, from the change of habitat of his prey. This prey in Europe was, as we have seen, the mammoth, the bear, the rhinoceros, and other great beasts, and somewhat later the reindeer, the horse, the bison or buffalo, the musk-ox, and several kinds of deer and antelopes.

There are people still living who believe that the mammoth was introduced into Britain by the Phonicians, and that the other great beasts, its cotemporaries, as the cave lion, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, &c., were brought over by these same great merchants for gladiatorial combats; in fact one would imagine that these somewhat mythical adventurers were in the habit of constantly wandering over the seas with a sort of Barnum's show, in order to astonish the natives among whom they might be thrown. Strange and ludicrous as such an idea must appear to the geologist and anthropologist, we must remember that all the great changes of fauna and flora in modern times have been brought about through human agency; and that to one unacquainted with geology, it would seem much more. natural that lions, tigers, hyænas, bears, elephants, and hippopotami should have been brought here by man, than that they should have been born and bred here, have wandered uncontrolled through our forests, and frequented our caves and rivers.1

1 An amusing instance of this, from a religious journal called The Champion of the Faith against Current Infidelity, dated April 20th and May 11th, 1882, was quoted by Mr. Pengelly in his Presidential Address to the Anthropological Department of the British Association, in 1883. Speaking of the Victoria Cave, Yorkshire, the writer says-"We have now to present our own

If we pass in review a few of the changes brought about by man in quite modern times, we shall be startled by their magnitude. Four hundred years ago potatoes and tobacco were unknown in Europe, whilst the savages in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Sea Islands had never seen a white face, nor a grain of wheat, nor the ox, sheep, and pig, nor the rabbit, which has since become a pest in Australia and New Zealand.

The dominant white race of Europe had never set foot in America, whilst the horse, now wild on the prairies, was also unknown, although it had existed there in long-forgotten ages. So also the cereals, now so largely cultivated, with the exception of maize, were new to American soil, and maize had never been seen in Western Europe.

If we go back farther still we can trace man's agency always changing the face of nature, exterminating some. animals, introducing others; altering the flora of the countries to which he wanders as well as the fauna, by bringing with him seeds and fruits from other lands.

view of the Victoria Cave and the phenomena connected with it, premising that a great many of the old mines in Europe were opened by Phoenician colonists and metal workers a thousand years before the Romans had set foot in Britain, which accounts for the various floors of stalagmite found in most caves, and also for the variety of groups of bones embedded in them. The animals represented by them when living were not running wild about the hills devouring each other, as science-men suppose, but were the useful auxiliaries and trained drudges of the miners in their work. Some of them, as the bear, had simply been hunted and used for food, and others of a fierce character, as the hyæna, to frighten and to keep in awe the native Britons. The larger species of mammalia, as the elephant, the rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, and beasts foreign to the country, the Romans no less than the Phoenicians had every facility in bringing with them in their ships of commerce from Carthage or other of the African ports. These, with the native horse, ox, and stag, which are always found in larger numbers in the caves than the remains of foreign animals, all worked peacefully together in the various operations of the mines. . . The hippopotamus, although amphibious, is a grand beast for heavy work, such as mining, quarrying, or road-making, and his keeper would take care that he was comfortably lodged in a tank of water during the night."

F

« PreviousContinue »