Ethnology

Ethnology, one of the numerous sciences, such as Anthropology, Philology, Psychology, and Sociology, which collectively constitute the complete study of man. But, owing to its comparatively recent origin, much diversity of opinion continues to prevail regarding the proper scope and limits of this branch of the subject. Thus, while Powell declares that 'there is no science of ethnology,' Adolf Bastian regards it as the 'sister' of anthropology, the latter dealing with the physical, the former with the psychic element in man. Between these extremes lie the more moderate and now largely accepted views of those who, with Broca, Latham, Topinard, Littré, De Quatrefages, and many others, regard anthropology as the science of man as distinguished from his nearest congeners in the animal kingdom—the bimanus as opposed to the quadrumana—and ethnology as the science of man as a genus in relation to its more or less numerous species, or as a species in relation to its more or less numerous varieties. Thus, 'anthropology determines the relations of man to the other mammalia; ethnology, the relations of the different varieties of mankind to each other. . . . The simple record of facts constitutes ethnography, or descriptive ethnology' (Latham). 'Ethnology treats of the origin and distribution of peoples, ethnography of their description' (Littré). 'Medicine studies individuals; ethnography, peoples; ethnology, races; and general anthropology, man as a whole and in his relations to animals' (Broca).

As thus defined, and as also understood by this writer, ethnology embraces a comparative study of the various racés of mankind, their origin, physical and mental differences, dispersion, geographical distribution and interminglings, leaving human speech to philology, human culture (political and social institutions, usages, traditions, folklore, religion) to sociology—i.e. the science of man as a zōon politikon (Aristotle). These limitations have been necessitated by the continuous tendency of the sciences, as well as of the arts, to 'division of labour,' as here shown by the entirely independent development of philology, and by the recent creation of sociology, for which Herbert Spencer already claims the rank of a science. Nevertheless, such limitations cannot be always rigidly adhered to, and in dealing with such a complex theme as the human family there must necessarily arise certain collusions, so to say, certain overlappings in the direction of all the allied sciences. Thus, to give one instance, the important and much agitated question of language as a racial test could not be at all discussed without some reference to such strictly philological subjects as the origin and growth of articulate speech.

In accordance with the foregoing statement, the main points with which we are here concerned are the origin, nature, number, and distribution of the present human races, where the first question that presents itself is the specific unity or diversity of mankind. From the very nature of the case, this is a question that can never be decided one way or the other with absolute certainty. But the general tendency of modern inquiry points to the conclusion that the poet's 'one touch of nature,' which 'makes the whole world kin,' was not merely inspired by a vague sentiment, but rests on a solid foundation of fact. The physical and mental qualities characteristic of the leading types are not considered as sufficiently marked to constitute so many distinct species, while the now fairly established fact that all are mutually fertile between themselves is held to be all but conclusive of their primordial unity (Flower, Tylor). Hence the monogenist doctrine, which otherwise accords with orthodox belief, is daily gaining ground on the polygenist views, which were based partly on the erroneous assumption of the permanency of types (fixity of species), partly on the brief record of the Mosaic cosmogony, which certainly did not allow sufficient time for the differentiation of the existing human varieties. But this difficulty is now removed by the results of recent research, which place beyond all doubt the existence of Linnaeus's homo sapiens in early quaternary, if not even in late tertiary times (see MAN). Since then there has been ample time for the upward evolution even of the semi-simian pre-glacial 'men of Spy,' contemporaries of Rhinoceros tichorinus, and of Elephas primigenius. (Their remains were discovered in 1886 by MM. Lohet and De Pnydt in a cave on the banks of the Orneau, commune of Spy, Namur, Belgium).

