Indigenous Races of the Earth

XGN23N881857 46

74 ON TilE DISTRIBUTION AND monosyllabic structure, allied sometimes to the Thibetan, at others to the Barman. In the peninsula of Malacca, or Malaya, and amid tho isles of Malaysia, one meets with some populations which, as regards the type, recall to mind the most barbarous tribes of Assam,-the Gar­rows, for example. 'l'hcre have been found again at Sumatra some tribes whose customs and whose type very much recall those of the savage populations at tho north-cast of Ilindostan. 'l'hc Nagas, or I(alcltyens, of whose tongue we have already spoken, po scss a very remarkable similitude of traits and usages with the Polynesians and divers indigenous septa of Sumatra,. They tattoo themselves like the islanders of the South Sea. Every timo they have slain a foe, thoy mako (as bas been observed amongs tho Pagai of Sumatra) a new mark on their skins; and, as takes places among the Aboungs­anotber people of the samo island-and also among certain savages of Borneo, a young man must not wed so long as he has not cut off a certain number of the heads of enemies. Among the Midmis­another tribe of Assam-one finds again tho usage, so universal in Polynesia, and equally diffused amid tho Sumatran Pagais, of ex­po ing the dead upon scafJ:olds until tho flesh becomes corrupted and disengages itself from the bones. All these tribes of Assam which remind us as well of the indigenous scpts of the Sunda-isl~nds as of the primitive population of tho peninsula of Malacca, speak mono­syllabic tongues appertaining to the 'l'hibcto-Barman, or Siamo­Barman, family. This double circumstance induced the belief that it is the trans-Gangetic peninsula whence issued the Malayo­Polyncsian populations. The languages thoy speak cluster around tho Siamese and the Barman; but, in the ratio that they arc removed from th~ir crad~e, their ~ounds become softened down, and thoy become 1mpovor1shed, wh1lst evermore tending, however, to get rid of tho monosyllabism that gave them birth. These transformations, undergone by tho Malayo-Polyncsian lan­guages, havo been, novorthclcss, su:fli.ciontly profound to cifacc those traits in c.o:nmon due to their relationship. 'l'hey arise, according to probab1bty, ft·om tho numerous intorminglings that have been operated in Oceanica. Whilst some petty peoples of tho Thibeto-Chincse source wcro descending, through the trans-Gangetic peninsula, into Malaysia, and advanced incessantly towards the East those Dravidian tribes that occupied India, and which themselves 1 issued from a stoek if not .identical, at least vory neigh body with the preceding, w~re commg to cross ~homsclves with these Malaysian populations. But such cross-brocdwg was not the only one. There was another that CLASSIFICATION OF TONGUES. 75 altered the race still more. This commingling took cfi'cct with a third population that appears to have been the veritable primitive race of the south of llindostan-a black race which has b en thrown to tho cast, but whoso remains are still found about the middle of tho Indian Sea, at the Anclaman islets, and that conslitntcs the foundation of the pristine population of Borneo and t1JC Pl1ilippi nos. It seems to be the same population that occupied exclusively, prior to tho advent of Europeans in those waters, Now Guinea, Australia, Van Dicmen's Land (Tasmania), and divers archlpelagocs placed to the eastward of New South vValcs. The tongues of these black Oceanic tribes were, without doubt, very barbarous, and they have been, in several cases, promptly sup­planted by tho Malayan idioms. They have, notwithstanding, still left traces of their existence at the Sandwich isles, which seem to have been occupied at tho beginning, and before the arrival of the Polynesians proper, by tho black race. The ground-work of their vocabulary has remained Australian, although the grammar is wholly Polynesian. It is the same at the Viti islands. Elsewhere, how­ever, as at the Philippines, those blacks who aro known und r the name of Aigtas, (A;'etas), or Igolotes, have adopted the idiom of the Malayan family, which has penetrated into their island with the conquerors. Unhappily, we possess but very little information concerning the Australian languages. All that may be affirmed is, that they were quite cli.stiuct from tho two groups of the Malayo-Polyncsi.an family: tho Malay group and the Polynesian group being themselves very sharply separated. Mr. LooAN has caught certain analogies between the Dravidian idioms and the Australian tongue : which is easily understood; because the populations that oxp llcd fmm llindostan tho c puny tribes which, at the beginning, had lived dispersed therein, mu t have exerted by their language some in.Bucnco over the idiom of these septa, which was evidently very uncouth. A profound study of the names of number, in all the idioms of the Dravidian family, bas revealed to him tho existence of a primary numerical system purely binary,-wbich is met with again in the Australian languages; and it corresponds to that little-advanced stage in which one would sup­pose the black race that had peopled India must bavc be n. And this binary system, which tho later progress of intelligence in tho Dravidian race has caused to be replaced by moro developed systems -the quinary system, and the decimal-has left some traces both in tongues of the southern trans-Gangetic peninsula, and amidst certain