The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies Part 20

1. The _Gipsies_.

2. The _Banians_, who are the Hindu traders of Arabia, Persia, Cashmir, and other parts of the East.

3. The _Hill Coolies_, individuals of the Khond and Kuli cla.s.s, upon whom England is trying the experiment of what may end in a revival of the old crimping system, as a subst.i.tute for slave-labour in our intertropical colonies.

Such is a sketch of the ethnology of India; pre-eminently complex, but not pre-eminently mysterious; its chief problems being--

1. The general ethnological relations of the Tamulian stock.

2. Those of the intrusive Brahminical Hindus.

3. The relation of the intrusive population to the aboriginal.[62]

FOOTNOTES:

[41] "Transactions of Philological Society," No. 94.

[42] Latin _nurus_, from _snurus_.

[43] Latin _socer_, Greek ??????.

[44] Latin _socrus_, Greek ????a.

[45] Latin _levir_ (_devir_), Greek da??.

[46] Or _that_, _this_.

[47] The full exposition of this doctrine is in the present writer's ethnological edition of the "Germania" of Tacitus; v. _aestyi_.

[48] Taken from the Appendix to Captain Cunningham's "History of the Sikhs."

[49] Captain Postans, in "Transactions of Ethnological Society," who, along with Sir H. Pottinger, is my chief authority.

[50] For a description of these parts see Major Edwardes' "Year on the Punjab Frontier."

[51] The best account of the Brahui is to be found in Sir H. Pottinger's Travels.

[52] In the sixth century, B.C. according to the Buddhist chronology.

[53] Such, at least, is the opinion of the author of "Christianity in Ceylon," Sir E. Tennent.

[54] Names explained in Chapter iii.

[55] From Callaway's "Translation of the _Kolan Nattannawa_."

[56] Book iii. --. 99.

[57] The same, probably, is the case with the BIDI of Java.

[58] From this language, I imagine that the three following words have come into the English--two of them being slang and one a sporting term--_rum_, _cove_, _jockey_.

[59] "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," No. 145.

[60] These names introduce a difficulty: They are _Rajput_ as well.

[61] All of which may be found in the paper already quoted; and all of which contain numerous Tamul roots.

[62] Since this was written Major-General Briggs' valuable paper on the _Aboriginal Tribes of India_, has been published in "Transactions of the British a.s.sociation," &c., for 1851. Having been seen in MS. by the present writer it has been freely used.

CHAPTER V.

BRITISH DEPENDENCIES IN THE MALAYAN PENINSULA.--THE OCEANIC STOCK AND ITS DIVISIONS.--THE MALAY, SEMANG, AND DYAK TYPES.--THE ORANG BINUA.--JAKUNS.--THE BIDUANDA KALLANG.--THE ORANG SLETAR.--THE SARAWAK TRIBES.--THE NEW ZEALANDERS.--THE AUSTRALIANS.--THE TASMANIANS.

Our isolated and small settlements in the Malayan Peninsula,[63] the depot at Labuan, Sir James Brooke's Rajahship of Sarawak, New Zealand, the joint protectorate of the Sandwich Islands and Tahiti, Australia, and Van Dieman's Land, bring us to a new division of the human species, which is conveniently called the _Oceanic_.

Its divisions and subdivisions are as follows:--

{ PROTONESIANS { MICRONESIANS { AMPHINESIANS -{ POLYNESIANS -{ POLYNESIANS { { MALAGASI { PROPER OCEANIC-{ { { PAPUANS { KELaeNONESIANS-{ AUSTRALIANS { TASMANIANS.

Our settlements are limited to the Protonesian, Proper Polynesian, Australian, and Tasmanian sections: and we have no political authority over any of the Malagasi, Micronesians, or Papuans.

With the exception of the occupants of the Malayan Peninsula, all the Oceanic population occupy islands. This explains the term _Oceanic_.

Their _distribution_ is as remarkable as their _extension_. The Amphinesian[64] stream of population, originating in the peninsula of Malacca, is continued through Borneo, the Moluccas, and the Philippines, Lord North's Island, Sonsoral, the Pelew group, the Caroline and Marianne Isles, the Ralik and Radack chains, the Kingsmill group and the Gilbert and Scarborough Islands, to the Navigators', Society, Friendly, Marquesas, Sandwich, and New Zealand groups; having become _Micronesian_ rather than _Protonesian_, after pa.s.sing the Philippines, and _Proper Polynesian_ rather than _Micronesian_, after pa.s.sing the Scarborough and Gilbert Archipelagoes. In this course it pa.s.ses _round_ New Guinea and Australia; in each of which islands the population is Kelaenonesian.

The Malay of the Malacca peninsula is no longer either monosyllabic or uninflectional, although in immediate contact with the southern dialects of the Siamese. Hence, the transition is abrupt; although by no means conclusive as to any broad and trenchant line of ethnological demarcation.

The differences of physical form are less than those of language. No one has denied that the Malay configuration is a modification of the Mongolian--_at least in some of its varieties_.

I say _at least in some of its varieties_, because within the narrow range of the Malaccan peninsula and the island of Borneo we find no less than three different types. In _Polynesia_ one of these, and in _Kelaenonesia_ another becomes exaggerated--so much so, as to suggest the idea of a different origin for the populations.

_a._ The _Malays_ are referable to the first type. Mahometans in religion, they partake of the civilization of the Arab and Indian, and differ but slightly from the Indo-Chinese nations; the complexion being dark and the hair straight. The Mahometan Malays, however, are no true aborigines. They are not only a new people on the peninsula, but they consider themselves as such; and those occupants which they recognize as older than themselves, they call _Orang Binua_, or _men of the soil_. Of these some have a darker complexion and crisper hair than the intruding population: and when we reach a particular section called--

_b._ The _Semang_, we find them described as having curly, crisp, matted, and even woolly hair, thick lips, and a black skin. These, like most of the other _Orang Binua_, are Pagans. Still their language is essentially Malay; and their physical conformation pa.s.ses into that of the Malays by numerous transitions.

_c._ Thirdly, we find in Borneo the _Dyaks_. Many of these are as much fairer than the Malays as the Semang are darker. Their language, however, belongs to the Malay cla.s.s; whilst their religion and civilization may reasonably be supposed to be that of the Malays previous to the influences of Brahminism from India, Mahometanism from Arabia, and the changes effected in their habits, language, and appearance effected thereby.

It is not too much to say that within the peninsula of Malaya, the Joh.o.r.e Archipelago, and the island of Borneo, each of these types, and every intermediate form as well, is to be found.

_Malacca._--The town of Malacca is a town of Mahometan Malays, but I believe that the eastern parts of Wellesley province are on the frontier of the _Jokong_, _Jakon_, or _Jakun_. These are _Orang Binua_, or aborigines--at least as compared with the true Malays.

In the eighth century--I am drawing an ill.u.s.tration from the history of our own island, and its relations to continental Germany--the Anglo-Saxons of Great Britain, themselves originally Pagan Germans, took an interest in the spiritual welfare of the so-called Old Saxons, a tribe of Westphalia, immediately related to their own continental ancestors, these Old Saxons having retained their primitive Paganism.