Apparently a more serious objection to the monogenist theory is based by Friedrich Müller, Professor Sayce, and others on the admittedly fundamental diversity of linguistic families. Thus is again raised the whole question of the relations of language to ethnology, a question by which this science has been from the first and still is unreasonably beset. It is argued that, if the languages of primitive peoples are radically distinct, the peoples themselves must have different origins; and, while some suggest twelve or more independent physical and linguistic groups, others attempt to avoid the seeming difficulty by supposing that, if originally one, the chief physical groups were differentiated before the evolution of speech, which was consequently independently evolved after dispersion of homo alalus in so many independent geographical centres. But it is obvious, in the first place, that neither of these assumptions removes the difficulty; for if every fundamentally distinct linguistic presupposes a fundamentally distinct physical stock, then these latter must be reckoned not by units or tens, but by many hundreds, philology having clearly shown that, even excluding many extinct tongues, the radically different existing stock languages do not fall far short of a thousand. We have here therefore a reductio ad absurdum, and the assumption that physical and linguistic types coincide must be absolutely rejected. With its rejection is cleared away a fruitful source of endless confusion in ethnological studies. It follows, in the second place, that the difficulty itself is purely fanciful; for, if physical and linguistic types need not coincide, it is evident that within a given physical group we may have an indefinite number of independent linguistic groups. The further consideration that language changes much more rapidly than physique, a proposition that has become a commonplace with all anthropologists, leads us to expect that the relation must in fact be as here stated. Since the remote epoch when Haeckel's homo primigenius alalus ('speechless man') became Linnaeus's homo sapiens endowed with speech and reason, there has been time for the development of several more or less marked physical varieties. Consequently, there has been also time for the more complete development of a much larger number of linguistic forms, the existence of which is thus no longer antagonistic to the primordial unity of mankind.

How this unity became diversified within certain relatively narrow limits is a question which, strictly speaking, belongs to the domain of Evolution (q.v.). It is the province of ethnology to study the varieties as they are, to determine their number, character, and mutual relations, with a view to an ultimate classification of all existing human groups. Here one point, that of mixture, requires to be all the more specially emphasised, as it is usually the less attended to by writers on this difficult branch of the subject. It may be stated broadly that, after the first more or less marked differentiations, whether due to the outward influences of the environment, to natural selection, the struggle for existence, the correlation of parts, or all these combined, all subsequent modifications have been mainly caused by incessant intermingling, and consequently that there are no longer any pure races in existence. (One may perhaps except a few isolated groups, such as the Andamanese Islanders, the Kai Colos of Fiji, the Ainos of Yesso, the Fuegian Kalgans, and till recently the Tasmanians, completely extinct since 1876; but the statement may be accepted as substantially true.) Long isolation in new centres exposed to new conditions of life would undoubtedly tend to fix changes gradually brought about by natural causes. But, as the earth became more densely peopled, fresh shiftings necessarily arose, colonies were thrown off, contact and collision between the earliest evolved varieties became inevitable. To the influences of the surroundings were thus added the far more potent effects of crossings, and the development of fresh types and sub-varieties of all sorts proceeded at an accelerated rate. This process was necessarily continued down to the present time, resulting in ever-increasing confusion of fundamental elements, and blurring of primordial types.

To this confusion and blurring must be attributed the great difficulty now felt in determining the number and the distinctive characteristics of the original human stocks, and the amazing diversity of views that has always prevailed on this subject.

It cannot even be asserted that what we call the main divisions, the primary groups, are themselves original even in their ideal conception, and not the outcome of still more remote and earlier fusions. Who shall say that the dirty yellow tinge, for instance, of the average Chinese is not the result of a blend, as the light brown of the eastern Polynesians certainly appears to be?

This brings us to the consideration of the so-called 'ethnical criteria'—i.e. the various factors on which ethnologists rely in their different schemes of classification. These criteria are partly internal or anatomical—the skeleton in general, and particularly the cranium; partly external—colour of skin, colour and texture of hair, and such other determining elements, whether physical or mental, as may be studied on the living subject. Although opinion varies considerably as to the value of these several characteristics, there is a general consensus in attaching special, if not permanent, importance to the three elements of colour, hair, and form of the skull. Of these colour, probably because the most conspicuous feature, was the first to be considered, and formed the basis of all the early classifications, such as those of F. Bernier (1672), who distinguished four radical types—European White, African Black, Asiatic Yellow, and Northern Lapp; of Linnaeus (1738–83), whose homo sapiens comprised four species—the light-skinned European, the yellow Asiatic, the black African, and brown or tawny American; and of Blumenbach (1752–1840), whose groupings fluctuated, but whose terminology (Caucasic, Mongolic, &c.) has been largely retained.

Then followed a chaotic interval, during which almost every writer proposed with equal confidence a fresh division of the primary human groups. During this period, ethnology, in common with other studies affording large scope for the exercise of the imaginative faculties, became the battleground rather of partisans than of men of science. The wildest theories on the specific unity or disparity of mankind, the permanence or evanescence of types, the innate capacity or incapacity for progress, and so forth, were advocated, often with much erudition, but little common sense, by Nott and Gliddon, Morton, Knox, even Cuvier and Agassiz, apparently more eager to further their peculiar political and religious views than to promote the cause of truth. Some of these theories were even self-destructive, as for instance those of Agassiz on unity of species and difference of origin. Most of them are now interesting only to the historian of mental aberration, and, their standpoint being mainly polemical rather than scientific, they did little to advance ethnological studies.

Order was at last restored by the craniological school, founded by the elder Retzius (1796–1860), which made the shape of the head the basis of all classification, and thus introduced exact methods into this branch of the subject. The result has shown that craniology alone cannot be depended upon to supply sufficient, or even altogether trustworthy, materials for distinguishing the main divisions of mankind. Its chief elements, such as dolichocephaly and brachycephaly (i.e. length or shortness of the skull as measured from front to back), orthognathism and prognathism (less or greater projection of the jaws), are not constant in any given groups, and in many cases the most surprising diversity prevails where some degree of uniformity might be expected. Thus, the Eskimos, grouped with the more or less brachycephalic Mongol division, are marked by extreme dolichocephaly; the extinct Tasmanians, belonging to the prognathic Negro division, were highly orthognathic; no norma, either of gnathism or cephalism, can be established for the Oceanic Malay and Papuan races, while every shade of cephalism prevails amongst the Caucasian peoples. Nevertheless, craniology can be neglected by no ethnologist, and its study has already thrown much light on various departments of anthropological science. See SKULL.

Of late years the colour and texture of the hair, the value of which had been anticipated by Linnæus, have steadily risen in the estimation of naturalists as a racial test. It is now regarded as the most constant of all the physical features, and has been made the foundation of their groupings by some of the most eminent modern anthropologists, such as Huxley, Fr. Müller, Haeckel, and Broca. Its constancy is shown by the Negro division, all branches of which, without any exception, have black and more or less frizzly hair, flat or highly elliptical in section; and by the Mongol division, which, including all the American aborigines, is uniformly characterised by straight black hair of the horse-tail type, cylindrical in section. In the Caucasian division this feature varies considerably, but still within certain limits. Thus, it may be straight, wavy, or curly, but never frizzly; the colour also may range from jet black through all shades of brown, and even red, to the lightest flaxen; but there still appears to be a certain correlation on the one hand between the black hair and dark complexion, on the other between the light hair and fair complexion of the two well-marked branches of the Caucasian division.

The other ethnical elements, whether physical or mental, are of little value taken apart, but are often useful aids in combination with themselves, and especially with the three above specified criteria. Such are stature; the shape, colour, and position of the eye; the weight or volume of the brain (cranial capacity); the form of the nose—remarkably constant in some groups; the form of mouth and lips; the superciliary and zygomatic arches, and all such other elements as collectively constitute the broad flat features of the lower, the oval and regular of the higher races—Kollmann's chamoprosopic and leptoprosopic types. Of mental or intellectual criteria immeasurably the most important is language, which, however, has had the misfortune of suffering from friends and foes alike, philologists rating it much too high, anthropologists depreciating it to a corresponding extent. Yet that speech cannot be neglected, even by the purely anthropological student, is obvious from the fact that different phonetic systems often involve different anatomical structure of the vocal organs. Owing to these differences, Europeans find it impossible, even after years of residence amongst the natives, to pronounce the various clicks of Bushman, Hottentot, and Zulu-Kafir tongues, or the many rasping sounds of the Thlinkit, Apache, and other American idioms. The 'absolute impossibility' of imitating certain tones in the Papuan languages of New Guinea is by Miklukho Maclay rightly attributed to 'fundamental differences in the anatomical structure of the larynx, and the whole muscular system of the organs of speech in the two races' (European and Melanesian). And he adds that 'not only the organ of speech, but also that of hearing, plays an important part, for the same word may be heard in a totally different manner by different persons' (Ethnologische Bemerkungen). Neither the Jews nor the African negroes in America have yet learned to correctly pronounce the European languages spoken by them as their mother-tongues for many generations. At the same time, 'philology and ethnology are not convertible terms' (Sayce), and extreme caution must always be used in the treatment of language as an ethnical test. It is a helpmate which, in the hands of uncritical writers, has too often proved a pitfall.

Of other mental or moral criteria it will suffice here to mention religion, which, owing to the fundamental unity of the psychic element in man, can never be regarded as a true test of race, and social pursuits, such as the chase, pasture, and agriculture. On the latter point much misconception prevails, and it is especially a mistake to suppose that the order of progress is necessarily from the hunting through the pastoral to the agricultural state. Some of the lowest African tribes are, and always have been, tillers of the soil, while other peoples, such as the Kirghiz and Kalnucks, ranking much higher in the social scale, are still nomad pastors. These pursuits, in fact, are questions not of race, but of the outward conditions of soil and climate, as we see in the Arabian peninsula, where the stock-breeders of the Nejd plateau become skilful husbandmen in the Yemen uplands.

Basing their conclusions on the comparative study of all these ethnical criteria, the most eminent naturalists, from Linnæus and Blumenbach to Huxley, Virchow, Flower, Broca, and Topinard, mainly agree in classifying the whole human family in three or at most four fundamental divisions. From the foregoing exposition of the subject, it follows of itself that all classifications must be regarded not as genetical—i.e. divisions according to common descent, but rather as groupings according to physical and mental resemblances. It also follows that the term fundamental is to be understood not absolutely, but only in a relative sense; for all races (this term being here taken as practically equivalent to 'breeds' or 'varieties') are necessarily regarded as belonging to a common primeval stock, constituting a single species. At the same time it does not follow that all must necessarily be supposed to have sprung from a single human pair. On the contrary, the more natural assumption would seem to be a gradual upheaval, so to say—i.e. the slow evolution of a whole anthropoid group spread over a more or less extensive geographical area, in a warm or genial climate, where the disappearance of an original hairy coat would be rather an advantage than otherwise. This view of gradual ascent in a more or less homogeneous mass has the advantage of obviating the many difficulties connected with unity of species and unity of descent, which are now seen no longer to be identical expressions. It also allows for differences in the physical habitus from the first, these differences, however slight, helping in combination with altered environments to account for the divergences that have in the course of ages resulted in the present fundamental human types. Thus, we no longer require to ask ourselves, for instance, whether the black hue shaded into the yellow, the brown into the white; whether prognathism grew into orthognathism, brachycephalic or round into dolichocephalic or long heads, and so on. None of these extremes, but only the germs of all, need be assumed as starting-points; and it is not a little remarkable that the Andamanese Islanders, declared by the highest authority to be 'the most infantile' of human races, are also amongst the least marked in these respects. Their colour is dark, but far from black; their prognathism is not pronounced; their stature is low, but not dwarfish—4 feet 10 inches as compared with the Akka, 4 feet 6 inches, and Batwa, 4 feet 3 inches (Wissmann, Floyer, Man). The existing marked types may therefore be taken as collateral developments rather than independent primordial conditions, or gradual modifications of any one extreme type.

The difficulty of determining the exact number of these types is due to the fact, already pointed out by Blumenbach, that none of them are found in what may be called ideal perfection, but that all tend to merge by imperceptible degrees in each other. But the issue now appears to be narrowed down to a choice between three, four, or at most five primary groups, with one or more marked subdivisions in each. These are the black, frizzly-haired Ethiopic (Negro); the yellow, lank-haired Mongolic; the white, smooth-haired Caucasic; the coppery, lank and long-haired American; and the brown, straight-haired Malayo-Polynesian. But the last is commonly rejected as evidently the outcome of comparatively recent mixture, in which the Mongolic elements predominate. In fact, the Oceanic Malays proper cannot be separated anthropologically from the Asiatic Mongol group. Most authorities also regard the American as a remote branch of the same group, and this view seems justified by the striking Mongolic features occurring in every part of the New World, as amongst the Utahs of the western States and the Botocudos of eastern Brazil. We are thus reduced to the three first-mentioned divisions, a grouping again adopted by Professor Flower (1885), who concludes that primitive man has in the course of ages become differentiated into 'the three extreme types represented by the Caucasian of Europe, the Mongolian of Asia, and the Ethiopian of Africa, and that all existing members of the species can be ranged around these types, or somewhere or other between them.' But it is not to be supposed that all the distinctive characters of these three types are found co-existing in any considerable masses of the several groups. The ideal homo Ethiopicus, Mongolicus, and Caucasicus must therefore be constructed, so to say, by a sort of eclectic process, by selecting and grouping together the more salient features assumed to be characteristic of each. In this way has been prepared the subjoined comparative scheme of the three main divisions, the points of contrast or resemblance between which will be best shown by their juxtaposition. Here it should be noticed that the Caucasian is divided by Huxley into two distinct branches—the Xauthochroi, or fair, and the Melanochroi, or dark—which in this table are respectively indicated as 1 and 2.

TABLE OF THE CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN TYPES.

Subjoined is a brief summary of the main divisions and subdivisions of these three fundamental groups.

I. THE ETHIOPIC GROUP falls naturally into a western or African, and an eastern or Oceanic division. The western, occupying all Africa from the Sahara southwards, comprises a northern or Soudanese branch (African Negroes proper), and a southern or Bantu branch (more or less mixed Negro and Negroid populations), reaching north- wards to about 5° N. lat. The former are marked by considerable physical unity and great linguistic diversity; the latter by almost absolute linguistic unity (Bantu languages) and great physical diversity. The chief members of the Soudanese branch are Mandingan, Wolof, Felup, Sonrhai, Hausa, Egbe, Ibo, Yoruba, Fanti, Nupe, Michi Batta (West Soudan, Upper Guinea, Adamawa); Kanuri, Kanembu, Tibu (?), Mosgu, Yedina,

Bagirmi, Maba (Central Soudan, East Sahara, Wadai); Shilluk, Nuba, Dinka, Janghey, Bongo, Bari, Monbuttu, Zandeh (East Soudan, White Nile, and Welle-Mobanjí basins); Masai, Kavirondo, Elgeyo, Samburu (Masai Land, Lake Rudolph). The chief members of the Bantu branch are Wa-Pokomo, Wa-Sambara, Wa-Chaga, Wa-Swahili, Wa-Zaramo, Wa-Sagara, Wa-Nyam-ezi, Wa-Gogo, Ma-Nyanja, Ma-Kua, Ma-Vita, Ajawa (eastern seaboard); Zulu-Kafir, Ba-Suto, Be-Chuana, Tonga, Ba-Rotse, Mashona, Ba-Yeye, Makalaka, Makololo, Maganya (South Africa); Ova-Herero, Ova-Mbo, Ganguela, A-Bunda, Ba-Fyot, A-Bongo, Ma-Yombe, Fan, Ba-Kale, Mpongwe, Ba-Koko, Dwalla, Bubi (western seaboard); Wa-Regga, Ba-Lolo, Tu-Shilonge, Ba-Ngala, Bu-Bangli, Ba-Teke, Ba-Lunda (Congo Basin).

The Oceanic division of the Ethiopic group comprises four branches: (1) The Papuans of the Eastern Archipelago and New Guinea; (2) the closely allied Melanesians of the Solomon, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Loyalty, and Fiji archipelagoes; (3) the now extinct Tasmanians; and (4) the Australians, the most divergent of all Negro or Negroid peoples.

Within both Ethiopic domains are scattered several dwarfish groups, the so-called Negritos or Negrillos—i.e. 'Little Negroes,' perhaps representing the true aboriginal element in these regions. In Africa the best known are the Akkas of the Upper Welle basin, the Obongos of the Gaboon, the Batwas of the Middle Congo (smallest of men), and the Bushmen of South Africa, leading through the taller Hottentots to the Negroes proper. In Oceania still survive the Actas of the Philippine Islands, the Simangs of the Malay Peninsula, the so-called Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, and the Arfaks of New Guinea. The Kalangs of Java have recently died out. Besides their smaller stature, all the Negritos differ from the Negroes by their extreme brachycephaly.

II. The MONGOLIC GROUP occupies the greater part of the eastern hemisphere, and till the discovery of America was in exclusive possession of the New World. Its chief branches are: (1) The Mongolo-Tatars of Central and North Asia, Asia Minor, parts of Russia and the Balkan Peninsula; (2) the Tibeto-Indo-Chinese of Tibet, China proper, Japan, and Indo-China; (3) the Finno-Ugrians of Finland, Lapland, Esthonia, Middle Volga, Ural Mountains, North Siberia, Hungary (Magyars); (4) the Malayo-Polynesians of the Malay Peninsula, the greater and lesser Sunda Islands, Madagascar, the Philippines, Formosa, and Eastern Polynesia (New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaii, and Micronesia); (5) the American Indians, comprising all the aborigines of the New World except the Eskimo, who, with the Ainos of Yesso, form aberrant members of the Mongolic group.

III. The CAUCASIC GROUP, called also MEDITERRANEAN because its original domain is Western Asia, Europe, and North Africa—i.e. the lands encircling the Mediterranean Basin—has in recent times spread over the whole of the New World, South Africa, and Australasia. Chief branches: (1) Aryans of India, Iran, Armenia, Asia Minor, and great part of Europe, with sub-branches Hindus, Afghans, Persians, Beluchis, Armenians, Ossetians, Helienes, Thraco-Illyrians, Italo-Siculi, Celts, Teutons, and Letto-Slavs; (2) Semites of Mesopotamia, Syria, Arabia, and North Africa, with sub-branches Assyrians (extinct), Syrians, Arabs, Phœnicians (extinct), Abyssinians, all except the last named now assimilated in speech to the Arabs; (3) Hamites of North and East Africa, with chief sub-branches Berbers of Mauritania, Tuaregs of West Sahara, Copts and Fellahin of

Egypt, Fulahs (?) of West Soudan, Bejas (Bishari) and Afars (Danâkil) along west side of the Red Sea, the mixed populations of Galla, Somali, and Kaffa Lands; (4) the Caucasians proper (Georgians, Circassians, Abkhazians, &c.); (5) the Basques of the Western Pyrenees, now distinguished mainly by their primitive speech from the surrounding Iberian and Gallic populations.

Although treatises on various branches of the anthropological sciences are past counting, comprehensive works of a strictly ethnological character are not numerous, and of these few can be recommended as safe guides to the student. The subjoined are valuable either intrinsically or as able expositions of particular theories: Blumenbach, De Generis humani varietate nativa (3d ed. 1795); Prichard, Natural History of Man (1843) and Researches (1813); Desmoulins, Hist. Nat. des Races Humaines (1826); Baer, Vorlesungen über Anthropologie (1824); Edwards, Des Races Humaines (1829); Bory de Saint-Vincent, L'Homme (2d ed. 1827); Courtet de l'Isle, Tableau ethnographique (1849); Thomas Smyth, The Unity of the Human Race (1851); Carl Vogt, Lectures on Man, &c. (English ed. undated); Holland, De l'Homme (1853); Cuvier, L'Homme (1857); Nott & Gliddon, Types of Mankind (1854) and Indigenous Races of the Earth (1854); Knox, The Races of Men (1862); D. Wilson, Prehistoric Man (1862); Latham, Man and his Migrations (1851); Nat. Hist. of the Varieties of Man (1850), and other ethnological essays; Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker (1864); Müller, 'Ethnographie,' in Reise der Novara (1861 et seq.); Brace, The Races of the Old World (1863); Broca, Le Linguistique et l'Anthropologie (1862), &c.; Pouchet, Plurality of the Human Races (English ed. 1864); De Quatrefages, Metamorphoses of Man (English ed. 1864), &c.; Retzius, Ethnologische Schriften (1864); Rolle, Der Mensch (1866); Bastian, Das Beständige in den Menschenrassen (1868), and many other treatises; Huxley, 'Man's Place in Nature,' in Journal of Ethnol. Soc. (1870); Hovelacque, Langues, Races, Nationalités (1872); Peschel, The Races of Man (1876); Topinard, Anthropology (trans. 1878); Bray, Anthropology (1871); Tylor, Anthropology (1881); Joly, Man before Metals (1883); Ethnology by the present author (1896); and the publications of the Anthropological societies.